July 23, 2025 • 34 mins
In this episode of the What Sold Podcast, hosts Brandon and Matt delve into their fascinating experiences with costume jewelry. Brandon recounts an amusing tale of a bird encounter in London's Hyde Park, where Matt unexpectedly becomes a hero to the locals. The episode then transitions into an informative discussion on buying and selling vintage costume jewelry, highlighting sourcing methods, recognizing valuable pieces, and maximizing profit. They also touch on market trends, selling platforms like Etsy, and offer practical tips for both novice and experienced resellers. The episode concludes with a reminder of the value in even damaged or less valuable jewelry items, emphasizing their potential for crafting and repair purposes.
00:00 Introduction and Knighting Story
01:10 The Bird Incident in Hyde Park
07:37 Celebrating Podcast Milestones
08:43 Introduction to Costume Jewelry
10:28 Understanding Costume vs. Fine Jewelry
15:31 Making Money with Costume Jewelry
16:58 Sourcing Vintage Jewelry: Tips and Tricks
17:14 Evaluating and Pricing Jewelry
18:27 Selling Strategies for Maximum Profit
22:41 Navigating Online Marketplaces
24:22 Expanding Your Reselling Business
31:03 Final Thoughts and Community Engagement
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:38):
Welcome back to the What Sold podcast.
My name is Brandon.
I am here with my friend Matt I believehe's now sir Matt as he's been to the UK.
I believe you were knighted in Scotland.
Are you a Scottish knight?
It's an interesting thing becauseI was both knighted in Scotland
and also in England Oh, andthey also built the statue.
(00:58):
Let's talk it in a moment.
Let's talk about why I'm now a heroto all of those in, in London, London.
Yeah.
Let me set the stage,let me just jump into it.
Why not?
Let me set the stage here.
Why not?
Just go.
We're in Hyde Park.
Okay.
Pretty, Hyde Park, well known.
Yeah.
Historic park.
Very large.
We're walking around.
Nah, you know, the kidsare starting to get hungry.
(01:18):
So Flo and the, and the Littlens.
Uh, we roll up to this littlecafe place that's in the middle
along this long waterway, right?
So, we get lunch, we're outside, it'sdecent outside, not raining or anything.
And, we're having a good timeexcept that there's all these birds.
A lot of birds.
Dozens, hundreds, maybe.
(01:38):
Of various kinds, but the, the thingthey all have in common is that
they're just everywhere and they'renot just on the ground looking for
food, but they're like hopping up onthe table and they're bugging you.
Yeah.
And so we're, we're shooing them off.
We're laughing about it, but alsoit's annoying because we have
to crouch over our food to makesure something doesn't come in.
They're flying in.
Yeah, yeah.
All this to say, we're experiencingthis and I've shooed several away,
(02:00):
but they're not getting the message.
By the way, before you go on,it's well known that English
birds are a troublemaker.
They're a rebellious lot, soit's not surprising that they
would come after your food.
It's a well known factin the UK about UK birds.
That's right.
So, okay.
Well, that's good to know.
And, and a lot of these are, they'resmaller, they're not huge birds,
but they're They're after our stuff.
(02:21):
So, in a moment of, I don't knowwhat I was thinking, but I've got
essentially a sandwich in one hand.
Oh, I know where this is going.
I reach over really fast,like Mr. Miyagi fast.
And I grab a bird in my hand, like I grabit with my bare hand, I just grab it.
And I'm holding it.
It makes this chirp like, uh,Oh God, he's going to eat me.
(02:42):
Kind of like a sound.
Yep.
I hold this thing in my daughter.
What was the name we gave to her?
Bobby Jean.
Oh yeah.
Bobby Jean.
So Bobby Jean, she shouts, dad got a bird.
Dad has a bird in his hand.
And there are othertables around like, what?
Turning around, so I just getup and I walk over towards the
(03:06):
water and I just let this thing,I throw this thing up in the air.
It flies off.
Fly, be free.
And as it flies off, in this reallyweird surreal moment, all of the birds
in the area, again, like a hundredor more of these birds, in unison
jump up and fly off with this thing.
And all of a sudden now it's dead quiet.
There is not a single animal there.
(03:27):
Not a single bird, nothing.
Not just at our table, but forlike several tables on either side.
And people are laughing.
Some people are clapping.
And for the rest of the meal, I mean,another 20 minutes, at least not a
single bird came back to the area.
They were like, we're notgoing to mess with that dude.
He might catch us and kill us.
Long story to say, I hear they'rebuilding a statue, uh, in my
(03:50):
honor of that, in that area.
And the one thing about that TheAmerican hero that came over And there's
only two ways the statue's gonna go.
Either it's gonna be absolutelycovered in bird guano out of hatred for
you, or it will be pristine forever.
That's what it's gonna be.
That's what it's gonna be.
Because they're allafraid of the bird man.
Folks who are about to go and have a nicelittle brunch or something in Hyde Park,
(04:14):
I can't guarantee they're not there rightnow, but when I'm around they're gone
and if they put that statue there Theywon't come within a foot of the perimeter
of it because they have to respect thatso you really need to eat At the statue.
That's true.
Yeah, I guess you could climb upand have a seat there and have your
sandwich and It's like a green tag.
It's like a hand your hand would be up.
(04:35):
Oh clearly It's going to be a like agreek thing where i'm really muscular
So essentially what I am, uh, andthen I'm, I just have my hands in
the air and I'm just delicately.
You know, compassionately releasingthis bird back into the wild . I
envision that the statue will havelike birds on sh your shoulders.
(04:57):
Like Uncle Ramis.
Yeah.
As if I'm a Yeah.
Like I speak, I speak like I'mthe patron saint for birds.
Yeah.
Saint of birds.
I don't know that theremay be a saint for birds.
For animals there is, I'msure there, there's a Saint.
Yeah.
St. Francis for animal, St.Francis for, for animals.
So I guess the birdsfall into that category.
They're animals.
There's so many ways this story couldgo, the UK, so there's all sorts of
(05:18):
Saint Rusty, the bird, the bird man.
And the best is the statue will have aBass Pro Shop hat on it with glasses.
Yes, yellow tinted aviators.
And you're holding up,yeah, aviators, exactly.
Tinted aviators, sheep tinted aviators.
It's gonna be great.
All that to say, we had a great timeas, as we discussed on the last episode
(05:38):
in That was a little funny moment therewhere I had to listen up, you cross the
line birds, I'm gonna snatch you outof the air and then far better story.
If, if little Bobby Jean had said.
Mama, look, Papi's got himself a bird.
Right, not again!
We ain't eating bird forsupper again, are we?
(06:00):
Listen, you don't have to waste a bulletif you can just snatch it out of midair.
I believe Rusty can do anything.
There's no, no bullet necessary.
Because the fact that you wouldeven think try to do that with
your hand is just shocking to me.
Like I, I'm like, Oh, diseases, desperatetimes, call for desperate measures.
Well, you did get to eat your lunchunmolested for the next part of that.
(06:24):
With one hand, I couldn't usethe other hand after that.
Yeah, sure.
Because you touched a poisonousbird that's giving you the plague.
Absolutely.
Speaking of plague, my, my daughter,who is a swimmer, got a ear infection.
So she had to take this likeantibiotic and it was called,
it's called ciproflaxin.
And I was like, wait, thatsounds really familiar.
And it's the same antibiotic thatthey give people for the plague.
(06:47):
I'm like, well, she's covered there incase the black death comes back around.
Anyway, enough about Black Death.
Okay, sure.
Enough about your crazy bird stories.
Because they are multitudinous.
There are, there's a plethoraof your bird stories out there.
The time you flew with the eagles.
I mean, it's just.
