The Silver Experiment: part 1

I’m going to be wading into unknown waters here. There are lots of articles out there about people finding sterling silver just hanging out in the ol’ thrift store. And those people then trading in that silver for tons more than they paid for it.

Now, I can see how this could happen every once in a while, but from the hullabaloo online you’d think that there’s just free money lying around on the shelves.

So I’m putting on my detective gumshoe hat and visiting 3 different thrift stores. I’m going to make a decent effort to find at least ONE sterling silver item at each store. If there’s no silver to be found, that’s ok; I’ve still given myself a pretty good excuse to thrift.

To the thrift store!

Store #1

Hmm. Nope. I see poor quality soldering and no maker’s marks. Pass.

Don’t be fooled by these sneaky ones! They’re both actually pewter.

Ah ha! This has the right kind of tarnish on it and has Sterling stamped on it (too small to photograph). So there’s one item.

In the clothing and jewelry section I found a bracelet with a TINY “925” stamped on it, and a necklace that had “…ing” on the clasp. I decided to buy the bracelet ($5.00) but leave the necklace, which was so light that I suspected the return wouldn’t be that great.

So there’s 2 silver items. I paid $7.00 total. Will I get more than $7.00 when I trade them in? We will have to wait and see!