Recommended Reading: Miller’s Costume Jewelry How to Compare & Value
My husband and I have switched gears in our eBay store, listing a lot of vintage sterling charms as opposed to costume jewelry. While I have been on break from listing vintage costume jewelry- I have taken the opportunity to check out several books from the library. There is such a huge variety of vintage costume jewelry, it would be impossible to see it all and so I find it interesting to look at pictures of and learn more about other lines of jewelry that I don’t see too much of in person.
One of the books I checked out recently was; Miller’s Costume Jewelry How to Compare and Value by Steven Miners. Of all the books I checked out, I enjoyed this one the most. This costume jewelry guide was just filled with beautiful pictures and the layout of the book was much like a visual encyclopedia. Not that it was a simplistic guide, but I rather enjoyed how it showed key features of particular lines of costume jewelry- pointed out on the actual pieces of jewelry.
For example below are two pictures from this fabulous guide- one from the Trifari section and the other on Czech jewelry.
A page from the Trifari section courtesy of Miller’s Costume Jewelry.
A page on Czech Jewelry from Miller’s Costume Jewelry.
It seems to me a lot of the costume jewelry guides out there are just pages of pages of pictures with arbitrary figures (book values) on costume jewelry pieces. This guide is much different as you can see from just the few pages I have shown you. It gives you a more in depth look at details that an otherwise untrained eye might not see. I found this guide to be superior to the to the others in that it went beyond giving just a picture and market value of particular pieces. It also showed craftsmanship and a historical perspective of the design house and why particular pieces were created and popular during certain eras. Collecting costume jewelry can be like any risky undertaking and the more information you have the better equipped to make good purchases and enjoy your collection.
MILLER’S COSTUME JEWELY
How to Compare & Value
By Steven Miners
Special Consultant: Tracy Tolkien
Octupus Publishing Group, London 2006
ISBN 1 84000 778 8