The bottomless bag.
It will, it will just keepgetting down in there.
(07:08):
It feels like Rusty would have lots andlots of bird stories of where he was.
I don't know.
Some how.
He carries his little binocularswith him everywhere he goes.
I imagine it's like opera glasses though.
When you're looking at modified, modifiedbottom at a thrift store, he's not
going to go out and spend a bunch ofmoney on real glasses and he's going
to use that welder that he, that he gotat that auction and he'll subsequently
(07:33):
sold after fixing, modifying the glass.
So we're going to be taught.
We've, we've talked a lot aboutjewelry on this show over the year.
And by the way, Matt, I feellike we need to have a drum roll
for this, because this isa very important episode.
We just got an update from our;the people that host our podcast.
(07:57):
The service that hosts the brilliant.
And I don't know what, I believethere are some podcasts, the peacock.
The award for the podcast world.
I believe we should be getting one soon,but we just passed our 10, 000th download.
So folks out there who are longsuffering fans of the show.
(08:17):
Thank you so much for listening.
I believe we're closerto 20,000 more than that.
We, we need to get to 20,000 a week.
But hey, we're on our way.
Mm-hmm . But it's a big milestonefor anyone that, that podcasts,
most podcasts last three to fiveshows and fold after a month.
Hey, we're doing something hereon the what Feel like we're
in the nineties at this point.
We're somewhere out.
(08:38):
We're somewhere, somewhere up there.
getting, uh, somewhere out there.
All right.
So today we're going totalk about costume jewelry.
I am fascinated by this because you,you're always rolling out these stories
of, and even Bobby Jean said to merecently, she says, my dad buys jewelry
for 3 and sells it for like 500.
(08:59):
I'm like, wow.
Your dad's.
Yeah.
She's ambitious.
She's very impressed by youand your ability to take 3
items and turn them into gold.
So she goes, my dad finds itemsand it turns out they're gold.
That is true sometimes, but, I think thatthe concept my daughter has of money in
general, like amounts is a little bit off.
(09:19):
Yeah.
If she thinks I'm, I'm doingthat kind of a flip, a 3 to 500.
It has happened and it is not common,but it's actually funny that you say that
because that can apply to costume jewelry.
By the way, out there, listenerscostume jewelry, generally speaking,
is not typically as valuable asgold or silver fine jewelry, right?
(09:42):
That shouldn't surprise you.
However, there are some pieces ofcostume jewelry out there that can
sell for hundreds of dollars, ifnot into the thousands of dollars.
And in some cases is worth more thanthe equivalent, like a gold ring or
something, a piece of costume jewelry.
So there is, there are, there isa lot of it out there and there
(10:02):
are some really good values.
A lot of times when you're lookingfor it out there in the wild, you can
find it in, in bags, in groups, orsomeone's getting at a yard sale and
they, they just brought the whole,the little jewelry container out.
All right.
Well, you're, wait, you'regetting way ahead of yourself.
All right.
All right.
First, before we even do that,because this is, this shows about
me, it shows about my lack ofknowledge and what I don't know.
(10:25):
Please.
Please.
Put me back on the right path.
I have always wondered, numberone, I'm assuming I know where the
derivation of the word cost or thename costume jewelry comes from, but
what is the difference between costumejewelry and I guess fine jewelry?
I don't even know what we would call it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
It's not just black or white, meaningthat, that in every case you could look
(10:46):
at a piece and know definitively this iscostume versus fine, but I think generally
speaking, fine jewelry would refer tojewelry that's made out of a precious
metal or a semi precious metal like goldor silver or platinum, something like
that, and oftentimes we'll incorporategemstones, not glass, not plastic or
rhinestones, but genuine cut gemstones.
(11:09):
That would be fine jewelry.
Costume jewelry.
It can, in almost every way, lookthe same, just aesthetically, but
it's going to be made out of a cheapalloy, it's going to utilize plastic
rhinestones or glass, that kind of thing.
And a lot of times, the designsfor the costume jewelry are based
off of the designs for whatever waspopular fine jewelry at that time.
(11:31):
So whatever the styleis, they're doing it.
You can find pieces by fairlypopular costume jewelry.
And then if you look around, youcould find the equivalent looks
almost the same, but is going to be20 times more expensive because it's
got diamonds instead of rhinestones,for example, something like that.
So costume is just a cheapermaterials to create a piece of
(11:55):
jewelry that mimics something that'svaluable, that's more valuable.
But it's not necessarily less valuablethan fine jewelry per se, because
if it was a. A very popular costumejewelry made by, I don't know, a certain
artist that just use certain materials.
Yes.
Could technically fall into that categoryof costume jewelry, but it's actually
worth more than some fine jewelry.
(12:16):
Exactly.
So that's a good point.
No things that have, uh, that are madeby say an artist or someone can have
more value than the average piece ofcostume jewelry, jewelry that's produced,
or that was produced by certain brandsthat were boutiques smaller, maybe
they're no longer producing things.
That people look for thosepieces will, can sell for quite
(12:39):
a bit of money by themselves.
And there are even a few, but we shouldprobably put some names out there.
Uh, if people want to know, Yeah,I was going to say, what are some
famous names of costume jewelry?
So like the Lisa and Elser, is a producerthat makes that their own jewelry
that they have some that's called thatpeople refer to as Juliana jewelry.
(13:01):
And the difficult thing about some ofthese is that they're not often marked on
them because the way that they marked thatparticular jewelry was just by a little
paper and like hang tag off of it, right?
So they didn't, stamp it.
On the piece itself, but thenthere are others like crown Trafari
or Eisenberg, or there's a list.
If you look online, just look uppopular vintage costume jewelry brands,
(13:26):
you're going to find that really fast.
And so you can belooking around for those.
The way you tell usually isyou turn it on the upside down.
So you're looking, I mean, if it's aring, you look on the inside of it, like
anywhere, but if it's a brooch or a pin.
Or a pendant or something,you're going to turn that over
on the back and take a look.
Just see what it says, if it says, ifit's stamped with something indicating
(13:47):
that maybe it's made out of silver orsomething, or if you're just looking
for a maker's mark, because sometimesit's the whole name and sometimes
it's just letters or initials, but youcan look that stuff up pretty easily.
Okay, so let me ask you a question.
And if, when I think about fine jewelry.
Either it's a, it's a one off pieceor maybe it's a line of pieces.
They make a certain style.
(14:08):
I think about Tiffany or whatever.
In costume jewelry, do they ever doit where they release just a few?
So almost like collectors, they doit on purpose so that it'd be, maybe
there's only a hundred of thesepieces in the world, or do they pretty
much always just have thousands andtens of thousands of the pieces.
I think some of the smaller ones had, butas far as I know, there were definitely
(14:29):
lines of jewelry within the broader scopeof stuff that a company would produce
that maybe they would only do a particularstyle or this is this year's production.
Like we've changed every fewyears they change and they've got
some new designs, but generallyspeaking, it was a volume game.
They're not making fewer products for morethat'll sell for more money per piece.
(14:49):
They're producing.
Mass amounts at a cheaper price sothat it's an alternative to spending
a lot of money on a single thing.
You can get a bunch of costume jewelrythat looks the same from a distance
for the same or less money thanbuying one piece of fine jewelry.
So they're usually more in the volume gameof trying to produce a lot, sell a lot.
Okay.
Certain brands have, styles thatare pretty common to that brand.
(15:14):
Like you'll, I'll see a certainstyle of something and I'll
know, Oh, this is probably a corepiece or, Oh, this is probably.
Is that just because you'veseen thousands of them?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tens of thousands of individualbracelets and necklaces and rings and
brooches and pins and all of that.
So thank you for defining whata piece of costume jewelry is.
