3 Free Tips For Buying Gold & Silver At Yard Sales / Estate Sales

[Music] hey what's going on YouTube welcome back to another video I am Chad I'm the reseller Rockafeller today is Friday the 13th it is December 13th hopefully everybody watching today hopefully you're having a good day if you are a fellow reseller I hope that your cells are doing good I hope that your business is doing good today is gonna be a pretty interesting video so make sure you stick around all the way until the end of the video if you haven't already subscribed to the channel make sure you hit that subscribe button for all of you that are new to the channel I am a full time reseller I buy and sell items I mainly you know buy and sell stuff from yard sales estate sales flea markets thrift stores things of that nature and I mainly go after used items I do buy and sell new stuff but most of the you know inventory that I have is used items today we're gonna be talking about jewelry we're gonna be talking about sterling silver and gold we're also gonna be talking about like silver items like dishes and things like that sterling silver flatware but we're not gonna go in-depth I'm just gonna be giving you like three really important tips or you know like three important things that you should always think about and things that you should kind of learn before going out and trying to buy jewelry or trying to buy gold or silver so we're gonna go through some of those things I'm gonna flip the camera around and I'm gonna show you some items that I have right here in front of me and we're gonna talk a little bit about different markings and different things like that and I'm gonna go through the three tips that I have for you alrighty let's jump right into this video so as you can tell I have a bunch of sterling silver items and a bunch of gold items there's also some precious stones like diamonds there's all kinds of good good stuff sitting in front of you this is to show you and to give you an idea of the kinds of items that you're gonna be able to identify and find out at garage sales and estate sales if you have the knowledge and the understanding and the know-how to be able to find these items if this item was inside of a big box of costume jewelry are you going to be able to find it are you going to be able to identify it and do you know how to tell if it's gold silver or platinum or if it's silver plate or if it's just some kind of nickel metal or whatever the case may be this is what this video is for it's to help all of you out there that just want to be able to go out there and find really cool items like this but you just don't know how to today I'm gonna be giving you three tips now these three tips are obviously kind of like in depth tips so you're gonna have to stick around until the end of the video and I'm also going to throw in a few other tips throughout this video and we're just gonna try to make it one really good video to help as many people as possible to find and buy gold and silver I get this question all the time this is probably the number one question that I get asked from modern-day resellers now if you haven't been following my channel and you don't know what I mean when I say modern-day reseller I mean somebody that has started to buy and sell stuff within the last couple of years and they only deal in kind of like new inbox types items they were kind of like trained with that modern-day reselling system of you know look up everything on your phone scan all of the labels and that's how you kind of determine what it is that you're gonna buy and if you should buy an item that's what I kind of like mean when I say a modern-day reseller for all of you that are out there that's been buying and selling stuff for years and you deal in antiques and collectibles and jewelry and gold and silver you probably don't need to watch this video because you're already knowledgeable enough to be able to identify these items and you've already kind of educated yourself enough to be able to you know find gold and silver but there's lots of resellers out there that pass stuff up like this all the time and it just hurts me it really does you know obviously I like it because you know it's leaving more on the table for me but I hate to see it because there's a lot of people that can capitalize and there's there's a lot of resellers out there that can actually you know benefit from being a little you know a little outside of the box or maybe going a different route than they potentially thought they would be going I talked to another reseller the other day who was you know only doing Amazon that's all he's he's ever known that's all he's ever learned do Amazon he goes to garage sales and estate sells he looks for new inbox type items he buys those items he ships him to Amazon and he makes money right and I was talking to him and again you know this is a person who loves reselling he has a true passion in buying and selling items but he never you know thought to himself that he would be able to learn how to identify sterling silver or anything like that he never thought to himself that that was an option he always thought that it took years and years and years and years of knowledge and experience to be able to go to an estate sell and find something like this and buy it and make money doing so but you know after talking to me you know and us you know getting along and becoming friends he he realized really fast that it isn't that hard you just have to kind of implement yourself educate yourself and pay attention to those that are willing to teach you and guide you and show you and that's that's what I'm here for so today we're gonna be talking about how to find gold and silver at yard sales and estate sells silver and gold obviously has been viewed as a treasure throughout