Posted on 06/20/2011 11:09:16 AM PDT by Puppage
An entrepreneurial Queens man makes his living off New York City streets, but in a manner far different from that which city residents have witnessed before.
Raffi Stepanian, 43, earns his cash scouring the sidewalks in Midtown’s Diamond District for hidden treasure – chips of rubies, diamonds, platinum and gold that somehow fell off their owners’ jewelry and became lodged in the cracks between cement slabs or hopelessly stuck in a piece of gum some passerby flippantly spit out onto the street, according to a report.
In less than a week, Stepanian told The New York Post he amassed enough gold for two sales worth nearly $850 on 47th Street.
“The percentage of gold out here on the street is greater than the amount of gold you would find in a mine,” the Whitestone man told the Post. “It comes close to a mother lode because in the street, you’re picking up gold left by the industry.”
The valuable gem chips are already cut and processed, which makes them even more marketable than the unrefined ore one would find in a mine. And the precious stones are out on the street for anyone willing to get down on his or her knees and look for them, Stepanian says.
“It’s the same principle as collecting cans on the street and redeeming them for nickles,” he told the Post. “It’s redemption of usable gold.”
Those cracks in the concrete hold untold riches.
I went to an auction a few years ago and picked up the second appearance of Thor for only two dollars (sold it an hour later for twelve hundred) and another last year and got a Batman from 1944 for fifty and it is worth over four thousand.
I stopped by the local Peddler's Mall last month and found an old circle rack for comics for only five dollars, it's worth one hundred fifty.
Kind of like the TV show American Pickers, you really have to know your stuff, but it is amazing what you can pick up for a song if you know what you're doing.
I never looked at it as how much I made in the end, but how much I paid for it and what it went for.... fun stuff, but too old to trapse all over the county going to sales anymore...(I have gotten lazy in my old age...:O)
If you ever find a White Castle mug, by mcnikel china and it has 3 colors on it...its worth 300 dollars...It is a rare mug where the grass in green in front of the White castle logo and the words White Castle are in red. Plus the white mug and black logo Most are just black on white mugs.. I was shocked at what it went for. There is also one special FireKing Snoopy mug that gets up into a hundred dollars..lots of them are only worth about 10 bucks..
A lot of the World War Two-era comics didn't survive the paper recycling drives that the government encouraged during the war years. That's one of the reasons that pre-1945 comics are worth so much. That Batman I was telling you about earlier is one of only one hundred fifteen known copies of that particular issue that is known to exist.
Doesn’t this journalist know how to spell “nickels”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5_57PF7HwM
Paint Your Wagon: “I’m On My Way”
My only adventure along these lines was when when I was a kid and we visited old family friends who had a small grocery store. The lady was till bummed out, because she had lost the solitaire diamond out of her engagement ring a few weeks back.
While the “old folks” played Canasta, I entertained myself by sitting on the stoop and picking through the stuff that had been swept out the back door.
I found her diamond — and I thought I was going to be hugged to death! ‘-)
that was a great find....hugs******
Dad had kept all his from the 30's and 40's, but he let us play with them in the 60's, and they didn't survive. Those Mickey Mice, Supermen and Batmen would have put all four of us through college.
He’s an idiot for doing the article.
Just like the Storage Wars series ruined those auctions with a flood of newbies, his prime hunting grounds are going soon be infested with gold seekers.
It is Mutt and Jeff at the Front, which is a collection of newspaper comics from 1918 in which Mutt and Jeff are in the Army serving in France. They are in a headquarters unit stationed in Paris, but about every two weeks, they do something that lands them in hot water and they end up in the trenches.
One of my former bosses told how he found out where the Boston street sweeper machines dumped their sweepings — and he said he stayed in spending money as a kid from the coins and other stuff he found there.
All I ever did was pick up the spring steel brush bristles that had broken off the sweepers — and use them for making mini-crossbows...
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