(15:35):
Now we're a show, as you like tosay, dear listener, where we want
to make money from this stuff.
So how can we make money?
Where do we find it?
How do we sell it?
How do we research it?
All that stuff.
Give us the details to youramount on how we can make money
from selling costume jewelry.
I think that the, this is whatI still prefer to do if I can.
(15:57):
And the easiest way to make moneybuying and selling costume jewelry
is you need to know the places to go.
So the places I source for thiskind of stuff at are online.
I'll even source it on eBay itself.
So I look for lots like groups of items.
It's more difficult to.
Make money off of awesome jewelry whenyou're just buying things piece by piece.
(16:20):
Because again, they don't sell fornearly as much by themselves, usually
as something like fine piece of jewelryis going to sell for, you need to have
more than just one or two things toleverage your expense on, because if
it takes three months to sell thatpiece, then you're waiting a long time.
So I'll go to yard sales.
It's great in the summertime.
Go to local auction houses, estate sales.
(16:43):
There's even auctions that are happeningin your community all the time online.
You just need to know where to go.
I think it's.
What is it called?
I was going to, I was tryingto think of the actual domain.
It's like yard sales.
net or something like that,or something like that.
Anyways, you can look it up andfind those, but I'll source there.
It's a good place to get stuff because.
It's not like going to an antiquestore where they've already researched
(17:06):
it and priced it based on whatthey're seeing themselves for.
You want to get them in groupsfrom people who are just trying
to move it they don't really care.
Or they don't know a wholelot about what they have.
So, what I do is I'll,I'll look at the pieces.
I'm looking for stuff that's heavier.
Because that indicates that maybe therhinestones are made of like a hard, like
a really heavy duty plastic or glass.
(17:26):
Usually ones that were made withglass are either older and or, or
More well made oftentimes I findthan just a little plastic stuff
that's rhinestones that are glued in.
These are actually set withprongs, that kind of thing.
So I'm looking at that.
I'm looking at the backs to seewhat kinds of brands make sense.
I don't have to see the whole thing.
I get a general idea prettyquick of what's in there.
(17:47):
And based again, on my experienceof selling stuff, I know what the
market is for certain types of pieces.
I would say generally go for.
Stuff, if you can find it, that arecolorful, like colored rhinestones,
and the larger the better.
If you're getting like a medium tosmall lot of brooches, and they're all
that crystal clear color rhinestone,those don't sell nearly as well.
It's hard to sell those for much,because there's just so many of them.
(18:10):
People, collectors, tend to likethe larger, more gaudy, with more
really flashy, really intricate, orreally colorful pieces of jewelry.
And that's true of necklacesand pendants and stuff as well.
But I look for lots of stuff.
I price out in my head how muchI'm going to be in per piece.
I'll buy it.
Now let's say I bought 50 brooches,like vintage pieces of costume jewelry.
(18:33):
I'm going to look through there.
I'm going to do research.
I'm going to find the ones, four orfive, eight, 10 that I think will sell
for the most money and the fastest.
And that's what I prioritize.
I get those research photograph listed.
I try to make my money back.
What I'm trying to do is make myinvestment back as fast as possible.
So sell a few items that are morevaluable, get that money back in.
Now I'm not floating my expense anymore.
(18:55):
And I can wait.
And see how the other ones sell.
I can price them high.
If people buy it, great.
If not, I'm not sweating it becauseI've already made my, I'm already
into the profit at this point.
And that practice doing that over andover and over again, rinse and repeat
is how I end up with tubs and tubs andtubs of jewelry and other items, because
I'm buying them at a discount per itembecause I'm buying them in a group.
(19:18):
I'm making my money back really fast.
The rest sits in storage until it sells.
And then you build up anice inventory of stuff.
So if something happens and you can't goout for two or three weeks, or there's a
health crisis and you're stuck at home fortwo months, you still got stuff to sell.
It takes time to do that, butit's really not difficult.
You can find the nice lots ofjewelry on Facebook, for example,
(19:41):
or eBay all day, every day.
And it's just a matter of, do you want togo out locally to find a place to buy it?
Or would you rather do that from thecomforts of your own home or whatever?
So it's out there.
You can find it at almost any, everythrift store has most, not, not always
Goodwills because now they send itoff and sell it online, like an online
(20:02):
auction on their, on a website, but localthrift stores and places and yard sales,
a lot of times we'll have something.
And if you go to a yard sale and theydon't have anything say, Hey, you don't
happen to have any like watches or jewelryor anything that you'd be interested in to
sell, they might, they might go inside andpull something out that they didn't have.
Has that happened to you?
(20:23):
Yeah, I've more witnessedit than doing it.
I still, I'm always trying to not makepeople feel uncomfortable or be pushy.
But if I am buying something, let'ssay they have some jewelry and
I'm going to get something, thenI might ask, Hey, do you happen to
have any other jewelry or watches?
I'm already a customer who'sgoing to buy from them.
I'm already showing interestin the thing that they have.
(20:45):
I don't go to a place and kind of.
Act like this is not cool stuffand then walk up and say, Hey, do
you have any of this other stuffthat I would be interested in?
I don't do that, but if I'm goingto buy something, I might ask, just
play it off the vibe of who's there.
All right.
Since I know you've talked aboutthis ad nauseum on this show, it
sounds like a lot of work to me.
Like you're getting tubs of jewelry.
(21:08):
How much time do you spend researchingthe item or it's just, you just
know them a lot less now because Iknow the brands and the things that
bring the money, so it really only.
The time it takes is essentially justsorting it, putting stuff that has
standalone value in its own pile, andthen things that I'll put in similar
groups together to sell that way.
But what I'm doing whileI'm, it's like multi purpose.
(21:30):
I'm going through to identify the morevaluable pieces so that I can separate it.
I'm also looking to see ifthere's any silver or gold.
I put that stuff aside becauseI'll sell that differently.
And I'm identifying thehighest value stuff.
So it takes a little while, but I'm, I'mactually pretty quick because I know the
brands, I don't have to research everybrand I look at most of them I already
know, and I've already had experiencewith it and, or costume pieces that
(21:53):
are cheaper, I've seen so many of them.
So I know there's a lot out there.
Those aren't going to be realeasy to sell because there's a
gajillion of them, of them out there.
Yeah.
I'll just go through that wayand then photograph and stuff.
But if you're going through andselling every piece by itself, I
Having to research every single oneand photographing everyone and in the
beginning it will take more time Youalmost can't cheat the process a little
(22:17):
bit of learning it But you'll learnvery quickly as I did you're gonna find
out what sells if you look up certaincategories ring costume rings vintage
costume Bangle or bracelet, and you goto what's selling for the most, you'll
notice the themes, it's certain brands,it's a certain look, it's certain colors,
and then that informs how you lookfor the things you want to buy next.
(22:41):
Alright, you may not have an answer tothis, but it just strikes me, is that
Etsy, which has sort of been known asthe artist, Center, but it's become
more of a place for freelance people.
So people that do art, butalso people that build websites
or do things like that.
Yeah.
You find a lot of really talented people.
You can sell antiques on there.
You don't have to have, have made thething that you're selling actually.
(23:03):
Right.
So how do they, how do you thinkEtsy does in comparison to, I know
eBay is the behemoth, the 10, 000pound gorilla in the room, but how do
you think selling on Etsy would go?
I think it would be similarin a lot of ways to eBay.
The pricing structure isslightly different there.
The system where you load your productin and give the details and stuff, the
(23:26):
way that that is organized is different.
In some cases, Etsy requiresmore information than eBay.
The setting up the shippingis a little different.
But once you learn just the userinterface there that you're going
to deal with on their website, thewhole process is mostly the same.
