Sell to Us · Costume Jewelry · Costa Mesa
Bought at the swap meet, taken apart at the kitchen table, kept in Dad’s tray. That is a Costa Mesa jewelry box.
No minimum · free house call · cash the same visit
California Vintage Buyers buys costume jewelry across Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley and Tustin on a free house call: every clasp read for a maker’s name, signed pieces priced individually in front of you, the rest bought as an honest lot, and cash paid the same visit. Call (949) 449-1255.
Costa Mesa has always been the working, shopping side of the coast. The Santa Ana Army Air Base ran here from 1942 to 1946, a training camp with no runways at all, and its land became the fairgrounds, Orange Coast College and Costa Mesa High School. The city incorporated on June 29, 1953 and reached 72,660 people by the 1970 census. May Company opened on the Segerstrom family’s lima bean land in February 1966, South Coast Plaza followed on March 15, 1967, and a swap meet ran at the fairgrounds from 1969 on. Next door, Fountain Valley incorporated in 1957 and stayed farmland until its tracts went up in the 1960s.
So the jewelry here is rarely one woman’s department store purchases and nothing else. It is a collector’s haul from decades of Saturday swap meets and thrift racks, a jewelry maker’s tackle boxes of beads and loose stones, a father’s tray of cufflinks and tie bars, and somewhere in all of it the signed pieces a casual seller priced like everything else. We read it at your table with a loupe on every clasp. Text photos to (949) 449-1255 and we will tell you the same day whether a visit makes sense.
What a Costa Mesa jewelry box turns out to hold
Signed designer costume
Trifari with the crown over the T, Miriam Haskell’s hand-wired pearls, Eisenberg, Weiss, and Coro with its upscale Vendome line. The mark is a few worn letters on a clasp, which is exactly why it slips through a swap meet or thrift store sort.
Text us a photo Send us a photoSecondhand collections
Jewelry bought by the bag at swap meets, yard sales and thrift stores over thirty years. What the owner paid has nothing to do with what it is; we read it piece by piece like any other box.
Text us a photo Send us a photoThe jewelry maker’s stash
Old glass beads, loose rhinestones, findings, and brooches taken apart for their stones. Sorted, valued as material by the lot, with any whole or signed piece pulled out and priced on its own.
Text us a photo Send us a photoMen’s costume jewelry
Cufflinks, tie bars, tie clips and dress sets from a father’s dresser tray. Kept in their pairs and sets, read for a maker’s name, and bought with the rest of the box.
Text us a photo Send us a photoThe fine pieces in the same drawer
Rings and chains that are not costume get a free identification and, if you decide to sell them, a pointer to the reputable specialist buyer we would use ourselves. The rest of the drawer gets a real offer the same visit.
Text us a photo Send us a photoCosta Mesa, Fountain Valley and Tustin, on the same short run
Costa Mesa sits up the 405 from our Laguna Hills warehouse, and a call usually becomes a visit within a day or two. We work the whole city: the Eastside bungalows, Mesa Verde and Mesa del Mar, the Westside streets, and the neighborhoods around the fairgrounds and Orange Coast College. Fountain Valley, a city since 1957, is on the same run, from the tracts off Brookhurst, Magnolia and Bushard to the streets around Mile Square Park, and so is Tustin, from Old Town to the new neighborhoods around the wooden blimp hangars the Navy built in 1942, one of which burned in 2023. The evaluation is free with no obligation, family is welcome at the table or on speakerphone, and our warehouse at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, CA 92653 is open by appointment if you would rather bring the box to us.
The marks a swap meet price misses
A swap meet or thrift store prices jewelry by the tray, fast, and the marks that change a piece’s value are small enough to miss at that speed. These are the ones we stop on in a secondhand box. Every figure is labeled with its date and what kind of number it is, so nobody mistakes an asking price for a sale.
