Sell to Us · Costume Jewelry · Irvine
Irvine is downsizing, and the jewelry boxes are coming out first.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
California Vintage Buyers buys costume jewelry in Irvine: Trifari, Miriam Haskell, Eisenberg, Coro, Monet, Napier, Bakelite and the unsigned pieces too, read clasp by clasp at your table on a free house call and paid for in cash the same visit. Our warehouse is in Laguna Hills, which shares a border with Irvine. Call (949) 449-1255.
Irvine was built on purpose and all at once. The Irvine Company laid out William Pereira’s master plan of self-contained villages around a university that opened in 1965, University Park and Turtle Rock were finished by 1970, the city incorporated on December 28, 1971, and Woodbridge went in around its two lakes from 1975. The people who bought those first houses new are now well into retirement. That is the supply story: a generation that moved to Irvine with its jewelry, added to it for fifty years, and is now moving again, to a smaller place, a senior community, or a condo the children will sell.
What comes out of those dressers is layered. On top sits what was bought new in the Irvine years, the Monet and Napier chains and the later Trifari from department store counters, honest and modest. Underneath it sits the older box that came along in the move: the mother’s or grandmother’s cocktail brooches from the 1940s and 50s, the rhinestone sets, the carved bangles. Sorting the two layers by looks gets it backwards, so we sort by the marks, with a loupe on every clasp and pin stem, and say the reasoning out loud.
Close to 45 percent of Irvine is Asian American, and many of the boxes we open here hold jade bangles, wedding pieces and the fine jewelry a family carried across an ocean alongside the costume. Those pieces get a free, careful identification at the same table, with no stake in the answer: what the piece is, what era it belongs to, and, if the family decides to sell it, which reputable specialist should see it. That read is free whether or not anything else changes hands.
What Irvine jewelry boxes turn out to hold
Signed designer costume
Trifari with the crown over the T, Miriam Haskell’s hand-wired pearls, Eisenberg Original rhinestones, Boucher, Weiss and Coro. The mark is tiny, usually worn, and where the money is.
The department store decades
Monet, Napier and later Trifari bought new through the 1970s and 80s. Modest pieces, priced honestly and bought as a lot rather than left behind.
Bakelite and early plastics
Carved bangles, cherry and figural pins, dress clips. Tested properly at your table with hot water, never a hot pin, and the result shown to you.
Matched sets and parures
Necklace, bracelet and earrings bought together for evenings out. A complete set is worth more than its three pieces sold apart, so we keep them together.
The older box that came with the move
The 1930s to 1960s pieces from a mother or grandmother, usually the best things in the drawer and usually the ones a family assumes are glass.
The tangle, the duplicates and the broken
Single earrings, pins without stems, five near-identical chains. Bought as an honest lot so the family is not left sorting parts after the movers have gone.
Every village, and the senior communities, from next door
Laguna Hills shares a border with Irvine, so a house call here is one of the shortest drives we make, and a morning call is often a visit within a day or two. We work every village: University Park and Turtle Rock up by the campus, Woodbridge around the lakes, Northwood, Westpark and the newer Great Park neighborhoods, plus the condos around UC Irvine and senior communities like Regents Point on Harvard Avenue. Visits are quiet by design, one buyer and one bag, and evenings and weekends are normal because so many Irvine appointments are booked by an adult child who works. If you would rather bring the box to us, our warehouse at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, CA 92653 is open by appointment. Text photos of the box to (949) 449-1255 and we will tell you the same day whether it deserves a visit.