Now, I think that eBay Sells morejust because I think they have
(23:46):
more users and more buyers, butEtsy, I think does pretty well.
Now, I don't know how they do with regardto, I would assume the thing that they're
still best known for and what they dothe most sales for are customizable
products that a person puts up and it'slike, Oh, Hey, I'm looking for these
gift bags, or I'm looking, I want to getsome towels with this picture made for.
(24:08):
For this gift, for mother'sday or something like that.
Right.
And then you can put in a picture.
I think that's what it's breadand butter is, but the other
stuff are underpinning all of it.
These just regular salesof, of other things.
Yeah.
I know of a friend who sells on Etsydoes, art pieces and stuff that not
(24:28):
only that he makes himself, but alsostuff that he collects and seems to
like it, and we're going to be kickingaround in the next few months, a little
bit about Diversifying our platform.
So not to say that we wouldn't sell on,on eBay, but to sell in other places
like a new Shopify and that, and thatkind of deal, because I know you have
expressed in a kind and loving way thatonly you can do Matt, that at times it
(24:53):
could be challenging to sell on eBay.
And we're trying to offer.
It's funny as you were talking aboutlike, Oh, you got to put your time in
to figure out what awesome jewelry is.
Our job on this show is to apprentice you.
So if you're out there and you're tryingto fit, I think about when we started
the show, however long a year and a halfago, or whatever, how much I've learned
(25:14):
about what you do, and it's a hundredpercent because of this show in sense of
like, Oh, I know that has value or thathas value and that doesn't have value.
So we're obviously tryingto offer that up to people.
Don't think that you necessarily haveto just go out and do it yourself.
There are places like thisand I'm sure there are others.
Out there that are helpingyou understand that.
(25:35):
So we will be showing pictures ofdifferent costume jewelries and
things like that as we move along.
But anyway, I amfascinated with that world.
It feels like to me that now maybe I'mwrong because gold is so high, but the
ROI on costume jewelry seems pretty good.
Am I correct in that?
Yeah, it can be absolutely.
The prices of things individuallyat thrift stores has gone up quite
(25:58):
a bit in the last five years.
Yeah.
When I started doing this, that'salmost six years ago now, full time,
I could go out locally to thriftstores and get a costume piece of
jewelry for a buck, 75, two bucks.
Now they're at 3 a piece.
And then some, and then othersthat they think are like nicer,
(26:20):
they put it five or 6 a piece.
That's, it's hard to make a good return.
If you take a risk on a 5 piece.
And then you find out you're notgoing to sell it for more than 8.
That didn't really make alot of sense to buy that.
So that's why you want to seek outand you're going to do less going
out and less spending time looking.
(26:43):
Driving around and stuff to look forindividual pieces, then if you just
search online for large lots, you'llhave less trips you have to take and
you buy, you get more at a time whenyou do it, that's how I like to do it.
Try to find as large of a lot as I can.
Get the best price I can.
And sometimes you'll go, you'll goand, and, you'll be there to pick up or
(27:05):
buy some cotton jewelry from somebody.
And then you say, Yeah.
So like I sell things for a living.
Do you, you happen to have anything else?
Any fine jewelry, maybe coins, or doyou have any watches or pocket knives?
And then you're alreadythere to buy from them.
And they're like, yeah, I want more money.
Let me think what else I canpull out for this person.
I do that a lot whenI go out to buy stuff.
And more often than not people,no one turns me down cold.
(27:28):
They're like, yep, no, this is theonly thing I'm willing to sell today.
They're like, I think I have this andthat and they go in and they look and,
and all of a sudden now you have a,another, like I went years ago, it's
a couple of years ago to Wilmington,well family trip, I took a detour
and I went and bought a bunch ofvintage G. I. Joe stuff from this guy.
I remember that.
You remember that?
And as I'm loading it up, he's like,I guess next step is to, to work
(27:51):
on all my old transformer stuff.
I'm like, what was that?
And so after say that again, as soon as Iget done getting there, it was actually,
it was the G. I. Joe's or actually it wasStar Wars first was the stuff I bought.
And then he was like my, my G.I. Joe and Transformers stuff.
So I ended up buying another six oreight boxes and or tubs of stuff.
(28:11):
I believe you had to rent avehicle to take it all home
and it didn't make Flo happy.
I don't remember the partabout Flo being unhappy.
I'm just kidding.
I frankly do remember that.
I stored it.
All of it was in a large tub pile.
In our friend's garage for likethe last, the next three or
four days that we were there.
And then I had to rent a U Haultrailer to pull, to hitch onto our
(28:33):
vehicle and pull home because it waseither, here's where the fight came in.
We were having a legitimateconversation about.
Whether I should put the kidsin the vehicle or the stuff that
was bought to take back to selland that she didn't like that.
She didn't like that.
Put them on a bus.
They'll be fine.
They'll be fine.
At that point, littlePete was probably four.
(28:54):
He was old enough to be able to geton a Greyhound bus and make it home.
Sure.
Oh, sure.
That's right.
That's right.
We taught him all theskills at a very young age.
Rusty's kids are going to have skills.
Like knife fighting skills, a firemaking skills, they keep a butter
knife on their person at all times.
Of course, of course, it just seemslike that goes without saying.
(29:14):
One thing as I was listening to youand I was thinking about costume,
like everybody has costume George.
Everyone has like a jewelry box,my wife has a jewelry box, stuff
that her mom had, that she'snever ever worn, never gonna wear.
Never going to, yeah.
Never, and I was thinking about, doyou ever do like farmhouse hunts?
Does that, I know, that show AmericanPickers, where guys, they would go around,
(29:37):
does that stuff ever really happen?
Probably, I just haven'tever put any effort into it.
I mean, if I just went to a smalltown and started going around to
shops and asking questions, somebodywould turn me on to somebody who has.
A place or we'd want something, orif I just rolled around and went
door to door, I'm sure, but that'sjust not how I've been operating.
(29:57):
It would be fun.
Shoot.
If someone wants to reach out and,turn this podcast into a show,
I will absolutely go out and tryto find some of those barns and
we'll, we'll make this a thing.
Absolutely.
The funny part about, I justimagined Rusty going out.
He's got his pro bass hat on andhe's just knocking on farmer's doors.
Like y'all have any, Costume jewelry,because I want to make you some money.
(30:19):
You didn't get a barn.
I see a barn back there.
Anything, you could part with.
Old farm equipment.
Geez, dude, an old farmhouse for Rusty.
For sure.
is just a treasure trove of goodness.
And then he finds thatold rusted out Trans Am.
And he's like, I'm goingto make an impulse buy.
He shouldn't do it, but it'stugging at his heartstrings.
So flow will be so mad, but he's like, Oh,that reminds me when I was 16 years old.
(30:46):
Then he's going to have it outon, on blocks in the yard, do it.
Stuff's growing up all around it.
That'll become him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Totally for a year.
I always do think it's interesting whenyou drive through the countryside and Old
vehicles just buried back in the woods.
I'm like, why don't you just scrap it?
You gotta be worth something.
So I don't know.
Anyway, any other stuff on costume jewelrythat we should know to make money from
(31:09):
it, because what we're going to do, just,I want to lay this out for folks, one
of the things that struck me, Matt isso busy, he's head down, working hard.
Head in the.
I'd like to say head in the cloud.
He's out there just doing what he's doing.
But what I would, what I think aboutis like, how would I recognize?
So we're going to bring on somedifferent costume jewelry brands and
(31:30):
manufacturers to give you an idea.
Not today, but in, in a future show orshows, I think it'll be more like shows.
To give you an idea of whatthese things look like.
We still are going to doa live show at some point.
Yeah.
