Vintage jewellery is the term I use for jewellery that was made in the 60s, 70s, 80s or even the 90s or, of course, earlier than that. Vintage jewellery is in demand these days and there are so many reasons why you should consider a purchase.
Firstly, vintage jewellery is plentiful. It is available in the UK in charity shops (thrift shops) and at boot fairs (garage sales) as well as in most jewellers but that is not all. Vintage jewellery is available in perfusion on the internet at places like Ebay and Etsy shops where, although you can’t pick it up and look at it, you can now see photographs and buy with confidence usually with a full money back guarantee. Scams and rogues exist, of course, as they do in any walk of life, but my experience with buying from the internet has only ever been a positive one.
So what are the three big reasons to buy vintage? Not in any order of priority, they are:
Investment
Jewellery, of course, keeps its value, particularly if it is gold or silver or other precious metal along with valuable stones. However, vintage jewellery can be purchased often at well below its intrinsic value so the investment value can be far higher than for modern, shop bought items.
For most people, of course, investment is not a primary consideration because they buy jewellery for its beauty but the money has to be earned and the fact that items can sometimes appreciate in value and fetch a good price can be important later on.
Style
Modern jewellery, in my opinion, is often not of good quality and seems, these days, to be made to last just a few years: if you are lucky. Vintage jewellery, however, was made by craftsmen to a high standard and will long outlast modern equivalents making it a good choice to buy.
I also think that older jewellery has much more style and complements both modern and vintage clothing much better. Also it has that quality that often makes people stop and look and ask about the piece.
Price
I’m going to look at choosing jewellery next time but price, if you are careful, can be an eye-opener. You can get really stylish, good quality items for well under the price you would have to pay for something made today. This means that, for the same budget, you can have many more items.
A friend of Sixties Britain called Chasing Secrets has put a video up on her You Tube channel all about vintage jewellery which is well worth watching. Not only does she show you items from her own collection but she talks about prices and values. Note that the video if from a British person so prices and places are British.
A link to the video is here.
In the next article in this series I will look at sources and give some important and timely tips on how to buy and how not to be conned.
As there are no links to jewellery for sale in this article I did some research on Amazon UK and the big advert below is the result. To get started, take a look and I think, as I was, that you will be surprised!
Photo for this article from StacyZ aka Adore_One
