I was visiting my aunt this weekend and she started bringing out
some of her costume jewelry. It is all circa early 40’s. There
was one very nice necklace stamped “Forstner sterling”. Does
anyone remember that name? Could it be collectable?
Additionally she has some Coro pieces, one which she gave to me.
It is stamped sterling but must be vermeil, much of which is
rubbed off. It has a big red glass stone, if I remove it, what
are my chances of polishing off all of the gold color and maybe
soldering on something to make it a pendant? Betty Belmonte
(near Philadelphia where we’re hoping that it finally drops below
95 today)
If you have a plating machine, you can reverse plate the
necklace thus removing the gold. You won’t wear the setting down
and the polishing can be much lighter.
Dear Betty, Not having seen your Aunt’s jewery I couldn’t saqy
for sure but I am 98% sure that what she has is collectable.
I’ve sold quite a few pieces of costume jewery in my antique
business. Martha from Long Island
The plating is one of the distinctive things about this type of
jewelry that makes it somewhat collectable, that and the big
stone/glass pieces set in them. They are still pretty cheap,
usually no more than about $15 for one in good shape (here in TN
anyway) and the best deal I ever got was a .10 one in a junk
store.
betty belmonte - yes, your aunt’s costume jewelry probably has
many times more value than it did when she bought it - there’s
an entire catagory on eBay auctions for what they call 'signed’
vintage costume jewelry: pieces with manufacturer’s name on
them. just input ebay into ‘keyword’ & when the home page comes
up go to 'jewelry & & then to the ‘vintage’ or
whichever one sounds relevant to what she has. i do not trust
go-betweens or some dealers after a ‘dealer’ bragged to me about
how she finally coaxed a bunch of vintage costume jewelry away
from a couple (she didn’t know they were friends of mine) for
$300.00 because she had a collector waiting to buy the lot for -
her claim - $10,000.00. even if it was only a fraction of that
amount, that’s not ‘coaxing’, that’s cheating. did i tell the
couple? no - what could they do about it after the fact except
feel cheated & unhappy? i just suggested that they get an
independent valuation before the next deal with that ‘dealer’.
ive
I was visiting my aunt this weekend and she started bringing out
some of her costume jewelry. It is all circa early 40’s. There
was one very nice necklace stamped “Forstner sterling”. Does
anyone remember that name? Could it be collectable?
I am not familiar with that stamping - someone else must be.
But it is very collectable, at least here on the west coast.
Especially pieces with designer names!!
Additionally she has some Coro pieces, one which she gave to me.
It is stamped sterling but must be vermeil, much of which is
rubbed off. It has a big red glass stone, if I remove it, what
are my chances of polishing off all of the gold color and maybe
soldering on something to make it a pendant?
I would diffinetly check out the ‘collectable value’ before I
did anything with it. Here in Puget Sound even an ordinary
rhinestone pair of earrings of this vintage would be worth a
minimum of $25. But of course then you must balance that with
the sentimental value and the amount of wear you would get form
the ‘new’ piece. Sometimes a real trade off.
We have finally had a couple of days of ‘summer sun’ here in
Puget Sound, it even got to 80 one day. But I am glad it doesn’t
get as hot as you are there.
Lorri
method to avoid this type of coaxing:
go to several dealers, even if it requires a trip to the big
city. Let each know they will not be the only bidders. This
should get you a fair wholsale pricing. A dealer has to have
stock or go out of business, the you will be going to
the competition pushes the price above what needs to be offered
if no one else is involved.
In effect you are creating a mini auction in which each bidder
only has one chance.