Collecting Vintage Costume Pins And Brooches
I’ve been collecting vintage charms and creating bracelets, as well as selling them for a while now. I think about 10 years, and it’s my favorite thing to collect. But lately I’ve been drawn more and more to vintage costume jewelry lately. Pins and brooches in particular. This is a new venture for me, and I’m still a novice. I love the figural shaped pins and pins with colored stones the most I think.
I’ve been reading lots about vintage costume jewelry designers on the internet and in books. The early and mid 20th century jewelry creations are fascinating. This was an era when many collectible charms were made also. It was the hey-day of jewelry manufacturing in America and there are dozens of designers and manufacturers that made high quality everyday and dressy jewelry for the masses. Women wanted to look like the people they saw in fashion magazines and in the movies. They made $50 a week or so but would spend several hundred on a rhinestone brooch, purchased on a law-away plan.
Costume jewelry made during that time wasn’t outsourced to China, it was made in the U.S., and carefully pieced together by workers in factories in Providence, Rhode Island, Chicago, and other jewelry hubs. It’s a testament to the quality that many of the jewelry items are still in good shape 70 or 80 years later. There are nice quality pieces of vintage jewelry around in lots of price ranges. I’m staying in the $50 to $100 category for the time being, but there are good choices for less, and of course many collectors pay a lot more for vintage costume jewelry.
Just as I did with my charm collection, I’m expanding my business to include some collectible costume jewelry for sale. My plan is to learn as much as I can about a couple of designers at a time and find a few nice pieces for myself and a few to offer for sale. Right now I’m focusing on Trifari and Coro because the selection is almost endless and there is a lot of information that’s easy to find about the history of their enterprises. As I expand my knowledge I’ll add more name brands to my inventory on eBay. It’s lots of fun to collect jewelry and pretty vintage pins is a great place to start. Here’s what I have in my eBay store right now.
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Category: Selling Vintage Jewelry
About the Author (Author Profile)
Wanda Fitzgerald is a Florida native and an vintage charm collector who loves to share her adventures in an e-commerce jewelry business with anyone who is interested.Subscribe
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