The three layers of an Irvine jewelry box
A house bought new in Irvine tends to hold jewelry from three eras at once, and they are worth very different amounts. The figures are deliberately set at the middle of the market, not the top.
| Layer | How it got there | What it usually holds | Honest range as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inherited, 1930s to 1960s | Came along in the move from a mother or grandmother | Crown Trifari, Miriam Haskell, Eisenberg Original, Coro Duettes, carved Bakelite, rhinestone parures | Signed pieces commonly $50 to $300 each, the best jelly belly animals $200 to $600, laminated Bakelite bangles into the thousands at dedicated auctions |
| Bought new in Irvine, 1965 to 1990 | Department store counters during the first decades of the villages | Monet, Napier, later Trifari, matched sets for evenings out | Mostly $15 to $100 a piece, sold as lots, with signed sets above that |
| The last thirty years | Gifts, travel, and everyday wear | Mass-market pieces, mall brands, unsigned chains and earrings | $5 to $50 each, bought as one honest lot |
Ranges drawn from a secondary costume jewelry price guide built on eBay and Ruby Lane asking prices, moderated to the middle of the market in August 2026, and from published Bonhams results for Bakelite bangles. None of these is our offer; we price every box at the table after it is sorted.
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
We are downsizing from a Woodbridge house to something smaller. Should the jewelry be read before the movers come?
Yes, and well before. Jewelry is the category most often packed unsorted into a box marked bathroom, then lost in a garage for a decade. We come to the house while everything is still where it has always been, read the whole collection free at your table, and pay cash for what you decide to sell. The pieces you are keeping go into the move already identified, so nobody has to guess later which brooch was the good one.
My mother lives in a senior community in Irvine. Can the visit happen in her apartment?
That is a normal visit for us. One buyer comes up with a loupe and a folding tray, signs in at the front desk the way any guest does, and the reading happens at her own table with her in charge of it. We work at her pace, explain each piece out loud, and pay her directly in cash for anything she chooses to sell. Adult children are welcome in the room or on speakerphone, and if she decides to keep everything, that is a complete visit too.
The condo is in a building with an elevator and a parking garage. Does that complicate a house call?
Not for jewelry. A jewelry visit is one person with a bag, not a truck, so there is no loading dock to book and no move-out window to reserve. Tell us the building and whether the front desk needs a name in advance, and we will handle the rest. If the same condo is being emptied entirely and the furniture and closets need a look, that becomes a different kind of visit, and we plan the parking and the building’s rules on the first call.
My mother bought her jewelry new at Orange County department stores in the 1970s and 80s. What does that era actually bring?
Modest money, honestly priced. The Monet, Napier and later Trifari sold at department store counters in those decades mostly brings $15 to $100 a piece as of August 2026, sold in lots, with complete signed sets doing better. We buy that layer rather than leaving it behind. The reason to have the whole box read anyway is the older layer underneath it: the pieces she inherited herself, which rode along in the same drawer and are usually the ones worth real money.
Half the box is duplicates and broken pieces: single earrings, pins with no stem, several near-identical chains. Is that worth anything?
As a lot, yes, and we would rather buy it than leave you to sort it. Costume jewelry was sold in quantity, so five similar chains and a drawer of single clip earrings are normal, and dealers buy them for parts, for restringing, and for the pieces that turn out to be signed. Keep loose stones in a small bag with the piece they fell from, and do not throw away the broken half before the visit: a Coro Duette missing one clip is still worth reading.
The realtor wants the condo staged and empty in three weeks. Where does the jewelry fit in that timeline?
First, before the stagers and before anything is donated. Staging crews and cleanout services move fast and treat a jewelry box as a bathroom item, and once it goes into a donation bag it is gone. Give us the escrow or staging date and we schedule the reading ahead of it, usually within days in Irvine. The evaluation is free, you decide what to sell at the table, and the rest of the household can get one clear offer on the same visit.
I live out of state and my parents’ things are in Irvine. Can you read the box on video before I decide whether to fly in?
Yes. Text photos of the box to (949) 449-1255, then we look together on a short video call: you or a local sibling turns the pieces over, we tell you where to point the camera, and we say plainly what the marks show. That call is enough to tell you whether the collection deserves an in-person visit or is a modest lot that can be handled with whoever is in the condo. If we come out, the cash offer is made at the table to the person you name.
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
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