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Succeeding in the antiques and collectibles business is difficult. Friends try it and last a few weeks. I’m lucky in that I have a background in the jewelry business.

I first worked for a guy on Mass Ave in Porter Sq. He taught me a bunch. Plus, I would study by going to auctions where I could pick up the pieces, turn them over and see how they were constructed, how they felt, the stones, etc.

When I would go to Skinner’s auction house in Boston, I would ask to see an item, the lovely woman would take it out of the case, hand it to me and before I knew it, there would be a young BC lineman in a dark suit standing inches behind me in case I tried to run off with it.

I guess I make most of my money buying and selling precious metal items and most people don’t have that knowledge. As for art, a friend once told me when buying paintings, look for a confident brush stroke. That advice has made me many bucks over the years. Recently, I sold a nice painting for $1,275 that I bought at a Davis Square second-hand store.

As a fallback, I have a few other streams of income. I’m an Airbnb host and I drive up to ten rides a week for Uber. If things get tough buying and selling, I can ramp up the Uber and make $500 per week easily.

Luckily, I’ve been finding a fair amount of fun items that I can resell. Today was a bust. I only got one good painting (for $6). I think I can make $100-200 off of it. But, this past weekend was fun. I bought some good heavy gold jewelry at a few second-hand stores. I spent $25 and got $1600 in gold. All of it was marked too. I don’t know how they missed the karat stamps and I didn’t ask.