the centuries the key to finding gold and silver at garage sales and estate sells is to be smart and look for things that others missed now when I say look for things that others missed I don't typically always mean look for items that resellers missed I just mean in general you know like if you're at a yard sale and somebody has some costume jewelry out on the table and you pick up a ring like this ring right here this is 18 karat gold very beautiful ring I can remember exactly where I bought this ring I can remember exactly how much I paid for this ring this was an item that was missed they did not know what this item was it was either because they never looked at it or they just threw a bunch of jewelry out on the table and they just missed you know they didn't realize that it was gold and they sold it for extremely cheap price and that's what I mean by you know you got to be out there looking and you got to understand that the only way you're going to be able to find gold and silver most of the times is when they missed you know identifying it or that they didn't know what it was or you know a lack of knowledge and they just didn't know what 585 means or they didn't know what nine-to-five meant so they didn't have a clue how to price the item in this video I'm gonna teach you three important things number one be prepared number two be early and number three be cool focusing on garage sales and estate sales because thrift store staff are trained to spot valuable items you got to understand this you know goodwill and other places will hardly make mistakes these days flea market sellers obviously and generally know what they have people always tell me that they find stuff at thrift stores I find silver stuff every once in a blue moon but it is very very rare thrift stores they've upped their game they know all about resellers these days so you're not really gonna find you know like a silver item at a thrift store no more they're just gonna be able to identify it not saying that it's not ever gonna happen and that you you're never gonna be able to do it I'm just saying that most likely it's just not gonna happen thrift stores I kind of stay away from when it comes down to finding stuff like this I don't ever go into a thrift store thinking hey I'm gonna be able to find a really nice gold ring or I'm gonna be able to find sterling silver usually when I go to thrift stores I'm looking for items like clothing furniture items you know maybe antiques collectibles toys and electronics so always think about that so let's go ahead and jump right now we're gonna start with the number one thing which is being prepared finding silver and gold at garage sales and estate sales is not easy basically the only time you will find it as if a seller does not know what he has for our purposes being prepared means studying the most common markings for gold and silver this is very important I talked about it and in a lot of my videos just you know building your knowledge and educating yourself gold is usually always marked plainly with 24 karat 18 karat or 10 care so these markings are going to look something like this and most people know what they have when they see these markings those are very common markings on gold sometimes gold is instead marked with a number indicating the purity of the gold if you see 585 that means the gold is 58.5% pure or 14-karat if you see 999 or 0.999 that is pure 24-karat gold very rarely gonna see that on any you know kind of like jewelry item but you you got to know what these you know numbers and things like that mean just in case you might come across something that's marked it but most of the time jewelry is never going to be marked 24 karat it's never gonna have the 999 or 0.999 mark you know I've been doing this a really long time and I've only found a few pieces that were ever 24 karat gold there's a reason for that I'm not going to go into details on that but those are kind of less common but you know just building your your knowledge and educating yourself on markings in general is key for example I picked up this item at a garage sale this is a vintage little Goodyear pin this was I'm pretty sure it was on a table with a bunch of costume jewelry and I don't know if the cameras gonna zoom in on that but it was just on a table and I basically picked it up I looked at a few other items I think I ended up buying a quite a few items from these people but this item is marked 585 on the back and most people just don't know what that is so they probably looked at it and then they you know threw it down and said hey it's costume jewelry let's sell it for a quarter so you got to understand what these markings mean these are the most common markings to look for as they are the ones that are generally missed by uninformed sellers like the 585 those are you know usually people just don't know what that means silver on the other hand is less common which means more people are likely to undervalue what they have the Internet is full of stories of people buying 14-karat gold chains for 25 cent or heavy sterling silver ball worth $500 for a buck remember pure silver is always marked point nine nine nine is supposed to be marked as such other purities include sterling which is nine to five and it can be marked in new you know numerous different ways you know some can have the marking like 92.5 or 0.92 five or just nine twenty five regular you know it there's so many different markings and and i could go on for days and days and days on all of the different markings and hallmarks and things of that nature there's also other markings like 900 or 800 and etc it isn't sensual you know that you learn how to spot silver plated items this is very important when you're at a garage sale and you walk up and you see an item and you're automatically