Sell to Us · Costume Jewelry · Anaheim
Anaheim has been keeping jewelry boxes since 1857.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
California Vintage Buyers buys costume jewelry in Anaheim and across north Orange County. We come to your home for free, read every clasp and pin stem with a loupe at your table, price the signed pieces one by one, take the modest remainder as an honest lot, and pay cash the same visit. Call (949) 449-1255.
Anaheim is one of the oldest cities in Orange County and now its most populous, and both facts sit in its dressers. Fifty German families laid it out as a vineyard colony in 1857, and the original square bounded by North, South, East and West Streets survives as the Anaheim Colony Historic District. Then the postwar burst: 14,556 residents in 1950, 104,184 by 1960, with Disneyland opening on 160 acres of orange groves in July 1955. Block after block of West Anaheim and the flats between the 5 and the 91 were bought new in those years and never let go, and the cocktail brooches and rhinestone sets those households wore out on Saturday nights are still in the drawer. Anaheim Hills added a second wave from 1972, when Westridge opened as its first neighborhood, and those estates are turning over now.
The city kept changing, and the jewelry changed with it. A little over half of Anaheim identified as Hispanic or Latino in the 2020 census, and Brookhurst Street between Broadway and Ball Road was formally designated Little Arabia in August 2022. So the box we open here is often two boxes: the mother’s Coro and Trifari bought new in the tract years, and the grandmother’s pieces that came from Mexico or Lebanon in a suitcase, with a rosary and a wedding set folded in. We buy the costume outright, whatever country it came from, and the family pieces beside it are read just as carefully, by construction, age and maker rather than by sentiment or by where they were bought. Anything that proves to be gold gets a free identification from someone with no stake in the answer, and if selling it is the right call we know the reputable buyers and will say which one.
We are the team behind Old 44 Vintage, based at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, CA 92653, and north county is a scheduled run for us. Text a few photos to (949) 449-1255 and we will tell you the same day whether a visit makes sense.
What Anaheim boxes turn out to hold
Signed designer costume
Trifari with the crown over the T, Coro Duettes, Miriam Haskell’s hand-wired pearls, Eisenberg, Weiss and Boucher. The mark is tiny, on the back of the clasp or catch plate, and often worn thin.
Rhinestone sets from the tract years
The necklace, bracelet and earrings bought together in 1959 and kept together since. A complete set is worth more than its three pieces sold apart, so we keep them together.
Bakelite and early plastics
Carved bangles, cherry and figural pins, dress clips and buckles, tested at your table with hot water, never a hot pin, with the result shown to you.
Jewelry that came from another country
Filigree, enamel, coral and glass bead work brought over in a suitcase and never sold. Read for age, craft and origin, priced as costume where it is costume, identified honestly where it is not.
Religious and occasion pieces
Rosaries, saint medals, quinceañera tiaras and wedding sets. Most are modest and some are not, and the difference is in the construction, not the sentiment.
The whole unsorted drawer
Bins, trays, cigar boxes and the tangle at the bottom. Unsorted is how we prefer it, because sorting by looks separates the good from the plain in the wrong direction.
North Orange County, on a scheduled day
Anaheim sits about 24 miles up the 5 from our Laguna Hills warehouse, roughly half an hour with the road clear and closer to an hour at the wrong time of day, so we bundle north county calls into scheduled days rather than promising same-day visits we cannot keep. On those days we work the Colony and the downtown streets, West Anaheim out to Brookhurst and Little Arabia, the tracts between the 5 and the 91, and Anaheim Hills, with Fullerton, Buena Park, Placentia and Yorba Linda on the same run. A call early in the week usually turns into a visit within days. The evaluation is free and carries no obligation, family is welcome at the table or on speakerphone, and if the jewelry is part of a bigger clear-out we look at the rest of the household on the same visit.
What happens to each kind of piece at an Anaheim table
A north county jewelry box is rarely one category. This is how each part of it is handled on the same visit.
| What is in the box | How we read it | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Signed costume (Trifari, Coro, Haskell, Eisenberg, Weiss) | Mark found under the loupe, era dated from the mark and construction, condition said out loud | Priced individually in front of you, paid in cash the same visit |
| Unsigned rhinestone and bead costume | Prong setting, foil backs, plating and weight checked; sets kept together | Bought as an honest lot rather than left behind |
| Suspected Bakelite | Hot water test at the table, weight and seam check, no hot pin | Priced piece by piece when it is Bakelite, lotted when it is later plastic |
| Rosaries, medals and religious costume | Bead material, chain, age and maker read; sentiment respected, construction decides | Costume examples bought with the rest; the family keeps whatever it wants to keep |
| Family gold and karat-marked pieces | Free identification from a specialist with no stake in the answer | A pointer to reputable buyers if you decide to sell; the rest of the box gets its offer regardless |
Our process, September 2026. Value ranges for the named makers sit on our costume jewelry value guide and are mid-market figures, never ceilings or promises.
