Sell to Us · Costume Jewelry · Newport Beach
Newport Beach jewelry boxes keep Chanel next to the real thing.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
California Vintage Buyers buys costume jewelry in Newport Beach: Chanel, Dior, Kenneth Jay Lane, Miriam Haskell, Trifari and the unsigned cocktail pieces too, read clasp by clasp at your table on a free house call and paid for in cash the same visit. The fine jewelry in the same box gets a free identification. Call (949) 449-1255.
Newport Beach has been a place people dressed for since it incorporated in 1906. Balboa Island’s cottages went up on sand that W.S. Collins dredged from the bay in 1908 and 1909, and the island joined the city in 1916. Lido Isle was planned as a Mediterranean resort after W.K. Parkinson bought the mudflat in 1923, the year Corona del Mar was annexed. The Bluffs rose above the Back Bay through the 1960s, the decade Fashion Island opened at Newport Center, in September 1967. Each wave brought households with occasions for good jewelry, and many are still the same families.
That produces a particular kind of jewelry box. Designer costume sits beside fine jewelry, because the women who shopped Fashion Island and traveled to Paris bought both: a Chanel brooch with poured glass, a Dior parure with the year on its plaque, Kenneth Jay Lane for the charity dinners. The family opening that box a generation later assumes the costume half is the worthless half. In Newport it is often the better half.
We are California Vintage Buyers, at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, CA 92653, the team behind Old 44 Vintage, about twenty miles down the road. We come to your home free and sort the box in front of you: designer and signed costume priced individually with the reasoning said out loud, the rest bought as an honest lot, cash before we leave. The fine pieces get a free expert identification, and if you decide to sell those we know the reputable buyers and will point you to the right one.
What Newport Beach jewelry boxes turn out to hold
Chanel and Gripoix poured glass
Brooches, cuffs and pearl-and-glass sautoirs with the glass poured by hand into a wire frame, so the back tells as much as the front. The best brooches reach four figures at specialty auction; most pieces sit well below that, and we say which is which.
Dior from the Henkel & Grosse years
From 1955 the German firm made most of Dior’s costume jewelry and put the year on the plaque. Earlier American pieces marked Christian Dior by Kramer count too.
Kenneth Jay Lane and the cocktail houses
The big gilt and faux-stone pieces bought for Newport evenings, alongside Schiaparelli, Boucher, Eisenberg Original and crown-marked Trifari.
Miriam Haskell
Seed pearls and glass hand wired onto brass filigree, often unsigned before the late 1940s. Bead necklaces in good condition sit around $100 to $300 as of August 2026, elaborate signed work higher.
Matched sets and the boxes they came in
Parures, and the Chanel and Dior boxes, pouches and receipts that date a piece and prove where it was bought. Keep them with the jewelry.
The whole box, both kinds together
Costume tangled with fine, unsorted and uncleaned. We separate the two piles at your table and explain each one: the costume side gets our offer, the fine side a free read and an honest referral.
The islands, the hills and the gates, quietly
Newport calls are about twenty miles from our Laguna Hills warehouse, under half an hour up the 405 or the 73 outside the rush, so most are scheduled within days, usually for a quiet weekday morning. We work the whole city: Balboa Island and the Peninsula, Lido Isle and Linda Isle, Corona del Mar, the Bluffs, Eastbluff and Dover Shores, Big Canyon, Harbor Ridge and Newport Coast. Guard gates are routine; leave our name at the gate and the vehicle is unmarked. The evaluation is free with no obligation, we are used to working alongside a trustee or an estate attorney when the jewelry is part of a larger settlement, and the warehouse is open by appointment if you would rather not host a visit.