excited and you think oh I found my first silver item but you don't understand what the marking means and you don't realize that it's actually sterling silver plate you know there's lots of stuff that's marked sterling silver plate but there's also other you know ways that they mark it like abbreviations and such like EP which means electric plated electroplated and then there's obviously the mark epns for example which means electroplated nickel silver there's all kinds of markings you're gonna have to educate yourself and I'm going to give you a really good website to go do that this website is www.pevs.com this website has a comp a comprehensive guide to American British and world silver hallmarks symbols or markings used by no manufacturers of sterling silver products go check this site out and print off the information that you can so that you can study it this is a very good website I've been using it for a really long time you can find all kinds of different hallmark symbols markings things of that nature so make sure you go check that website out it would be a good idea to you know invest invest in a loop I talked about this in other videos go out buy yourself a loop you can buy these all the time at any jewelry store you can find them online for extremely cheap just try to get yourself a halfway decent loop this is basically just an eyepiece magnifier jewelers use it people like myself use it it makes it to where you're able to see little markings very very easy this is a must-have for anybody that's trying to buy gold and silver or anything for that matter that has small markings you want to be able to identify items you're gonna have to buy a jeweler's loupe so go out there and buy a nice jeweler's loupe the other item that I'm gonna recommend this is obviously for you know people that are a little bit more serious and they they want to actually spend some money this is a diamond tester this is going to cost you a little bit of money I think I paid like a hundred and fifty bucks maybe it might have been a little bit more because I bought it like right when it first came out but this is a very good loop this is the lapis one and the reason that I like this one is because it tests for diamond moissanite you got to make sure to get one that tests for moissanite because there's a lot of moissanite out there that will test positive for diamonds unlike a very inexpensive diamond tester I've seen a lot of resellers that buy like very cheap diamond testers from Amazon I think they have them for like fifteen dollars or something and they're basically square they're black and all they have is like a little meter that goes from I think red to green and it basically it sucks it's not a good diamond tester it's I can you know show you stones that will pass on that tester all day long that are definitely not real diamonds so invest if you're serious about jewelry and precious stones invest in a halfway-decent diamond tester there's a lot of better diamond testers on the market but this one seems to be pretty darn good I haven't had it you know I haven't had it do any kind of false readings or false testings on stones and I've had it for quite some time now and it works really good number two tip that I'm going to give you is to be early this is pretty self-explanatory there will be others trying to do the same exact thing as you're doing right people are trying to get up early they're trying to get to the estate sale they're trying to get to the yard sale before you so being early is very important I talked to other resellers in my area all the time about this it's funny because I'll show up at you no I'll show up at in a state cell and then it'll just be me and a few other resellers because those are the ones that are gonna you know try to beat the other ones to yard sales it's really important beer early obviously you won't be you know able to arrive early to every single cell so spend you know spend time before the sale even begins like the night before go and review the classifieds go to you know the yard sell treasure map go online to Facebook groups that have to do with garage sales in your area and spend a few minutes doing research trying to see if there's any garage sells that list anything that you're already looking for you know if I see a garage sell and they say you know I started a 8 a.m. I have a lot of antiques and collectibles and jewelry items that is already an identifier and it's already you know I already know that that's a good sell that I want to go to you know it puts me on the right track so being early and you know doing some research ahead of time can really help you into you know in in finding the good stuff this is another really good tip look out for yard sales in wealthy neighborhoods obviously this is kind of really self-explanatory and this is for like really really you know new resellers but obviously if you see that there's a neighborhood sale and it's in a very wealthy neighborhood make sure you go to that neighborhood because they're you're liable to find some really good stuff that's just you know that's just a fact alright number three be coal this is a very overlooked you know tip this is something that a lot of resellers they don't have a lot of experience in or they're just not good at it at all and I find it comical sometimes because this is very important so don't overlook tip being cool if you happen to find a huge score like a let's say like a 1 ounce chain or something to mark you know 585 or 14-karat let's say it's a big necklace and it's really nice and let's say it's a it's a really gorgeous diamond tennis bracelet you've got to stay calm right you have to remain calm cool and collective or else you'll you know you're gonna make the seller pay more attention they might double look at the item I've