Our Word
One phone call is the whole process. A real person answers, we come to you, and you decide with a cash offer in hand.
How it works
Call or text photos.
A real conversation about what you have, no pressure to sell.
We come to you.
We look at everything, at your pace. We know what we're seeing.
Cash offer, same visit.
A fair price on the spot, or a full estate sale run for you.
Common questions
You are in Laguna Hills. Do you really drive up to Anaheim for a box of costume jewelry?
Yes, on scheduled north county days rather than on demand. Anaheim is about 24 miles up the 5 from our warehouse, half an hour with the road clear and nearer an hour at rush hour, so we bundle Anaheim, Fullerton, Buena Park, Placentia and Yorba Linda onto one run, and a call early in the week usually becomes a visit within days. One good box justifies the stop and there is no minimum. Text photos to (949) 449-1255 and we will say the same day whether the drive makes sense.
My grandmother’s jewelry box came with her from Mexico. Is any of it worth something here?
Often, and it is read the same way as anything else: by construction, age and maker, not by where it was bought. We buy what is costume outright, at the table, whatever country it crossed from. Mid-century Mexican filigree, enamel and glass bead pieces all have a market here, and jewelry bought abroad is often older than the American costume beside it. If a piece proves to be karat gold, you get a free identification and an honest pointer to reputable buyers instead of a guess.
There are rosaries and saint medals mixed in with the costume jewelry. Do those count?
They do, and we would rather you left them in the box. Most rosaries are glass, wood or plastic beads on base metal chain and are read as costume: age, bead material, chain and maker decide the price, and older European examples with good beads and enamel centers bring more than modern devotional pieces. Say up front which ones the family is keeping and they never enter the conversation. A rosary that turns out to be hallmarked precious metal gets the same free identification as any other family piece.
We have quinceañera tiaras and a rhinestone wedding set from the 1960s. Is that the kind of costume jewelry you buy?
Yes to both, with an honest note about which brings money. Modern quinceañera tiaras and sets from the last twenty years are usually plated base metal with glued stones and sell as modest lots, and we say so plainly. A prong-set rhinestone wedding set from the 1950s or 60s, especially a signed one that stayed together as necklace, bracelet and earrings, is a different thing and is priced on its own. Bring both, we sort them at your table, and you keep whatever has a daughter’s name on it.
Three generations have lived in the house and all the jewelry ended up in one dresser. Can you tell whose was whose?
By decade, yes, and that is usually enough. A copyright symbol on a mark means the piece was made after 1955, a design patent number or Pat. Pend. points to the 1930s through the mid-1950s, and a STERLING mark on plainly costume work clusters in the war years, so a shared dresser sorts itself into a grandmother’s pile, a mother’s pile and a daughter’s pile. We say which decade each piece belongs to as we go, and families can divide it on that information before deciding whether to sell.
My mother lives in the house and does not want strangers in it. Is there another way?
Two. The simplest is photographs: text a wide shot of the box and close shots of the backs of the clasps and pin stems to (949) 449-1255, and we will tell you what deserves a closer look before anyone is invited anywhere. The other is our warehouse at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, which sees sellers by appointment, so you or an adult child can bring the box down on a day that suits and be paid cash there. Either way she decides what leaves the house.
Know what it’s worth before you sell.
Our field guides explain how the market actually prices these things. No fishing, no hype: real ranges and the details that move them.
One call. We’ll take it
from there.
(949) 449-12555.0 on Google · Free visit, no obligation · Cash the same visit
Mon-Sat 6 am-8 pm · Sun 8 am-5 pm
A real person answers seven days a week, weekends included. Photos sent today are usually answered the same day.
Prefer photos? Text them straight to the same number · or send them here
Also from California Vintage Buyers
- Somewhere in the costume box, a Trifari is waiting.→
- Orange County jewelry boxes are full of names nobody checked.→
- Anaheim hoarder house cleanouts, priced by the object instead of the truckload.→
- Estate buyers for Anaheim, the city with magic in its garages.→
- Inherited jewelry, read before anything leaves the house.→
- Sell vintage in Fullerton, the town that built the Stratocaster.→