Sell to Us · Costume Jewelry · Orange County
Orange County jewelry boxes are full of names nobody checked.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
California Vintage Buyers buys costume jewelry in Orange County: Trifari, Miriam Haskell, Eisenberg, Weiss, Coro, Bakelite and the unsigned pieces too, sorted clasp by clasp at your table and paid for in cash before we leave. Our warehouse is in Laguna Hills, so the free house call usually lands within days. Call (949) 449-1255.
Orange County holds one of the deepest supplies of good costume jewelry in the country, and most of it is about to be sold for a dollar a piece at an estate sale. The county's retirement communities, Laguna Woods above all, concentrated a whole generation of women who bought their cocktail jewelry new in the 1940s through the 1960s, wore it well, and kept it. Trifari, Miriam Haskell, Eisenberg, Weiss, Coro: the names that matter hide on clasps and pin stems, and they are sitting in dresser drawers from Fullerton to San Clemente.
We buy from our warehouse at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, CA 92653, by the team behind Old 44 Vintage. Orange County house calls are the shortest drives we make, and the visit is free. Costume jewelry is a category we sort piece by piece, in front of you, with a loupe on every closure. The signed and the special get priced individually. The modest gets an honest lot offer. Nothing gets waved away as junk without being looked at first.
What we pull out of Orange County jewelry boxes
Signed designer costume
Miriam Haskell, Trifari, Eisenberg, Schiaparelli, Boucher, and the other names collectors chase. The signature is tiny and often worn; we check every piece.
Bakelite
Carved bangles, cherry and figural pins, and dice. We test suspected Bakelite properly at the table instead of guessing.
1940s sweetheart and retro pieces
Wartime brooches, lockets, and the big bold gold-tone pieces of the late 40s, a constant in longtime county households.
The whole unsorted box
Fine mixed with costume, tangled and unlabeled. We separate the piles in front of you and explain each one.
House calls countywide, usually within days
Our warehouse sits on Moulton Parkway in Laguna Hills, which puts every corner of Orange County within an easy drive: Laguna Woods and the south county retirement communities, the older neighborhoods of Fullerton, Orange, and Santa Ana where houses held the same family for fifty years, and the coast from Seal Beach to San Clemente. Costume jewelry is usually part of a larger moment, a downsizing or a parent's home being emptied, so we are happy to look at everything else in the house on the same visit. The evaluation is free, unhurried, and carries no obligation.
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.
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.
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
Is costume jewelry actually worth anything, or only gold?
Most costume jewelry is modest, and we say so plainly. But the right names are not: signed Miriam Haskell, Eisenberg, and Schiaparelli pieces bring real collector money, and good Bakelite can outprice gold jewelry sitting in the same box. The only way to know which box you have is to check every clasp, which is exactly what we do.
My mother's jewelry box is a tangle of everything. Should I sort it first?
Please do not. Sorting by appearance throws the valuable pieces in with the modest ones, because the difference is in the marks, not the looks. Bring us the tangle. We sort it on the table in front of you, signed from unsigned, and price the piles honestly.
How fast can you come out in Orange County?
Usually within a day or two, sometimes the same day. We are based in Laguna Hills, so Orange County visits are the shortest drives we make. Call or text photos to (949) 449-1255 and we will tell you the same day whether a visit makes sense.
Where exactly do the maker’s names hide on costume jewelry?
On a brooch, look at the back of the catch plate and along the pin stem. On a bracelet or necklace, check the back of the clasp and the small hang tag on the end link. On earrings, look at the back of the clip or screw fitting. Marks are tiny, often worn thin, and sometimes just a few letters, so use a phone camera zoomed in rather than reaching for polish. Metal polish removes plating and takes the mark off with it.
The carved bangles look like Bakelite. How do we test them without ruining them?
Run one under hot tap water for half a minute and smell it immediately; Bakelite gives off a faint chemical, formaldehyde-like odor that later plastics do not. It also has real heft, no mold seam, and a deeper clunk than a hollow modern bangle when two are tapped together, and creams and whites have usually mellowed toward butterscotch with age. Do not use the hot-pin test that circulates online, because it leaves a permanent burn hole, and keep bangles away from alcohol, ammonia cleaners, and the dishwasher, all of which dull the polish.
Some of the cocktail brooches have dark or missing rhinestones. Should we clean them or have stones replaced first?
Neither. Those stones are foil-backed, and any soak, ultrasonic cleaner, or jewelry dip drives water behind the foil and turns them permanently gray, which is exactly what the dark stones you are looking at already are. A brooch missing one stone is a normal, priced condition; a brooch with a modern replacement glued in the wrong color and cut reads as damaged. Dust with a dry soft brush if you must, and bring them as they are.
The estate sale is already scheduled. Should the costume jewelry just go in it?
Pull the jewelry out first and have it read separately. Estate sales are excellent at emptying a house and famously bad at pricing jewelry: the sale runs one weekend, the crowd hunts bargains, and the resellers who arrive at seven in the morning are there because the good pieces are underpriced. We can read the box before the sale date, free, anywhere in Orange County, and the modest remainder can still go on the tables.
Is there a minimum, a fee, or a consignment wait?
None of the three. There is no minimum number of pieces, no charge for the visit or the evaluation, and no consignment, so you are not waiting on an auction or on someone else's sale to be paid. We come to you anywhere in Orange County and take the whole collection in one visit, however many boxes, trays, bins, and drawers it turns out to be. The signed pieces are priced individually in front of you, the modest remainder is bought as an honest lot rather than left behind, and you are paid cash the same visit.
We are clearing decades of costume jewelry, bins and drawers of it. Is that too much?
The opposite. Big lots are the visits we most want, and at that size we come to you rather than have you carry anything. We can work through an entire bedroom of jewelry in one Orange County house call: every clasp checked, the signed pieces priced on their own, the volume bought as one fair bulk number, and the whole amount paid in cash before we leave. Quantity moves a visit up the calendar, not off it.
I have not decided whether to sell my mother's costume jewelry. Is it too early to have it looked at?
No, and looking is not selling. An evaluation costs nothing, carries no obligation, and simply tells you what is in the box: which pieces are signed, which are Bakelite, which are modest. Families often want that answer before dividing things or deciding anything at all, and adult children are welcome at the visit or on the phone. Text photos to (949) 449-1255 and we will tell you the same day what deserves a closer look.
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
Also from California Vintage Buyers
- Somewhere in the costume box, a Trifari is waiting.→
- Inherited jewelry, read before anything leaves the house.→
- Estate buyers for Orange County. Call us first, while everything is still in the house.→
- The busiest estate town we serve is ten minutes from our door.→
- Antique buyers who come to you.→
- The best costume jewelry in America was made for Los Angeles.→