Taking A Gamble

Sometimes when I’m out hunting for jewels I’ll spot a bright shiny object that costs a little more than I like to spend. Unless I can obviously see a mark that identifies a piece as being made by a certain designer, or shows metal content, I don’t like to spend more than a couple of bucks. But every now and then I’ll take a gamble on something and spend a little more. Like the drop earrings and the dome ring pictured above: The asking price for these pieces was $8 and $10 bucks respectively. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I could see that the earrings were marked. I love drop earrings, but unless they were silver or gold, I couldn’t hope to recoup that investment when I eventually got bored of them. So I rolled the dice and I won. When I got home I saw that they were marked 10KT.

The ring was not marked, but so far it has passed my homespun metal tests (if it’s thinly plated, you can see a different metal colour if you rub it against an abrasive surface), it doesn’t stick to a magnet and it hasn’t turned my skin green. These tests have failed me before, but they do help weed out most things that glitter and are not gold.