Costume Jewelry Need-to-Knows

May 2023

My fascination with jewelry began as a little girl when I would admire and ask my grandmother about all the beautiful jewelry she owned and wore. Lucky for me, I inherited most of my grandmother's jewelry along with all of my mother's collection. I was very taken by several CORO pieces that were among my inherited collection, and thus my costume jewelry collecting began. At this point, I think I have over 500 pieces of Coro in my personal collection.

The challenge in collecting costume jewelry is in finding what are labeled “book” pieces, if you want to build a semi-valuable collection. Book pieces are select costume jewelry pieces whose “pedigrees" have been established, appraised, and appear in any of the various costume jewelry books such as Coro, Trifari, Hobe, Weiss, and so forth. After many years of collecting, I finally came across the noted Coro Salamander Pin (if you look at my photo to the right, it is in the upper right-hand corner). The pin is Rhodium-plated and encrusted with white Austrian crystals. It was designed by Gene Verri, one of Coro’s first and most famous designers. The “book” value of the piece is now over $700.