New York man makes $500-a-week from jewels found on city's pavements

Jeez - talk about imperiling your livlihood. Now everyone is going to do this - there will be armies of diamond hunters crawling the streets now! (Except it is reported in a British paper rather than a New York one...so perhaps his secret is yet safe.)

Metro.co.uk: New York man makes $500-a-week from jewels found on city's pavements

Armed with a pair of tweezers and a butter knife, Raffi Stepanian goes hunting for dropped and lost treasure in the dirt on the pavements of New York’s Diamond District.

The 43-year-old says some of the items – diamond and ruby chips, gold earring backs, loops from broken chains, watches, brooches and necklaces – have been there for 60 years.

Mr Stepanian, a freelance diamond setter, can make $500 (£310) a week and said: ‘The stones are already cut and manufactured – it’s a step above a mine. I’m finding them already cut and polished.

‘You just have to get down on your knees and get it. Material falls off clothes, it drops off jewellery, and it falls in the dirt and sticks to the gum on the street. It’s the same principle as collecting cans on the street and redeeming them for nickels. It’s redemption of reusable gold.’

A gems dealer named Frank chuckled as he dug in the dirty pavement outside his shop.

‘Half of it’s probably mine,’ he said.