If you collect vintage and antique silver or gold charms and charm bracelets, you'll find a wealth of choices on eBay--it's a charm collector's dream.  But as more and more people fall under the spell of vintage charms,  prices have risen, and so have the risks of buying unwisely. I've been selling charms on eBay for almost six years (I'm an avid collector myself), and in those years the pitfalls have multiplied. It's crucial today, as never before, to become an educated collector--you can find the most wonderful charms, but you can also fill a bracelet with counterfeits.  Here are some tips to help you on your way, whether you've just discovered vintage charms or been collecting all your life.

Take Your Time

When collectors first see all the terrific vintage charms available, they often get carried away with enthusiasm. They bid wildly, convinced that they'll never see a charm again. After a few weeks and a ton of money, they notice that the wishing well charm they spent $50 on has appeared ten times since from various sellers and usually goes for $15.  So don't rush into bidding without taking a little time first to research and watch the market--the time you spend will be the best investment in your collection that you can ever make.  Just about every charm was mass-produced to one extent or another and will come around again, sooner or later.  Save your big bids for charms that are genuinely scarce or very much in demand.

Choose a Theme (or Two or Three or . . .)

It's a good idea to have a theme in mind before you start buying, so that you don't end up with a random pile of charms that don't work together. Your theme can be as broad or as narrow as you like.  You can put together a bracelet that tells your life story, one filled with remembrances of a special vacation or of many, a bracelet of charms related to your profession, one of all jeweled charms or all hearts or all animals or all zodiac charms.  You can choose all mechanical charms, or all 1940s charms. One of the most clever bracelets I've seen is a Time and Money bracelet, chock full of clocks of every sort, along with a variety of mad money charms, ingots, and coins from around the world--both ingenious and attractive!  Here's my personal bracelet of food and cooking charms:

Generally speaking, you'll have a more successful bracelet if you use charms that are fairly similar in size, era, and material.  Large, chunky English openers can overwhelm and even damage delicate charms of the 1940s, Victorian and 1950s charms are seldom a good match, and although I personally love gold and silver mixed on a bracelet, combining rhodium-plated sterling charms with non-rhodiumed ones can be problematic.  But of course you can make a bracelet with whatever you like--it's your personal statement.

Is It Really Rare?

This falls under the "know the market" umbrella, but it's worth a special mention.  Everytime I browse eBay, I see vintage charms that are described as rare that are, in a word, not.  Sometimes it's a seller deliberately hyping their wares, hoping to get higher bids.  More often, though, it's a seller who is not very experienced with charms and who equates "I haven't seen it before" with rarity.  There may be no intention whatsoever to deceive, but that doesn't mean the claim is true.  So take claims of "RARE!" with a grain of salt, unless they're from a seller with years of experience.

Is It Really Vintage?

Here's a lovely bracelet of 1940s puffed hearts:

Except that they're not 1940s hearts--they're restrikes and reproductions made in the 1970s and 1980s (except for a 1960s enamel heart and a 1930s padlock), newly assembled on a vintage chain.  It's a lovely bracelet nonetheless, and vintage-y, but it's not an authentic World War II-era bracelet, which is what it would appear to be to most people, and thus is worth much less than the genuine article.  The lesson to be learned is that things are not always what they seem.

Bracelets

A vintage charm bracelet, without any other qualifiers, is one in original vintage condition--that is, sold as found.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with a seller putting together a bracelet of vintage elements, or of mixing in new charms with old, but an honest seller will tell you that that's what they've done.  Not all do, so beware.

Charms

As the demand for vintage charms began to increase a few years ago, a number of makers started to reproduce them, either from old molds, or from new molds made from old charms.  More and more of these old designs are being reproduced every month, and most of them are represented quite honestly as what they are: new reproductions of vintage charms.  They can be of excellent quality, and are a great way of adding a charm to your collection that might be prohibitive in price in its vintage version.

The problem comes when these charms enter the secondary market--that is, when they're bought and resold--because they're increasingly being sold as genuine vintage.  Sometimes it's deliberate; there are sellers who sell nothing but repros described as vintage, other sellers who mix in repros with real vintage, and yet others who sell charms designed to look vintage but which don't even exist in vintage versions.  Some sellers trumpet "vintage" in a title and then unobtrusively qualify it as "vintage-style" in the description.  Some sellers list new charms in the vintage category without actually saying they're vintage, leading the unwary buyer to assume the charms are vintage.  And then sometimes it's not at all deliberate--a seller buys a repro without knowing it's one and then resells it in all good faith as vintage.  That seller's heart is pure, but in the end you're still stuck with a new charm that you've paid way too much money for.

So how do you protect yourself?

• Educate yourself by looking at as many charm listings as possible.
• Read descriptions, every single word.
• Look at feedback--not just the feedback a seller's received but also the feedback they've left for buyers.
• Ask questions--and if a seller doesn't give you a satisfactory answer, beware.
• Consider joining eBay's Vintage Charms & Charm Bracelets group, where you can ask questions, get answers, and share your passion with other vintage charm lovers. To learn more, see my About Me page.

Collect What You Love

Please don't let the above warnings scare you away from buying on eBay, because if you do, you'll miss out on the most comprehensive and spectacular source of vintage charms in the world.  Most vintage charms and charm bracelets listed on eBay are just what the seller says they are.  If you get one that isn't--and it's bound to happen, because it happens to everyone--consider it part of your education.  If you buy what you love, you can get pleasure from it no matter the age. And buying what you love, then putting it together in your own personal way to make a unique charm bracelet, one that delights your eye and is rich with meaning for you, is what collecting charms is all about.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you found this guide helpful, you might also enjoy reading my other three guides for vintage charm collectors.

What are my vintage charm credentials?  I've been a collector and dealer for years, and started eBay's Vintage Charms & Charm Bracelets group, which I lead.  I was the technical advisor for Charms and Charm Bracelets: The Complete Guide, by Joanne Schwartz (Schiffer Books, 2005), which includes many photos of charms from my collection, and together with Joanne lectured on antique and vintage charm bracelets at the 2005 Vintage Fashion and Costume Jewelry convention in Providence, RI.  I'm a member of eBay's jewelry category Voices program. And yes, I adore vintage charms!

Important note!  The Items from eBay Sellers shown to the right of this guide are chosen by eBay, not by me, so please don't assume that I have anything to do with their selection, or that I endorse them in any way.

Copyright © 2005-2006 gelatogrrl.  This material may not be reproduced in any form, or linked to electronically, without the express written permission of the author.