| What is on the back | What it tells you | Published figure | Kind of figure and date |
|---|---|---|---|
| A small crown over the T | Crown Trifari, the Alfred Philippe years; a clear Lucite belly on a figural pin means a jelly belly | $50 to $150 for a crown pin in excellent condition; the best jelly belly animals $200 to $600 | Asking prices on eBay and Ruby Lane, moderated to the middle of the market, as of August 2026 |
| Pat. Pend., or Pat. or Des. Pat. with a number | Made in the 1930s through the mid-1950s, the era collectors chase | Signed mid-tier pieces $25 to $100, against $1 to $25 a piece unsigned | Secondary price guide built on asking prices, August 2026 |
| A small c in a circle | Designed in 1955 or later, after Trifari won its copyright case against Charel | Unsigned mid-century rhinestone $5 to $50, usually sold in lots | Secondary price guide built on asking prices, August 2026 |
| Eisenberg Ice in script | 1970 or later; Eisenberg Original is the 1935 to 1945 mark | The more desirable Eisenberg Ice Christmas pieces under $150 | Published range, Antique Trader, February 2, 2021 |
| Vendome | Coro’s top line from 1944, sold through stores that did not carry ordinary Coro | Beaded earring clusters under $30 a pair | Published estimate, Antique Trader, March 11, 2024 |
| No mark, but glass pearls hand-wired onto brass filigree | Possibly early Miriam Haskell, which signed almost nothing before the late 1940s | Signed Haskell bead necklaces in good condition $100 to $300 | Asking prices, moderated to the middle of the market, as of August 2026 |
Asking prices are what sellers list, not what pieces sell for, and the Antique Trader figures are published ranges. Mark dates come from published maker histories and the 1955 Trifari v. Charel decision. None of these is our price. We make one cash offer at your table after the whole box is sorted.
A Jewelry House Call, in a Seller’s Words
“They were very professional, friendly, and extremely fair on pricing some jewelry for us. I was very comfortable having them in our home.” Mica Clark, Google review
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
Who buys costume jewelry in Costa Mesa, and do you come to Fountain Valley and Tustin too?
We do, all three on the same calendar. California Vintage Buyers is based in Laguna Hills, up the 405 from Costa Mesa, and a call usually becomes a visit within a day or two. One jewelry box is reason enough for the trip, there is no minimum, and the evaluation is free with no obligation. Every clasp is read under a loupe, signed pieces are priced one by one, the rest is bought as one honest lot, and cash is paid the same visit if you accept. Text photos to (949) 449-1255 first if you would like a quick read on whether a visit makes sense.
Mom bought most of her jewelry secondhand, at swap meets and thrift stores. Can jewelry somebody already sold cheap be worth anything?
Yes, and a secondhand box is often where the overlooked signed pieces end up. A swap meet or thrift price reflects how fast the last owner wanted it gone and how quickly the tray was sorted, not what the piece is. Maker marks are a few worn letters on a clasp or the back of a brooch, and early Miriam Haskell carries no mark at all, so they slip past a quick sort. What your mother paid does not set our offer either way. We read her box exactly like one bought new: every clasp under the loupe, the signed pieces named and priced on their own, the rest valued as one lot. Leave her bags and envelopes as they are, since how she grouped things sometimes tells us what she was hunting for.
Should I just rent a swap meet booth and sell the box myself?
You can, and a patient seller who knows the marks will often gross more per piece that way. Count the whole cost, though: the booth fee, early weekend mornings, pricing every piece, and buyers who come to a swap meet expecting a bargain. The signed pieces are the ones most likely to be underpriced on a table, because the marks are easy to miss, and the dealers walking the rows know exactly what to look for. A middle path costs nothing: have the box read free first. You learn which pieces are signed and what the published record says about them, then decide what to sell yourself. If you keep some for the booth, we will make an offer on the rest.
My mother made her own jewelry and took old brooches apart for the stones. Is a jewelry maker’s stash worth anything?
Often, as material, and sometimes for what she had not yet taken apart. Old glass beads, loose rhinestones and findings sell by the lot to other makers, so a well-kept bead box is not trash. The bigger value is usually in the pieces still whole: a brooch she bought to take apart is worth more as a brooch, and a signed piece is always worth more whole than as parts. So stop the work where it is. Do not finish her projects, pry out more stones or combine her containers, and keep any loose stones in the container she kept them in. We sort the stash with you, pull out every whole and signed piece to price on its own, and make one offer on the rest.
Dad’s dresser has a tray of cufflinks, tie bars and tie clips. Is that costume jewelry too, and is any of it worth reading?
It is, and it belongs on the same table as the rest of the box. Most men’s jewelry of the postwar decades was mass-made and plated, and those pieces go into the lot. What we stop on is a set kept together, a pair still in its original box, enamel or novelty designs, and a maker’s name on the back. Keep the cufflinks in their pairs, since a single cufflink is a fraction of a pair, and leave any matching tie bar with them. Anything in the tray that turns out not to be costume gets the same free identification and specialist pointer as the rest of 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.
Or send your photos online Photos on your phone? Text them to (949) 449-1255
Also from California Vintage Buyers
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- Huntington Beach jewelry boxes were filled in the sixties, and nobody has read them since.→
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