had this happen to me plenty of times I've been at a garage sale let's see let's use this as an example you know I've been in at a garage sale and I've said you know hey how much are the Rings and they say a dollar and then I pick up a ring and I say okay I like to buy this one and they look at the ring they take a second look they look at it and they're like oh I'm sorry this ring belonged to my grandmother it's not supposed to be out here for sale I'm sorry we can't sell this ring to you so that's a really big bummer and I've had it happen to me over and over I can't even count how many times that's happened to me so instead of doing what I just did I like to use you know tactics like you know not picking the item up basically look at all of the items in the box identify if there's anything real or fake or you know identify what's in the box right so if I look into a box and I see a bunch of costume jewelry but then I also see some some items that I believe to be as gold I just simply say how much is the jewelry then they're gonna reply which piece and then you reply I don't know just uh you know how much of the rings how much are the bracelets you know what would you take for the whole box and be very cool calm and collective don't show that you're really interested in a certain item because then that's gonna draw their attention to that item so then they might say oh well I was thinking a dollar each or I was thinking a quarter each then you just say based on what you've seen in the box and obviously this is gonna be you know based on what is actually there but you know you might say hey what would you take for the whole box and they'd say well I'll take five dollars if you've seen a couple of pieces of gold that you believe is gold or maybe you seen some silver items just go ahead and grab the box for five dollars or whatever the price they put on it you're gonna have to dictate if that's a good price or not based on what you've seen so that's what I mean by knowledge is key because if you look inside of a box and you see multiple items that are gold and you see some really beautiful pieces right and this lady says all that box of jewelry I want $100 for it really quickly you're gonna have to decide is it worth $100 then you might want to pull your loop out you might want to take a look at a few pieces but remember you don't want to draw that much attention you definitely don't want to start pulling out diamond testers unless they've already had prices on the items now out of state cells I will pull out my diamond tester I will pull out my loop if I'm buying a large amount of gold at an estate sale I will even start testing items it's not uncommon but you have to you have to make sure they understand that like you're buying you know this this these items right let's say you have 30 items and I talked about this actually yesterday in my video if you didn't see yesterday's video go check it out I bought some gold items from an estate sale and basically you know I did it without testing the items but in a situation where you need to test the items don't be afraid to do so it just kind of depends on the situation where you're at who you're dealing with and things of that nature but uh you know anyway so you know be cool stay calm and collective you want to make sure to you know that you you don't like show your hand right and and that's for numerous reasons it's for you know you don't want the seller to pay attention to the items that you're trying to buy also you don't want other resellers to come up and try to you know get in on the deal that's something that I you know I have a problem with a lot at other you know at yard sales and estate sales part of being cool is being discreet you know you want to make it to the jewelry table first I talk about this all the time in videos I always go to the jewelry table first because I want to get my hands on everything that's gold and silver you know it's just that simple there's a lot of money to be made in gold and silver so when I go to a yard sale or in a state sale the first section that I you goto is the jewelry section if there is jewelry another part of being cool is you know trying to be discreet you don't want to draw a lot of attention to yourself and you definitely don't want to draw a lot of attention to the table I'm a well-known reseller in my area so if I stand at a table and I am focused on certain items other resellers will actually come because they want to see what I'm looking at and it's it's a problem that you're gonna have as a well-known reseller as somebody that is you know a fast you know mover I move really fast when I'm at yard sales and estate sells I like to get things done I'm a businessman but again you have to be discreet when you're at an estate sale you can run into problems where other resellers will walk up so like let's say for instance you know you walk up to a table that's similar to this and there's a lot of items there sterling silver there's gold you immediately want to tell the person hopefully there's somebody behind the table you will you automatically want to make it known to the seller that you're interested in buying all of the gold and all of the silver I do this all the time out of state sells I do this all the time at garage sales because you know you don't want another reseller coming up and saying hey I'm interested and they just start to pick up items you don't want that you want to make it clear that you're interested and try to kind of you know stand tall and guard the area that you're looking at if you have to start to pick up the items start to pick it up and put it in your hand that's very very easy to do sometimes if there's like an item like this you just automatically start putting these items in there and then hold that in your hand