Sell to Us · Costume Jewelry · Los Angeles
The best costume jewelry in America was made for Los Angeles.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
California Vintage Buyers buys costume jewelry across Los Angeles County: Trifari, Haskell, Eisenberg, Joseff of Hollywood, Coro, Bakelite and the unsigned pieces too, sorted clasp by clasp at your table on a free house call and paid for in cash before we leave. We run Los Angeles routes weekly. Call (949) 449-1255.
No city on earth produced or consumed costume jewelry the way Los Angeles did. The studios needed jewels that read from thirty feet under hot lights, and Joseff of Hollywood built an empire renting them exactly that: the pieces in Gone with the Wind and a thousand other films came out of a Burbank workshop. Eisenberg's theatrical rhinestones dressed the same world. And the women of mid-century LA bought the retail versions by the drawerful, which is why LA estates give up more good costume jewelry than anywhere else in the country.
We buy costume jewelry across all of Los Angeles County, in person, with a loupe on every clasp and pin stem. We are California Vintage Buyers, at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, CA 92653, founded by the team behind Old 44 Vintage, and sellers are seen at their own homes or at that warehouse by appointment. We sort the way the collector market sorts: signed from unsigned, Bakelite from Lucite, the theatrical and the special from the merely pretty. You watch the whole process and hear the reasoning behind every number, and you are paid cash before we leave.
The LA names and pieces we look hardest for
Joseff of Hollywood
The Russian gold finish, the figural pieces, anything with the Joseff mark. Studio history in metal, and collectors treat it that way.
Eisenberg and Schiaparelli
Big theatrical rhinestone brooches, Eisenberg Original and block-letter marks, and Schiaparelli's strange saturated stones.
Haskell, Trifari, and the majors
Hand-wired Haskell pearls, Crown Trifari figurals and jelly bellies, Boucher, Coro Duette, Weiss, and the rest of the signed tier.
Collections and wardrobe lots
A costumer's accumulation, a dresser of decades, a garment-district sample stash. We sort the lot honestly in front of you.
House calls from Long Beach to the Valley
LA costume jewelry surfaces everywhere the twentieth century lived: the deco apartments of Hancock Park and Los Feliz, the postwar houses of Long Beach, Lakewood, and Whittier with their 1940s sweetheart brooches, the Valley homes of studio wardrobe people who brought pieces home for decades, the old San Gabriel houses of Pasadena and San Marino, and the Conejo Valley households that moved out over the grade and stayed. We make Los Angeles runs weekly from our Laguna Hills warehouse, the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County have their own weekly days, and a jewelry box is reason enough for a visit on its own. If the box is part of a whole estate, we evaluate everything else in the house on the same trip and pay cash before we leave.
Four ways to sell costume jewelry, side by side
The same jewelry box can go four directions. What differs is who does the sorting, when you are paid, and what happens to the unsigned pieces.
| Consignment shop | eBay | Local shop counter | Us, at your table | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| You are paid | A share when a piece sells, commonly 40 to 60 percent, months later | When the buyer pays, minus fees, after you photograph, list and ship each piece | Same day, for the pieces the shop can resell | The same visit, in cash, for the whole box |
| Fees | The shop’s share of every sale | As of August 2026, eBay’s Jewelry & Watches final value fee is 15% up to $5,000 and 9% above, plus a per-order fee | None, but the offer carries the shop’s rent | None |
| Who sorts it | You, before drop-off; unsigned pieces are often refused | You, one listing per piece | The counter, in minutes | We do, clasp by clasp, in front of you, with the reasoning out loud |
| Unsigned or unsold pieces | Come back to you | Sit relisted, or sell for the price of shipping | Passed on | Bought as a lot with an honest lot offer |
| Best fit | Patient owners with a few strong signed pieces | Owners with time, a camera and a post office nearby | One or two pieces on a shopping trip | Whole jewelry boxes and estates |
The eBay figure is read from eBay’s own selling-fees page in August 2026 and can change; consignment splits are the range shops commonly publish. Neither is our price. We make one cash offer at your table after the whole box is sorted.
Why It Matters
The difference between ordinary and valuable is in the details: a stitch, a hallmark, a date code. Knowing them is our entire job.