We can even do it on Podbean,so we're going to do a live show
once we can get it all together.
Basically, the deal is, people,it's really hard to pin Matt down.
He's like lightning in a bottle.
(31:51):
He's just, he's out movingand shaking and grooving.
Any other stuff generally about sellingcostume jewelry to make us a fortune?
I would say that, if you have a bunchof stuff that isn't terribly valuable
or is damaged, don't throw it away.
You can still makemoney off of that stuff.
How you can sell that in groups.
On eBay, like in lots to people who needthose gemstones to, or those rhinestones
(32:15):
to harvest and use for their own jewelrythat's missing something, or people just
like to craft all kinds of differentcrafting and things like that, that
people do, they'll buy that stuff.
Oh, yeah.
The other thing is, if you're needingstones to replace some pieces you have.
There are, you can get somereally good high quality stuff.
There's like Czech glass, rhinestones outthere and things you can buy pretty cheap
(32:37):
that can make your piece really nice.
Sometimes people will justpull out some of the stones.
They don't like this color and thenI'll put another color in there
and now they like this brooch.
And if they're, if they're justglued in, it's easy to pop them out.
And then point is don't throw it away.
It has value.
You could be either a buyer or sellerof that and get a good deal, honestly.
All right.
(32:59):
We are trying our very, very darndestto keep our shows under 40 minutes.
It has been a challenge.
We keep going long cause we areapt to do, but we're just getting
back into the groove of thingsas sir. Matt has come back.
The king of the birdshas come back stateside.
So we're both going to get in our feetwet again on this, but we are looking
forward to some of this new stuff.
(33:20):
Coming up.
Remember if you have any ideas, Inoticed we've been getting a lot of
comments lately, so keep them coming.
Yeah.
If you have any ideas of shows thatyou want to see, we keep a list of them
and periodically we go through the listand say, all right, is this the time?
So if you've given us an idea andwe haven't done a show on it, don't
think that we're not going to do it.
We just trying to work out theproduction schedule and all that.
(33:41):
Email us at what's old podcast at gmail.
com.
Write us a comment, all of thosethings, follow, like, and subscribe.
All that craziness that makes shows go.
But we do really appreciate thoseof you that are dedicated listeners.
We know you're out there andwe want to keep bringing you
as good content as possible.
Please email us if you have any questions.
(34:02):
Matt, any last wordsfor the folks out there?
Huhhhh.
Just be aware when you go to Englandor the birds, just watch out.
Watch out.
I love it.
These, when I give Matt the final word,I always like, sometimes it's deep, very
powerful comments about things you do.
And then there's some times wherehe's just lighthearted, like
(34:22):
King of the Birds that he is.
All right, everybody have a great week.
We'll talk to you soon.
Welcome back to the What Sold podcast.
My name is Brandon.
I am here with my friend Matt I believehe's now sir Matt as he's been to the UK.
I believe you were knighted in Scotland.
Are you a Scottish knight?
It's an interesting thing becauseI was both knighted in Scotland
and also in England Oh, andthey also built the statue.
(00:58):
Let's talk it in a moment.
Let's talk about why I'm now a heroto all of those in, in London, London.
Yeah.
Let me set the stage,let me just jump into it.
Why not?
Let me set the stage here.
Why not?
Just go.
We're in Hyde Park.
Okay.
Pretty, Hyde Park, well known.
Yeah.
Historic park.
Very large.
We're walking around.
Nah, you know, the kidsare starting to get hungry.
(01:18):
So Flo and the, and the Littlens.
Uh, we roll up to this littlecafe place that's in the middle
along this long waterway, right?
So, we get lunch, we're outside, it'sdecent outside, not raining or anything.
And, we're having a good timeexcept that there's all these birds.
A lot of birds.
Dozens, hundreds, maybe.
(01:38):
Of various kinds, but the, the thingthey all have in common is that
they're just everywhere and they'renot just on the ground looking for
food, but they're like hopping up onthe table and they're bugging you.
Yeah.
And so we're, we're shooing them off.
We're laughing about it, but alsoit's annoying because we have
to crouch over our food to makesure something doesn't come in.
They're flying in.
Yeah, yeah.
All this to say, we're experiencingthis and I've shooed several away,
(02:00):
but they're not getting the message.
By the way, before you go on,it's well known that English
birds are a troublemaker.
They're a rebellious lot, soit's not surprising that they
would come after your food.
It's a well known factin the UK about UK birds.
That's right.
So, okay.
Well, that's good to know.
And, and a lot of these are, they'resmaller, they're not huge birds,
but they're They're after our stuff.
(02:21):
So, in a moment of, I don't knowwhat I was thinking, but I've got
essentially a sandwich in one hand.
Oh, I know where this is going.
I reach over really fast,like Mr. Miyagi fast.
And I grab a bird in my hand, like I grabit with my bare hand, I just grab it.
And I'm holding it.
It makes this chirp like, uh,Oh God, he's going to eat me.
(02:42):
Kind of like a sound.
Yep.
I hold this thing in my daughter.
What was the name we gave to her?
Bobby Jean.
Oh yeah.
Bobby Jean.
So Bobby Jean, she shouts, dad got a bird.
Dad has a bird in his hand.
And there are othertables around like, what?
Turning around, so I just getup and I walk over towards the
(03:06):
water and I just let this thing,I throw this thing up in the air.
It flies off.
Fly, be free.
And as it flies off, in this reallyweird surreal moment, all of the birds
in the area, again, like a hundredor more of these birds, in unison
jump up and fly off with this thing.
And all of a sudden now it's dead quiet.
There is not a single animal there.
(03:27):
Not a single bird, nothing.
Not just at our table, but forlike several tables on either side.
And people are laughing.
Some people are clapping.
And for the rest of the meal, I mean,another 20 minutes, at least not a
single bird came back to the area.
They were like, we're notgoing to mess with that dude.
He might catch us and kill us.
Long story to say, I hear they'rebuilding a statue, uh, in my
(03:50):
honor of that, in that area.
And the one thing about that TheAmerican hero that came over And there's
only two ways the statue's gonna go.
Either it's gonna be absolutelycovered in bird guano out of hatred for
you, or it will be pristine forever.
That's what it's gonna be.
That's what it's gonna be.
Because they're allafraid of the bird man.
Folks who are about to go and have a nicelittle brunch or something in Hyde Park,
(04:14):
I can't guarantee they're not there rightnow, but when I'm around they're gone
and if they put that statue there Theywon't come within a foot of the perimeter
of it because they have to respect thatso you really need to eat At the statue.
That's true.
Yeah, I guess you could climb upand have a seat there and have your
sandwich and It's like a green tag.
It's like a hand your hand would be up.
(04:35):
Oh clearly It's going to be a like agreek thing where i'm really muscular
So essentially what I am, uh, andthen I'm, I just have my hands in
the air and I'm just delicately.
You know, compassionately releasingthis bird back into the wild . I
envision that the statue will havelike birds on sh your shoulders.
(04:57):
Like Uncle Ramis.
Yeah.
As if I'm a Yeah.
Like I speak, I speak like I'mthe patron saint for birds.
Yeah.
Saint of birds.
I don't know that theremay be a saint for birds.
For animals there is, I'msure there, there's a Saint.
Yeah.
St. Francis for animal, St.Francis for, for animals.
So I guess the birdsfall into that category.
They're animals.
There's so many ways this story couldgo, the UK, so there's all sorts of
(05:18):
Saint Rusty, the bird, the bird man.
And the best is the statue will have aBass Pro Shop hat on it with glasses.
Yes, yellow tinted aviators.
And you're holding up,yeah, aviators, exactly.
Tinted aviators, sheep tinted aviators.
It's gonna be great.
