Yesterday I had a huge sort-out of jewellery items that I’d acquired over the last few years – mostly in charity shops, but some on eBay – the low-priced items with blurry photos, listed late at night or early in the morning, which I considered were worth a gamble in the hope that they might be made of silver. Some of them actually were made of silver, but some of them failed the test that I subjected them to last night.

So all of this little lot (see below) has gone to one of my local charity shops. There are some perfectly nice pieces of jewellery in there, and also some silver-plated spoons. It leaves me with a (slightly) tidier work room and I’ve also come up with better system for sorting stuff out before selling. There’s now a clear plastic bag labelled “To be tested”, another bag labelled “To be repaired”, and another one labelled “Ready to be listed”. So now I can do a batch testing session, having donned the latex gloves that are next on my shopping list (‘cos silver testing solution is very allergenic and shouldn’t be allowed to come in contact with your skin).