Sell to Us · Costume Jewelry · Thousand Oaks

Conejo Valley dressers are full of jewelry nobody has read.

The Conejo Valley filled up inside a single generation. Families came over the grade through the 1960s and 70s, bought new houses in Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park and Westlake Village, raised children there, and stayed. Two things follow from that, and both of them sit in a dresser drawer. The jewelry those households bought new during the cocktail decades is still here, and the pieces their mothers and grandmothers left them rode along in the same boxes. What almost never happens is anyone reading it. The box gets a glance, gets called fake, and heads for the donation bag with a Trifari crown in it.

(949) 449-1255Or text photos to the same numberOr send photos online

Free visit · cash offers · no obligation

We are California Vintage Buyers, at 23011 Moulton Pkwy, Suite G-11, Laguna Hills, CA 92653, and Ventura County is a weekly run for us. A jewelry box is reason enough for the drive on its own. We come to your house, free, and go through the box at your table with a loupe on every clasp, hook and pin stem: signed pieces priced individually with the reasoning said out loud, the modest remainder bought as an honest lot rather than left behind, and cash before we leave. Call or text photos to (949) 449-1255 and we will tell you the same day whether a visit makes sense.

What Conejo Valley 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 and usually worn thin.

Bakelite

Carved bangles, cherry and figural pins, and dress clips. We test the suspects properly at your table and show you the result rather than guessing out loud.

Matched sets from the cocktail years

Necklace, bracelet and earrings bought together in the 1950s and 60s. A complete set is worth more than the same three pieces sold apart, so we keep them together.

The inherited box inside the box

The 1930s and 40s pieces that came down from a mother or grandmother and ended up mixed in with everything else. They are usually the oldest and best things in the drawer.

The whole unsorted tangle

Bins, trays, drawers, and the shoebox in the closet. Unsorted is how we prefer it, because sorting by looks separates the good from the plain in exactly the wrong direction.

The Conejo sits on our Ventura County run

We work the valley end to end on those days: the older Conejo grid and Newbury Park, North Ranch and the Westlake Village side, Agoura Hills and Oak Park, with Moorpark, Camarillo and Simi Valley scheduling onto the same trip. A call in the morning often turns into a visit within a few days, sometimes the next one. The evaluation is free, unhurried, and carries no obligation: plenty of Conejo families use us purely to find out what is in the box before they decide anything at all. If the jewelry is part of a bigger clear-out, we look at the rest of the house on the same visit, from the closets to the garage shelves.

The welcome banner and a mannequin in vintage western wear at Old 44 Vintage
Every piece gets looked at by people who do this daily.

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

01

Call or text photos.

A real conversation about what you have, no pressure to sell.

02

We come to you.

We look at everything, at your pace. We know what we're seeing.

03

Cash offer, same visit.

A fair price on the spot, or a full estate sale run for you.

Common questions

You are based in Orange County. Do you really come out to the Conejo Valley for a jewelry box?

Yes, and it is a normal week rather than a favor. Ventura County is a weekly run for us, and Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills and Oak Park all sit on it. One good box justifies the stop on its own, and we do not ask for a minimum number of pieces. Text a few photos to (949) 449-1255 first and we will tell you the same day whether the drive makes sense, which saves us both a wasted afternoon.

The pieces were bought new here in the 1960s and 70s. Is that the era that actually matters?

Partly. Costume value concentrates in the 1930s through the 1960s: signed Trifari, Miriam Haskell, Eisenberg and real Bakelite. Later mass-market pieces are usually modest, in the range of $5 to $50 each and sold in lots, and we say that plainly rather than dressing it up. But families misdate jewelry constantly, and the older inherited pieces almost always ride in the same box as the newer ones, which is why the whole drawer is worth ten minutes with a loupe before anything is decided.

Three of us are splitting our mother’s jewelry. Can you tell us what each pile holds before we divide it?

That is one of the most useful visits we make, and looking is not selling. We read the whole collection free, tell you which pieces are signed, which are Bakelite, and which are ordinary, and you can divide it with that information instead of guessing. Siblings are welcome at the table or on speakerphone from out of state. One request: do not break up matched sets between people, because a necklace, bracelet and earrings that were bought together are worth more as a set than as three separate keepsakes.

If I text photos first, which pieces should I photograph and how?

Start with one wide shot of the whole box or tray so we can see the scale of it. Then photograph the backs, not the fronts: the back of the catch plate and the pin stem on a brooch, the inside of the clasp and the small tag on the end link of a necklace, the back of the clip or screw fitting on earrings. That is where the names live. Use a phone camera zoomed in under a bright lamp, keep the piece flat on a plain surface, and send the blurry ones anyway rather than polishing anything to make a mark easier to read.

Some of the bangles might be Bakelite. Is there a safe way to check before you come out?

There is one safe test. Run the bangle under hot tap water for about thirty seconds and smell it immediately: Bakelite gives off a faint chemical, formaldehyde-like odor that later plastics do not. Weight and sound help too, since Bakelite is dense in the hand, shows no molding seam, and gives a dull clack rather than a light click when two pieces touch. Do not use the hot pin test that circulates online, which leaves a permanent burn hole, and keep bangles away from acetone, ammonia cleaners and the dishwasher.

My mother wants to keep a few favorites. Can we sell only part of the box?

Of course, and it is how most of these visits end. Pull out the pieces with memories attached before we arrive, or point at them as we go, and they never enter the conversation. We price what you are actually willing to part with and you keep the rest, with no pressure applied to the pieces you set aside. If the grandchildren might want something later, take a photograph of it now while it is still all in one place.

Is there anything else in the house you would look at on the same visit?

Usually, and it costs you nothing to ask. Alongside the jewelry we look at vintage clothing and denim, workwear, western wear, military keeping, Pokemon and other trading cards, and the general contents of a household being cleared. If the visit was booked for a jewelry box and the garage turns out to hold the better material, we would rather find that out at your table than have it go to the dump the following week.

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 itfrom there.

(949) 449-1255

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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