Sell to Us · Costume Jewelry · Long Beach
Long Beach jewelry boxes came home from the sea and the shipyard.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
California Vintage Buyers buys costume jewelry in Long Beach and the south end of Los Angeles County: Trifari, Coro, Miriam Haskell, Eisenberg, Bakelite, wartime sweetheart pins and the unsigned tangle underneath, read clasp by clasp at your table on a free house call and paid for in cash the same visit. Call (949) 449-1255.
Long Beach was a Navy town for half a century. The Naval Station and the Naval Shipyard grew up on Terminal Island through the war years, and the 1991 closure order moved 38 ships and some 17,000 Navy personnel to other West Coast ports; the station closed in 1994, the shipyard in 1997. Those families lived in Navy housing at Savannah and Cabrillo on the west side and in bungalows across the city, and what they kept is specific: sweetheart pins and lockets, mother-of-pearl and shell bracelets from Pacific ports, wing and anchor pins. Sailors said souvenir, collectors say sweetheart jewelry, and both sit in the same drawer as the Trifari.
Before the Navy there was the rebuild. The earthquake of March 10, 1933 killed about 120 people and left about 2,100 homes unlivable, and Long Beach rebuilt in the style of its moment: Art Deco and Streamline Moderne downtown, Spanish Colonial Revival in California Heights, the late-1920s tract that is now the city’s largest historic district at roughly 1,500 homes. Those households bought the jewelry of the 1930s, pot metal dress clips, geometric rhinestone brooches, Coro Duettes, and it is still in the dressers of Bixby Knolls, Belmont Shore and Naples.
Then there is the trade itself. The Long Beach Antique Market has run at Veterans Stadium since 1982, the third Sunday of every month, with 800 or so vendors and a paid early gate at 5:30 in the morning, and Fourth Street’s Retro Row has taught the city what old things are worth. So Long Beach holds two kinds of costume supply: the household box nobody has read, and the dealer’s own tubs, tried at three markets and boxed. We buy both, and say which one we think you have.
What Long Beach jewelry boxes turn out to hold
Sweetheart and Navy souvenir jewelry
Wartime brooches, wing and anchor pins, lockets, mother-of-pearl and shell bracelets from Pacific ports. Modest money on most, real money on the signed and unusual ones.
1930s Art Deco costume
Pot metal dress clips, geometric rhinestone brooches, Coro Duettes and early Trifari from the households that rebuilt after 1933. Unplated gray metal is part of the look, not damage.
Signed designer costume
Trifari with the crown over the T, Miriam Haskell’s hand-wired pearls, Eisenberg Original, Boucher, Weiss and Coro. The mark is tiny, usually worn, and where the money is.
Bakelite and early plastics
Carved bangles, cherry and figural pins, dress clips and buckles, tested at your table with hot water rather than a hot pin.
Dealer stock and market leftovers
Tubs from a Retro Row shop closing out or a Veterans Stadium vendor retiring. Priced as a lot, hauled in one trip, paid for the same day.
The whole unsorted tangle
Drawers, shoeboxes, the tin in the garage. Unsorted is how we prefer it, because sorting by looks gets the good and the plain backwards.
The far end of our south LA County run, scheduled in blocks
Long Beach sits about 35 miles up the 405 from our warehouse, longer than it sounds at rush hour, so we schedule it in blocks: Belmont Shore and Naples on the bay side, Bixby Knolls and California Heights to the north, Rose Park and the downtown apartments, Wrigley and the west side, the Cambodia Town blocks along Anaheim Street, with Lakewood, Signal Hill, Seal Beach, San Pedro and the Palos Verdes side booked onto the same day. A call usually becomes a visit within the week. The evaluation is free with no obligation, and 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 to (949) 449-1255.