and start to you know look at the item one by one just automatically try to make it you know very clear to the seller and also to other resellers that you're looking at the stuff and that when you're done they can look it's just that simple some resellers might consider that to be you know being rude or or not being generous or whatever the case may be but hey we're all resellers my job is to get out here make money my job is to find items and to buy those items and to resell those items so I can feed my family and you know that's just the way it is so you know make sure that you're you're you stay calm cool and collective even when you find something that's really nice you don't really want to you know get loud or excited and you don't want the person to know that you're really excited about that item because they might change the price of the item so that is pretty much it I'm gonna talk a little bit about you know finding like all of the different hallmarks and markings and symbols on the website that I gave you earlier that is ww2 5-1 thousand and things you might have something like this this is marked sterling and then it has a little number on the bottom just under the sterling it says two seven nine one and then under that it has a little marking of a lion a lion Ted it looks like and a few other markings so you want to become familiarized with those markings so that you can identify where the item was made and approximately how long ago the item was made so that can help you into obviously you know when it comes down to listing the item if you're trying to sell items like this on eBay or something it definitely can help you a lot knowing where it's from who made it in what time period it was made if you're trying to just scrap items obviously that doesn't really matter as much I don't really scrap a lot every now and then I'll you know I'll scrap silver it just depends but most of the times I like to sell the stuff on eBay there's lots of people that collects this you know collect stuff like this there's lots of people that want stuff like this so I don't really scrap a whole lot I do scrap gold but it just all depends on the item it depends on the market it depends on my capital if I need money to reinvest into something else I will take gold to the scrap person and I'll sell it for you no scrap prices but you always got to make sure that you're doing the right thing based on what you and your business needs right you don't want to just scrap gold just because everybody's scrapping gold the only reason that you should ever scrap gold is if you need the cash if you actually need that liquid money so that you can reinvest it into other things also I'll be making other videos later on down the road talking about stones stones is a really big deal right when it comes down to jewelry how much a piece of jewelry is worth you know having you know stones can make a huge difference in the value of an item and I've seen a lot of resellers they just they just don't care about the stones now there's probably gonna be a lot of you in the comment section saying yeah Chad when you go to scrap you know jewelry especially gold nobody's gonna pay you for the stones that's 100% false there are plenty of jewelers that buy scrap gold there's plenty of jewelers that buy gold with stones and they'll pay more for stones most pawnshops they are going to tell you that they don't care about the stones and that they're not gonna pay you anything for the stones and that's 100% correct hopefully if you are a reseller you know not to sell to pawnshops pawnshops most of the times they don't really pay you that much usually from my experience they only pay you roughly I think like the pawnshop around my area might pay you 60% melt on gold but when it comes down to stones they won't even think twice about it they'll tell you they're worthless they'll try to always you know tell you they have no value this that in another so you know just you got to be smart about it you got to meet people you got to make connections with jewelers and you have to know how to get rid of jewelry eBay is a great way to sell jewelry if you you know are a reseller I wouldn't be scared to sell jewelry on it's definitely you know if you know how to sell and you're already selling on eBay and you know how to protect yourself you shouldn't have anything to worry about I sell diamonds you know I sell jewelry with diamonds all the time on eBay I sell gold all the time on eBay I sell everything out you know I'm constantly selling stuff on eBay I'm not really sure why this is not testing for me right now I was wanting to show you really quick the diamond tester but for some reason I keep hitting the metal let me try it again there we go it can be finicky sometimes but having a good diamond tester is good let's see if we can pull out another one this one's a little bit bigger so hopefully it'll test a little easier there we go so anyways I really appreciate it thanks a lot for coming and watching another video hopefully y'all you know learn something today hopefully you were able to take something away from this video make sure to go check out the website look at the hallmarks markings and symbols learn as much as you can about jewelry and come back and watch another video make sure you subscribe to the channel until next time folks I'm out of here peace

Channel: The Picker

Views: 7,981

Keywords: ebay, reseller, buyinggold, thrifting, garage sale, estate sale, yard sale, garage sale finds, yard sale finds, ebay seller, finding gold at yard sales, yard sale tips, sourcing for ebay, sourcing tips for resellers, identifying gold and silver, how to become a better reseller, reseller rockefeller

Id: 21emKI6fRic

Length: 30min 35sec (1835 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 15 2019