From the Shop
Sell Native American Turquoise Jewelry in Orange County. We Come to You and Pay Cash
Read the transcript
Hey guys, Sam here at California Vintage Buyers in beautiful Orange County, California. Today we're going to talk a little bit about turquoise jewelry. When did it start? Well, late 1800s, they started mining silver and turquoise out of the ground in the beautiful deserts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Native American tribes such as the Navajo, the Hopi, the Zuni, they started making handcrafted beautiful jewelry out of it. And it has since become pretty collectible. And so we love the stuff personally and we are purveyors of it. And as you can see, they spent a lot of time making a lot of this stuff. We have some really old stuff, Fred Harvey era kinds of things, all the way up to just new 80s, 90s fun hearts kind of stuff. So we're into it all. If you've inherited any of this kind of stuff or you have some that you don't really wear much anymore, we would love to buy it and we pay fair prices for it. Please give us a call, 949-449-1255. We can come to you. We go all over Southern California. But yeah, great examples of the kind of things we buy. When in doubt, text us photos to that number or give us a call, 949-449-1255.
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
How do I know if a piece is actually Joseff of Hollywood?
Genuine Joseff is marked, usually Joseff Hollywood or Joseff in script on the back, and the matte Russian gold finish is distinctive once you have seen it. Marks wear and fakes exist, so we check construction and finish as well as the signature. Text photos of the front and back to (949) 449-1255 and we can usually tell you the same day.
Do you buy from estate cleanouts and wardrobe collections?
Constantly, and LA produces both. A late costumer's collection, a parent's apartment in the mid-Wilshire district, a Long Beach house held since the 1950s. We evaluate at your pace, explain what we are seeing, and make one clear offer for what we want.
Is unsigned costume jewelry worth anything?
Sometimes, honestly, yes. Good Bakelite is often unsigned, early Haskell was unsigned, and well-made unsigned deco pieces have a market. That is why we look at construction and materials, not just marks, before anything gets called modest.
My grandmother worked in a studio wardrobe department and brought pieces home. Can you tell studio pieces from what was sold in stores?
Sometimes, though never from the mark alone, since many designs were sold retail and used on screen. Look at the back and the scale: screen jewelry tends to be oversized, built on heavy back plates, roughly finished behind, with stones cast or glued rather than individually set, and it often carries added jump rings, thread, tape residue or an inked number from being wired onto a costume. Keep everything that came home with it. Wardrobe tags, boxes, continuity photographs and paperwork are what make the story provable, and sometimes they matter more than the piece.
The brooches came from a wardrobe person who worked at the studios. Does that history help?
It can, and it is worth keeping together. Studio wardrobe people brought pieces home across whole careers, and the boxes that come out of Valley houses often mix costume jewelry with call sheets, receipts, and photographs. Do not separate the paperwork from the jewelry, and do not sort the good-looking pieces out of the box, because the provenance travels with the whole lot rather than with any one brooch.
We are not in Los Angeles proper. How far out do you actually come?
Across the whole county and past its edges. California Vintage Buyers is at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, CA 92653, (949) 449-1255, and the driving is the normal shape of the week: Los Angeles runs weekly, the San Fernando Valley on its own dedicated days, Ventura County and the Conejo Valley weekly, and Pasadena and the San Gabriel side on the same habit. Thousand Oaks, Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, Sherman Oaks, Northridge, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Altadena and San Marino are all ordinary stops rather than special trips. There is no minimum and the visit is free, so text photos of the box and we will tell you the same day when we are next through.
Do you buy costume jewelry in bulk?
Yes, and bulk is where this category works best for everyone. A large accumulation, a costumer's stock, a reseller winding down, an estate with jewelry in every closet: we price the notable pieces individually, put one clear bulk offer on the volume, haul it all in one trip, and pay cash on the spot. The bigger the lot, the more sense the drive makes, anywhere in Los Angeles County.
A resale shop offered one price for the whole box, unsorted. Is that normal?
It is common, and it is the arrangement most likely to shortchange you, because one blended number on an unsorted box always averages in the buyer's favor. A fair costume buyer sorts first and prices second: signed pieces individually, the modest pile as an honest lot, with the reasoning out loud. Ask any buyer which pieces they found signed and what each contributed. If the answer is vague, the number probably is too.
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.
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Also from California Vintage Buyers
- Somewhere in the costume box, a Trifari is waiting.→
- The Valley kept its jewelry boxes for sixty years.→
- Pasadena jewelry boxes were built by people who dressed for things.→
- Conejo Valley dressers are full of jewelry nobody has read.→
- Inherited jewelry, read before anything leaves the house.→
- Orange County jewelry boxes are full of names nobody checked.→
- Estate buyers for Long Beach, where the houses kept everything.→
- Estate buying in Beverly Hills, where discretion is the whole point.→
- Sell vintage clothing in Los Angeles, to dealers, not resellers.→