1515Art

Yep that’s the place, first thing I’ve ever bought there but I’ve taken friends shopping for fun when they are visiting the US and they’ve gotten some pretty good deals on stuff after a little haggling.

I After posting I was having some second thoughts so decided to take them down

Thanks Fred, I liked it so happy I didn’t screw it up.

The golden age of cinema, Calitki a spin-off I think 1959 a good decade for blobs. ”Horrors of the Black museum “ I think I was 5 when I saw that at the drive-in and I’m still uncomfortable using binoculars.

Being these are so common I felt comfortable taking a horse hair brush made for fine polishing jade and put a light fine polish on the high points to give the structure more contrast, I think it improves the display quality?

Let us know what you find out too, I’m checking with the friend with the gold connections in Australia and Nigeria on a price for gold nuggets directly from the supplier we’ll see what she comes up with. She did remark and seemed surprised they were asking as if it was pure 24k at full spot thinking from her perspective this was overcharging not being familiar with the premium nuggets can command so I’m hopeful the prices might be reasonable?

I was bumming around Las Vegas today and wandered into the Gold and Silver pawn shop for a look around as the parking lot was open and there was no line to get in. Walking through the shop one of the display cases was filled with nature and science objects and a handful of small meteorites and two larger all iron nickel from the Argentina Campo Del Cielo meteor impact. They were asking $25 for the small ones that were between a nickel and quarter in diameter and $250 each for the large ones. I grabbed one of the large one and asked for a discount and after checking they would sell it for 20% less making it $200 I’m sure I could have bargained more but didn’t care to, the one in my hand weighed 368 grams and had some nice character so I wrapped it up and took it home. This is a very common meteorite as they go but seemed a fair price at around 1/2 the asking price for most of the similar examples on eBay and although not a bargain I suppose, but if you are in the area and looking for one of these (in a shop) $25 for a small meteorite doesn’t seem to far out of line?

So my sale was 11800 I think with the premium he paid 13570 then sold it 8 years later for 20000 paying 6000 @ 30% commission making his investment 19570 for a screaming net profit of $430 yippie! If he bought pictures?

Ha, I googled Geo Taylor letter and the very one I sold popped up I didn’t click on the link to read the details or when the sale happened this was a sale after mine. in 2016 here’s the story https://natedsanders.com/blog/2016/11/george-taylor-autograph/

The last piece I paid about 30% to Butterfield & Butterfield in San Francisco this was around 8 years ago and a few hundred more for pictures and ad space, it was just a old letter from the late 1700’s moved it from box to box and drawer to drawer over the years didn’t pay anything for it, there’s lots of them around and most of the time not worth much. This one was signed by a guy named “Geo Taylor” and I found out he belonged to a particular club made him collectible. so 30’s better than 50 if the reserve is high enough and if you sign up with Heritage you can view the reserve prices and amount you need to minimum bid with commission give you the worst case.

I’ve sold a few things at auction it’s time consuming the last item I auctioned it took at least 6mos before I saw any money, expensive the commissions are stiff, you pay extra for pictures and the larger add space although sometimes auctions are the best/only way. I did get an appraisal a couple years ago from Heritage and although I wasn’t ready to sell the auction company was helpful. This was a WW2 relic and I found the complete story about my piece in a book researching google, making it difficult to put a price on but Heritage did the best job out of the handful of auction houses I contacted. I sent them the 3 rocks and another thing to look over, they apologize it may take a few days due to the number of requests but I expect they are first rate and will get back soon.

Well, recon I’ll find a different wheel chock for the Jeep until all this sorts out🤞

This is the most informative guide I found grading although some of the the values seem unrealistic? https://tskies.com/value-turquoise/

Ahhh, some good meme material here... when life is a paper weight.

Couple more we picked up and while I’m at it sent them over to the auction house to see if their worth anything? The amber chunk weighs 4lbs 3oz and is 11.5”x4”x7.5” the fluorite weighs in at 4lbs 13.2oz measuring 6.5”x3”x4.25” also from China see what heritage has to say and if we made a good buy?