How to date Chanel and Dior costume jewelry from the mark
Designer costume is the easiest costume to date, because both houses changed their marks at documented moments. Read these as decades rather than dates.
| What the mark says | What it usually means | Era |
|---|---|---|
| No mark, or only FRANCE on the clasp | Chanel signed almost nothing before it reopened in 1954. Unsigned is normal for early work and is not proof of a fake; the construction and the glass decide it | Chanel, 1920s to early 1950s |
| CHANEL stamped plainly, sometimes with three stars | The first signed era, after the 1954 reopening | Chanel, 1954 to about 1971 |
| Round plaque, interlocked CC, copyright and registered marks, MADE IN FRANCE | The marks changed after Coco Chanel died in 1971 | Chanel, 1970s |
| A plaque carrying a year | Many plaques of the decade state the year the piece was made | Chanel, 1980s |
| Two-digit year beside the CC with a letter, 93 P or 95 A | Year plus season, A for autumn and P for spring | Chanel, 1993 onward |
| Christian Dior or Chr. Dior with a year and Germany | Henkel & Grosse made most Dior costume jewelry under license from 1955 and dated the plaque | Dior, 1955 onward |
| Christian Dior by Kramer | American made under an earlier license, from around 1950, without a year | Dior, late 1940s to 1950s |
Mark eras compiled September 2026 from collector references, which disagree on exact cut-over years. A mark dates the design; the piece itself, its condition and its box set the price.
A Recent Find
A 1940s Levi’s Type 1 jacket, sold to us by a former dealer who knew exactly what he had. We paid $12,000 in cash, the same day.
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
Chanel and Dior pieces are costume. Why would they be worth reading next to the fine jewelry?
Because the market prices them as design, not as material. A Chanel brooch with Gripoix poured glass or a dated Dior parure is collected the way a signed print is, and the Lion & Unicorn costume value guide puts the best Chanel poured-glass brooches at $750 to $2,500 and up at specialty auction as of August 2026, more than plenty of fine pieces bring. The costume gets our offer at the table; the fine jewelry gets a free identification and an honest referral if you want to sell it.
How does a house call work on the islands or behind a guard gate?
The same as anywhere, with two adjustments. For a gated community like Big Canyon, Linda Isle or Harbor Ridge, leave our name at the gate and we arrive in an unmarked vehicle; nothing about the visit is posted anywhere. On Balboa Island and the Peninsula, where parking is the real gate, we come at a quiet hour, park once, and bring what a jewelry visit needs in one bag. The reading happens at your table, at your pace.
We have an insurance appraisal for the Chanel and the fine pieces. Should we bring it out?
Yes, and not for the numbers. An insurance schedule records what a family has since forgotten: the maker, the year a piece was bought, the store, sometimes a photograph, and that record is worth more to a read than the replacement figure beside it. It also shows which pieces the family considered fine, which in Newport is not always how they look. We treat it as an inventory and price the costume on the market rather than on the schedule.
My siblings are out of state. Can they watch you read our mother’s collection?
Yes, on a video call from your phone while we work. We hold each piece up to the camera, say what it is and why it matters, and give one number per piece so nobody has to take anyone’s word for it afterward. Anything a sibling wants kept comes out of the pile then and there. Whoever has authority over the estate signs, and the itemized record goes to every name you give us the same day.
How do I tell how old my Chanel costume jewelry is?
Start with whether it is signed. Chanel marked almost nothing before it reopened in 1954, so an unsigned piece with hand-poured glass can be early rather than fake. A plain CHANEL stamp belongs to the 1950s and 60s, a round plaque with the interlocked CC and Made in France begins in the 1970s, many 1980s plaques state the year, and from 1993 the plaque reads a two-digit year with A or P for the season. References disagree on exact cut-over years, so read these as decades.
The Dior pieces have a year on them. Is that reliable?
Mostly, yes, and it is why Dior is the easiest designer costume to date. From 1955 the German firm Henkel & Grosse made most of Dior’s costume jewelry under license, and its plaques carry Christian Dior or Chr. Dior with the year and usually Germany. Earlier American pieces read Christian Dior by Kramer, from around 1950, without a year. The date gives the design year, not the value: condition, a complete set and the original box do that.
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
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