All that to say, we had a great timeas, as we discussed on the last episode
(05:38):
in That was a little funny moment therewhere I had to listen up, you cross the
line birds, I'm gonna snatch you outof the air and then far better story.
If, if little Bobby Jean had said.
Mama, look, Papi's got himself a bird.
Right, not again!
We ain't eating bird forsupper again, are we?
(06:00):
Listen, you don't have to waste a bulletif you can just snatch it out of midair.
I believe Rusty can do anything.
There's no, no bullet necessary.
Because the fact that you wouldeven think try to do that with
your hand is just shocking to me.
Like I, I'm like, Oh, diseases, desperatetimes, call for desperate measures.
Well, you did get to eat your lunchunmolested for the next part of that.
(06:24):
With one hand, I couldn't usethe other hand after that.
Yeah, sure.
Because you touched a poisonousbird that's giving you the plague.
Absolutely.
Speaking of plague, my, my daughter,who is a swimmer, got a ear infection.
So she had to take this likeantibiotic and it was called,
it's called ciproflaxin.
And I was like, wait, thatsounds really familiar.
And it's the same antibiotic thatthey give people for the plague.
(06:47):
I'm like, well, she's covered there incase the black death comes back around.
Anyway, enough about Black Death.
Okay, sure.
Enough about your crazy bird stories.
Because they are multitudinous.
There are, there's a plethoraof your bird stories out there.
The time you flew with the eagles.
I mean, it's just.
The bottomless bag.
It will, it will just keepgetting down in there.
(07:08):
It feels like Rusty would have lots andlots of bird stories of where he was.
I don't know.
Some how.
He carries his little binocularswith him everywhere he goes.
I imagine it's like opera glasses though.
When you're looking at modified, modifiedbottom at a thrift store, he's not
going to go out and spend a bunch ofmoney on real glasses and he's going
to use that welder that he, that he gotat that auction and he'll subsequently
(07:33):
sold after fixing, modifying the glass.
So we're going to be taught.
We've, we've talked a lot aboutjewelry on this show over the year.
And by the way, Matt, I feellike we need to have a drum roll
for this, because this isa very important episode.
We just got an update from our;the people that host our podcast.
(07:57):
The service that hosts the brilliant.
And I don't know what, I believethere are some podcasts, the peacock.
The award for the podcast world.
I believe we should be getting one soon,but we just passed our 10, 000th download.
So folks out there who are longsuffering fans of the show.
(08:17):
Thank you so much for listening.
I believe we're closerto 20,000 more than that.
We, we need to get to 20,000 a week.
But hey, we're on our way.
Mm-hmm . But it's a big milestonefor anyone that, that podcasts,
most podcasts last three to fiveshows and fold after a month.
Hey, we're doing something hereon the what Feel like we're
in the nineties at this point.
We're somewhere out.
(08:38):
We're somewhere, somewhere up there.
getting, uh, somewhere out there.
All right.
So today we're going totalk about costume jewelry.
I am fascinated by this because you,you're always rolling out these stories
of, and even Bobby Jean said to merecently, she says, my dad buys jewelry
for 3 and sells it for like 500.
(08:59):
I'm like, wow.
Your dad's.
Yeah.
She's ambitious.
She's very impressed by youand your ability to take 3
items and turn them into gold.
So she goes, my dad finds itemsand it turns out they're gold.
That is true sometimes, but, I think thatthe concept my daughter has of money in
general, like amounts is a little bit off.
(09:19):
Yeah.
If she thinks I'm, I'm doingthat kind of a flip, a 3 to 500.
It has happened and it is not common,but it's actually funny that you say that
because that can apply to costume jewelry.
By the way, out there, listenerscostume jewelry, generally speaking,
is not typically as valuable asgold or silver fine jewelry, right?
(09:42):
That shouldn't surprise you.
However, there are some pieces ofcostume jewelry out there that can
sell for hundreds of dollars, ifnot into the thousands of dollars.
And in some cases is worth more thanthe equivalent, like a gold ring or
something, a piece of costume jewelry.
So there is, there are, there isa lot of it out there and there
(10:02):
are some really good values.
A lot of times when you're lookingfor it out there in the wild, you can
find it in, in bags, in groups, orsomeone's getting at a yard sale and
they, they just brought the whole,the little jewelry container out.
All right.
Well, you're, wait, you'regetting way ahead of yourself.
All right.
All right.
First, before we even do that,because this is, this shows about
me, it shows about my lack ofknowledge and what I don't know.
(10:25):
Please.
Please.
Put me back on the right path.
I have always wondered, numberone, I'm assuming I know where the
derivation of the word cost or thename costume jewelry comes from, but
what is the difference between costumejewelry and I guess fine jewelry?
I don't even know what we would call it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
It's not just black or white, meaningthat, that in every case you could look
(10:46):
at a piece and know definitively this iscostume versus fine, but I think generally
speaking, fine jewelry would refer tojewelry that's made out of a precious
metal or a semi precious metal like goldor silver or platinum, something like
that, and oftentimes we'll incorporategemstones, not glass, not plastic or
rhinestones, but genuine cut gemstones.
(11:09):
That would be fine jewelry.
Costume jewelry.
It can, in almost every way, lookthe same, just aesthetically, but
it's going to be made out of a cheapalloy, it's going to utilize plastic
rhinestones or glass, that kind of thing.
And a lot of times, the designsfor the costume jewelry are based
off of the designs for whatever waspopular fine jewelry at that time.
(11:31):
So whatever the styleis, they're doing it.
You can find pieces by fairlypopular costume jewelry.
And then if you look around, youcould find the equivalent looks
almost the same, but is going to be20 times more expensive because it's
got diamonds instead of rhinestones,for example, something like that.
So costume is just a cheapermaterials to create a piece of
(11:55):
jewelry that mimics something that'svaluable, that's more valuable.
But it's not necessarily less valuablethan fine jewelry per se, because
if it was a. A very popular costumejewelry made by, I don't know, a certain
artist that just use certain materials.
Yes.
Could technically fall into that categoryof costume jewelry, but it's actually
worth more than some fine jewelry.
(12:16):
Exactly.
So that's a good point.
No things that have, uh, that are madeby say an artist or someone can have
more value than the average piece ofcostume jewelry, jewelry that's produced,
or that was produced by certain brandsthat were boutiques smaller, maybe
they're no longer producing things.
That people look for thosepieces will, can sell for quite
(12:39):
a bit of money by themselves.
And there are even a few, but we shouldprobably put some names out there.
Uh, if people want to know, Yeah,I was going to say, what are some
famous names of costume jewelry?
So like the Lisa and Elser, is a producerthat makes that their own jewelry
that they have some that's called thatpeople refer to as Juliana jewelry.
(13:01):
And the difficult thing about some ofthese is that they're not often marked on
them because the way that they marked thatparticular jewelry was just by a little
paper and like hang tag off of it, right?
So they didn't, stamp it.
On the piece itself, but thenthere are others like crown Trafari
or Eisenberg, or there's a list.
If you look online, just look uppopular vintage costume jewelry brands,
(13:26):
you're going to find that really fast.
And so you can belooking around for those.
The way you tell usually isyou turn it on the upside down.
So you're looking, I mean, if it's aring, you look on the inside of it, like
anywhere, but if it's a brooch or a pin.
Or a pendant or something,you're going to turn that over
on the back and take a look.
Just see what it says, if it says, ifit's stamped with something indicating
(13:47):
that maybe it's made out of silver orsomething, or if you're just looking
for a maker's mark, because sometimesit's the whole name and sometimes
it's just letters or initials, but youcan look that stuff up pretty easily.
Okay, so let me ask you a question.
And if, when I think about fine jewelry.