Three kinds of Long Beach jewelry box
Long Beach produces three distinct boxes, and they are read differently. The figures sit deliberately at the middle of the market, never the top, and none of them is our offer.
| The box | Where it comes from | What it usually holds | Honest read as of September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Navy family box | Households tied to the Naval Station and Shipyard, 1940s to 1997 | Sweetheart pins and lockets, wing and anchor pins, mother-of-pearl and shell souvenirs from Pacific ports, plus ordinary department store costume | Most sweetheart pieces under $100 (Antique Trader, November 2021); signed wartime pieces by the big houses higher, a Boucher eagle valued at $275 to $325 in the same guide |
| The 1930s rebuild box | Houses in California Heights, Bixby Knolls and Belmont Shore furnished after the 1933 earthquake | Pot metal dress clips, geometric rhinestone brooches, Coro Duettes, early Trifari, carved Bakelite | Unsigned clips and brooches a few dollars to $25 each in the secondary guide’s unsigned tier; Coro Duettes $75 to $125; the best Bakelite bangles into the thousands at dedicated auctions |
| The dealer’s dead stock | A Retro Row shop closing out or a Veterans Stadium vendor retiring | Tubs of unsold pieces already picked over at three markets, with the occasional missed signature | Priced as volume, not per piece, with any missed signed pieces pulled and priced on their own |
Sweetheart figures are from Antique Trader’s sweetheart jewelry guide of November 18, 2021; costume tiers and the Duette range are from a secondary costume price guide built on eBay and Ruby Lane asking prices, moderated to the middle of the market in August 2026; Bakelite from published Bonhams results. We price every box at the table after it is sorted.
How We Work
We evaluate everything in front of you, explain what we’re seeing, and pay cash before we leave. No consignment, no waiting on a sale.
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
What exactly is sweetheart jewelry?
Jewelry given by a serviceman to a wife, girlfriend, mother or sister so she could wear his service while he was away. The habit began in the First World War and peaked in the Second, with most pieces made between 1939 and 1945. Motifs are insignia, wings, anchors, hearts, eagles and the victory V, and because base metals were rationed the pieces turn up in sterling, wood, Bakelite, celluloid, shell and mother-of-pearl. Trifari and Coro made patriotic lines alongside the anonymous pieces sold at port souvenir counters.
Is my grandmother’s sweetheart pin, or the shell bracelet from the Pacific, actually worth anything?
Usually a little, occasionally a lot, and we say which at the table. Antique Trader’s guide of November 2021 put most sweetheart pieces under $100, with small single hearts at $20 or less and a signed Boucher eagle at $275 to $325. As of September 2026 a militaria dealer asks $45 for an enameled Navy anchor pin, an ask rather than a sale. Shell and mother-of-pearl souvenirs from Pacific ports are modest but date the whole box. A maker’s mark, unusual materials and a named ship move a piece up.
How can I tell whether a brooch is 1930s Art Deco costume rather than a later piece?
Start with the metal and the fitting. Depression-era costume was often cast in pot metal, a cheap zinc alloy with lead in it, heavy for its size and dull gray where it was left unplated. Then look for a dress clip: a flat hinged clip on the back instead of a pin stem, worn at a neckline, often in pairs, the defining accessory of the 1930s and rare after the 1940s. Add geometric lines, stepped and fan shapes, and clear or single-color rhinestones, and you are in the 1930s.
I sell at the Long Beach Antique Market and have tubs of jewelry that never moved. Do you buy from other dealers?
Yes, and we would rather you called than let it sit another year. Dead stock is dead for a reason, usually because three markets already picked it over, so we price it as volume rather than piece by piece and say so plainly. The exception is what dealers miss: an unsigned Haskell identified by its wiring, a Duette carrier separated from its clips, a worn crown mark under grime. Those get pulled and priced on their own. We come to the unit or garage and pay cash before we leave.
How far south into Los Angeles County does your weekly route actually run?
All the way to the harbor. Long Beach anchors a south county block that takes in Lakewood, Signal Hill, Seal Beach on the Orange County line, San Pedro and the Palos Verdes side, scheduled together so a single jewelry box justifies the 35-mile drive from Laguna Hills. Most calls get a visit within the week, and a promising set of photos texted to (949) 449-1255 pulls a trip forward. There is no minimum and no fee.
My parents lived in Navy housing here and then rented near the base for thirty years. Does that era matter to the box?
It matters more than the address. Long Beach housed Navy families from the war years until the station closed in 1994 and the shipyard in 1997, in the Savannah and Cabrillo quarters on the west side and in bungalows across the city, and those households moved often and kept small. What survives is the portable layer: sweetheart pieces from courtship, shell and pearl souvenirs from deployments, a few good signed brooches, and the department store costume of later decades on top. We read that box oldest first.
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
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