No, bought it from a friend of a friend we only paid $500 for it the guy we got it from got it years ago from his friend that’s what he paid at the time he got it. I don’t remember the whole story but supposedly the friend owned the mine or factory both possibly and it was friend price. The guy we got it from was just showing it off and my wife talked him into selling it to us plus we’d given him a good price on some other stuff so he just passed it on for what he was into it for. Just as you know sometime stories are just stories?

anyone want to guess? I never really thought to much about this chunk of blue rock until Mitchel posted the link for the natural science auction and I spotted the Chinese turquoise in the catalog. Holding the stone it feels hard enough my biggest concern is it looks too good? Doing some research died Howlite is often substituted for turquoise, the test that was recommended was to rub an area with cotton soaked in nail polish remover looking for any transfer of dye to the cotton or color change in the stone, doing this test the color was stable and no blue transferred to the cotton. Running a finger nail over the spider webbing another test I can feel a slight ridge as I am supposed to and the color under magnification looks natural. The close-up is using 10x on my phone looking through a 10x loop under magnification the matrix looks less black and more of a rust brown and a mat finish. Anyone have any guess? I sent an inquiry to Heritage auctions so we’ll see what they have to say. Total weight of this stone is 8lbs 9.2oz I think if my math is correct converts to 19,208ct. Be nice if it not treated stabilized color enhanced and of course actually turquoise?

Seems like somewhere around $2400 An ounce plus the auction commissions for Australian non crystallized specimens sold late 2019 in the 4oz range.

Beautiful gold Mitchel thanks for posting, I’m tempted to put in a couple bids on a some of the smaller nuggets just to see how low they might go. I’m also surprised how high the auction estimates are on the turquoise 10k to 15k for the large piece is much more than I thought it would sell for, a few years ago a friend sold us a chunk somewhat larger from the same area measuring roughly 8”x7”x4.5” he got from another friend who owns some factory in China that handles a large volume of the stuff for $500 the amount his friend charged him for the piece. I don’t know much about the fine points on grading turquoise (that would be nothing) or if there’s something special about the piece in the auction?

Great opportunity for a savvy investor potential 9,000,000.00 profit be the lucky owner of 100,000. Shares value $100. each in the Arizona Peer Mining Company established in December 14th 1883 that’s a long history of dreaming dreams. Offered at 10% of the bonds face value the token sum of $1,000,000.00 paid in cash or cashiers check at the time of transfer all funds fully refundable local pick-up Wuhan Financial center business office 3rd floor unit 1 AAABBBAABlongtimenoC. disclaimer: may not be in business, likely worthless production unknown and dollars lost who knows Brookline bridge offer soon to follow check back frequently all offers are at the assumed risk of the investor and no warranty is expressed or intended, any claim or grievance subject to binding arbitration by an impartial third party family pet arbitration board might only be 100 shares but 100,000 sounds better! kind of a cool old mining bond, i was going through some files and papers and wondered if this ever paid off?

With the fine look of your work might we have our North American adaptor solution? Seems like it wouldn’t be difficult for someone who can solder making a simple test socket for plug shorts or crossed wire if doing enough of them if that’s the only risk? In the long run easier on the shorts😀🩳🤭. solder... I had one of those moments typing this spelling the word solder just didn’t look right to my dyslexic eye... went back and reread the initial post to double check my doubt and you managed to tell the whole story without ever writing solder, god I love spell check, Wikipedia and thank you Rob for the tips. second thought risk is in the chip too I guess, oh well we can dream.

Lacky, thanks for the info whatever it is it’s nothing of any consequence but guess I learn a little with every question and it makes the dry spells more fun.

Fred, Thanks anyway and sorry I rely on you like Google but your service is better, to my knowledge you don’t read all my email and then fill my in basket with spam. And your score getting it right is in the high 99.999% range even Ken Jennings swings a whiff now and then and Ha, if your not smart enough I’ve by comparison no hope. Also, sometimes my logic is more caveman peering skyward seeing many eyes starring back, sorry no disrespect intended to cavemen I’d likely fare significantly worse at their endeavor than I do at this one 😂.

thanks Fred, great advise I’ll try more of that. No I didn’t think these were space related, I brought them home because they hit hard on the deus and I just wanted to have a look at the structure under a loop. I used a tiny lighted microscope and was surprised the rock was covered in little mercury like dots, some of the globules looked crusted tarnished black most looked silvery under high magnification. I was just wondering at first if this had any relation to mercury ore of somehow was contaminated, or not being familiar with silver ores could it be something like that. My observation was the silvery dots were more obvious on first inspection could the heat over time in my pocket factor in? The silver dots were nearly impossible to capture a they look to my eye, a little bit shows in the edge in the picture holding a magnifying glass to my iPad camera.