Either it's a, it's a one off pieceor maybe it's a line of pieces.
They make a certain style.
(14:08):
I think about Tiffany or whatever.
In costume jewelry, do they ever doit where they release just a few?
So almost like collectors, they doit on purpose so that it'd be, maybe
there's only a hundred of thesepieces in the world, or do they pretty
much always just have thousands andtens of thousands of the pieces.
I think some of the smaller ones had, butas far as I know, there were definitely
(14:29):
lines of jewelry within the broader scopeof stuff that a company would produce
that maybe they would only do a particularstyle or this is this year's production.
Like we've changed every fewyears they change and they've got
some new designs, but generallyspeaking, it was a volume game.
They're not making fewer products for morethat'll sell for more money per piece.
(14:49):
They're producing.
Mass amounts at a cheaper price sothat it's an alternative to spending
a lot of money on a single thing.
You can get a bunch of costume jewelrythat looks the same from a distance
for the same or less money thanbuying one piece of fine jewelry.
So they're usually more in the volume gameof trying to produce a lot, sell a lot.
Okay.
Certain brands have, styles thatare pretty common to that brand.
(15:14):
Like you'll, I'll see a certainstyle of something and I'll
know, Oh, this is probably a corepiece or, Oh, this is probably.
Is that just because you'veseen thousands of them?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tens of thousands of individualbracelets and necklaces and rings and
brooches and pins and all of that.
So thank you for defining whata piece of costume jewelry is.
(15:35):
Now we're a show, as you like tosay, dear listener, where we want
to make money from this stuff.
So how can we make money?
Where do we find it?
How do we sell it?
How do we research it?
All that stuff.
Give us the details to youramount on how we can make money
from selling costume jewelry.
I think that the, this is whatI still prefer to do if I can.
(15:57):
And the easiest way to make moneybuying and selling costume jewelry
is you need to know the places to go.
So the places I source for thiskind of stuff at are online.
I'll even source it on eBay itself.
So I look for lots like groups of items.
It's more difficult to.
Make money off of awesome jewelry whenyou're just buying things piece by piece.
(16:20):
Because again, they don't sell fornearly as much by themselves, usually
as something like fine piece of jewelryis going to sell for, you need to have
more than just one or two things toleverage your expense on, because if
it takes three months to sell thatpiece, then you're waiting a long time.
So I'll go to yard sales.
It's great in the summertime.
Go to local auction houses, estate sales.
(16:43):
There's even auctions that are happeningin your community all the time online.
You just need to know where to go.
I think it's.
What is it called?
I was going to, I was tryingto think of the actual domain.
It's like yard sales.
net or something like that,or something like that.
Anyways, you can look it up andfind those, but I'll source there.
It's a good place to get stuff because.
It's not like going to an antiquestore where they've already researched
(17:06):
it and priced it based on whatthey're seeing themselves for.
You want to get them in groupsfrom people who are just trying
to move it they don't really care.
Or they don't know a wholelot about what they have.
So, what I do is I'll,I'll look at the pieces.
I'm looking for stuff that's heavier.
Because that indicates that maybe therhinestones are made of like a hard, like
a really heavy duty plastic or glass.
(17:26):
Usually ones that were made withglass are either older and or, or
More well made oftentimes I findthan just a little plastic stuff
that's rhinestones that are glued in.
These are actually set withprongs, that kind of thing.
So I'm looking at that.
I'm looking at the backs to seewhat kinds of brands make sense.
I don't have to see the whole thing.
I get a general idea prettyquick of what's in there.
(17:47):
And based again, on my experienceof selling stuff, I know what the
market is for certain types of pieces.
I would say generally go for.
Stuff, if you can find it, that arecolorful, like colored rhinestones,
and the larger the better.
If you're getting like a medium tosmall lot of brooches, and they're all
that crystal clear color rhinestone,those don't sell nearly as well.
It's hard to sell those for much,because there's just so many of them.
(18:10):
People, collectors, tend to likethe larger, more gaudy, with more
really flashy, really intricate, orreally colorful pieces of jewelry.
And that's true of necklacesand pendants and stuff as well.
But I look for lots of stuff.
I price out in my head how muchI'm going to be in per piece.
I'll buy it.
Now let's say I bought 50 brooches,like vintage pieces of costume jewelry.
(18:33):
I'm going to look through there.
I'm going to do research.
I'm going to find the ones, four orfive, eight, 10 that I think will sell
for the most money and the fastest.
And that's what I prioritize.
I get those research photograph listed.
I try to make my money back.
What I'm trying to do is make myinvestment back as fast as possible.
So sell a few items that are morevaluable, get that money back in.
Now I'm not floating my expense anymore.
(18:55):
And I can wait.
And see how the other ones sell.
I can price them high.
If people buy it, great.
If not, I'm not sweating it becauseI've already made my, I'm already
into the profit at this point.
And that practice doing that over andover and over again, rinse and repeat
is how I end up with tubs and tubs andtubs of jewelry and other items, because
I'm buying them at a discount per itembecause I'm buying them in a group.
(19:18):
I'm making my money back really fast.
The rest sits in storage until it sells.
And then you build up anice inventory of stuff.
So if something happens and you can't goout for two or three weeks, or there's a
health crisis and you're stuck at home fortwo months, you still got stuff to sell.
It takes time to do that, butit's really not difficult.
You can find the nice lots ofjewelry on Facebook, for example,
(19:41):
or eBay all day, every day.
And it's just a matter of, do you want togo out locally to find a place to buy it?
Or would you rather do that from thecomforts of your own home or whatever?
So it's out there.
You can find it at almost any, everythrift store has most, not, not always
Goodwills because now they send itoff and sell it online, like an online
(20:02):
auction on their, on a website, but localthrift stores and places and yard sales,
a lot of times we'll have something.
And if you go to a yard sale and theydon't have anything say, Hey, you don't
happen to have any like watches or jewelryor anything that you'd be interested in to
sell, they might, they might go inside andpull something out that they didn't have.
Has that happened to you?
(20:23):
Yeah, I've more witnessedit than doing it.
I still, I'm always trying to not makepeople feel uncomfortable or be pushy.
But if I am buying something, let'ssay they have some jewelry and
I'm going to get something, thenI might ask, Hey, do you happen to
have any other jewelry or watches?
I'm already a customer who'sgoing to buy from them.
I'm already showing interestin the thing that they have.
(20:45):
I don't go to a place and kind of.
Act like this is not cool stuffand then walk up and say, Hey, do
you have any of this other stuffthat I would be interested in?
I don't do that, but if I'm goingto buy something, I might ask, just
play it off the vibe of who's there.
All right.
Since I know you've talked aboutthis ad nauseum on this show, it
sounds like a lot of work to me.
Like you're getting tubs of jewelry.
(21:08):
How much time do you spend researchingthe item or it's just, you just
know them a lot less now because Iknow the brands and the things that
bring the money, so it really only.
The time it takes is essentially justsorting it, putting stuff that has
standalone value in its own pile, andthen things that I'll put in similar
groups together to sell that way.
But what I'm doing whileI'm, it's like multi purpose.
(21:30):
I'm going through to identify the morevaluable pieces so that I can separate it.
I'm also looking to see ifthere's any silver or gold.
I put that stuff aside becauseI'll sell that differently.
And I'm identifying thehighest value stuff.
So it takes a little while, but I'm, I'mactually pretty quick because I know the
brands, I don't have to research everybrand I look at most of them I already
know, and I've already had experiencewith it and, or costume pieces that
(21:53):
are cheaper, I've seen so many of them.
So I know there's a lot out there.
Those aren't going to be realeasy to sell because there's a
gajillion of them, of them out there.
Yeah.
I'll just go through that wayand then photograph and stuff.
But if you're going through andselling every piece by itself, I
Having to research every single oneand photographing everyone and in the
beginning it will take more time Youalmost can't cheat the process a little
(22:17):
bit of learning it But you'll learnvery quickly as I did you're gonna find
out what sells if you look up certaincategories ring costume rings vintage
costume Bangle or bracelet, and you goto what's selling for the most, you'll
notice the themes, it's certain brands,it's a certain look, it's certain colors,
and then that informs how you lookfor the things you want to buy next.
(22:41):
Alright, you may not have an answer tothis, but it just strikes me, is that
Etsy, which has sort of been known asthe artist, Center, but it's become
more of a place for freelance people.
So people that do art, butalso people that build websites
or do things like that.
Yeah.
You find a lot of really talented people.
You can sell antiques on there.
You don't have to have, have made thething that you're selling actually.
(23:03):
Right.
So how do they, how do you thinkEtsy does in comparison to, I know
eBay is the behemoth, the 10, 000pound gorilla in the room, but how do
you think selling on Etsy would go?
I think it would be similarin a lot of ways to eBay.
The pricing structure isslightly different there.
The system where you load your productin and give the details and stuff, the
(23:26):
way that that is organized is different.
In some cases, Etsy requiresmore information than eBay.
The setting up the shippingis a little different.
But once you learn just the userinterface there that you're going
to deal with on their website, thewhole process is mostly the same.
Now, I think that eBay Sells morejust because I think they have
(23:46):
more users and more buyers, butEtsy, I think does pretty well.
Now, I don't know how they do with regardto, I would assume the thing that they're
still best known for and what they dothe most sales for are customizable
products that a person puts up and it'slike, Oh, Hey, I'm looking for these
gift bags, or I'm looking, I want to getsome towels with this picture made for.
(24:08):
For this gift, for mother'sday or something like that.
Right.
And then you can put in a picture.
I think that's what it's breadand butter is, but the other
stuff are underpinning all of it.
These just regular salesof, of other things.
Yeah.
I know of a friend who sells on Etsydoes, art pieces and stuff that not
(24:28):
only that he makes himself, but alsostuff that he collects and seems to
like it, and we're going to be kickingaround in the next few months, a little
bit about Diversifying our platform.
So not to say that we wouldn't sell on,on eBay, but to sell in other places
like a new Shopify and that, and thatkind of deal, because I know you have
expressed in a kind and loving way thatonly you can do Matt, that at times it
(24:53):
could be challenging to sell on eBay.
And we're trying to offer.
It's funny as you were talking aboutlike, Oh, you got to put your time in
to figure out what awesome jewelry is.
Our job on this show is to apprentice you.
So if you're out there and you're tryingto fit, I think about when we started
the show, however long a year and a halfago, or whatever, how much I've learned
(25:14):
about what you do, and it's a hundredpercent because of this show in sense of
like, Oh, I know that has value or thathas value and that doesn't have value.
So we're obviously tryingto offer that up to people.
Don't think that you necessarily haveto just go out and do it yourself.
There are places like thisand I'm sure there are others.
Out there that are helpingyou understand that.
(25:35):
So we will be showing pictures ofdifferent costume jewelries and
things like that as we move along.
But anyway, I amfascinated with that world.
It feels like to me that now maybe I'mwrong because gold is so high, but the
ROI on costume jewelry seems pretty good.
Am I correct in that?
Yeah, it can be absolutely.
The prices of things individuallyat thrift stores has gone up quite
(25:58):
a bit in the last five years.
Yeah.
When I started doing this, that'salmost six years ago now, full time,
I could go out locally to thriftstores and get a costume piece of
jewelry for a buck, 75, two bucks.
Now they're at 3 a piece.
And then some, and then othersthat they think are like nicer,
(26:20):
they put it five or 6 a piece.
That's, it's hard to make a good return.
If you take a risk on a 5 piece.
And then you find out you're notgoing to sell it for more than 8.
That didn't really make alot of sense to buy that.
So that's why you want to seek outand you're going to do less going
out and less spending time looking.
(26:43):
Driving around and stuff to look forindividual pieces, then if you just
search online for large lots, you'llhave less trips you have to take and
you buy, you get more at a time whenyou do it, that's how I like to do it.
Try to find as large of a lot as I can.
Get the best price I can.
And sometimes you'll go, you'll goand, and, you'll be there to pick up or
(27:05):
buy some cotton jewelry from somebody.
And then you say, Yeah.
So like I sell things for a living.
Do you, you happen to have anything else?
Any fine jewelry, maybe coins, or doyou have any watches or pocket knives?
And then you're alreadythere to buy from them.
And they're like, yeah, I want more money.
Let me think what else I canpull out for this person.
I do that a lot whenI go out to buy stuff.
And more often than not people,no one turns me down cold.
(27:28):
They're like, yep, no, this is theonly thing I'm willing to sell today.
They're like, I think I have this andthat and they go in and they look and,
and all of a sudden now you have a,another, like I went years ago, it's
a couple of years ago to Wilmington,well family trip, I took a detour
and I went and bought a bunch ofvintage G. I. Joe stuff from this guy.
I remember that.
You remember that?
And as I'm loading it up, he's like,I guess next step is to, to work
(27:51):
on all my old transformer stuff.
I'm like, what was that?
And so after say that again, as soon as Iget done getting there, it was actually,
it was the G. I. Joe's or actually it wasStar Wars first was the stuff I bought.
And then he was like my, my G.I. Joe and Transformers stuff.
So I ended up buying another six oreight boxes and or tubs of stuff.
(28:11):
I believe you had to rent avehicle to take it all home
and it didn't make Flo happy.
I don't remember the partabout Flo being unhappy.
I'm just kidding.
I frankly do remember that.
I stored it.
All of it was in a large tub pile.
In our friend's garage for likethe last, the next three or
four days that we were there.
And then I had to rent a U Haultrailer to pull, to hitch onto our
(28:33):
vehicle and pull home because it waseither, here's where the fight came in.
We were having a legitimateconversation about.
Whether I should put the kidsin the vehicle or the stuff that
was bought to take back to selland that she didn't like that.
She didn't like that.
Put them on a bus.
They'll be fine.
They'll be fine.
At that point, littlePete was probably four.
(28:54):
He was old enough to be able to geton a Greyhound bus and make it home.
Sure.
Oh, sure.
That's right.
That's right.
We taught him all theskills at a very young age.
Rusty's kids are going to have skills.
Like knife fighting skills, a firemaking skills, they keep a butter
knife on their person at all times.
Of course, of course, it just seemslike that goes without saying.
(29:14):
One thing as I was listening to youand I was thinking about costume,
like everybody has costume George.
Everyone has like a jewelry box,my wife has a jewelry box, stuff
that her mom had, that she'snever ever worn, never gonna wear.
Never going to, yeah.
Never, and I was thinking about, doyou ever do like farmhouse hunts?
Does that, I know, that show AmericanPickers, where guys, they would go around,
(29:37):
does that stuff ever really happen?
Probably, I just haven'tever put any effort into it.
I mean, if I just went to a smalltown and started going around to
shops and asking questions, somebodywould turn me on to somebody who has.
A place or we'd want something, orif I just rolled around and went
door to door, I'm sure, but that'sjust not how I've been operating.
(29:57):
It would be fun.
Shoot.
If someone wants to reach out and,turn this podcast into a show,
I will absolutely go out and tryto find some of those barns and
we'll, we'll make this a thing.
Absolutely.
The funny part about, I justimagined Rusty going out.
He's got his pro bass hat on andhe's just knocking on farmer's doors.
Like y'all have any, Costume jewelry,because I want to make you some money.
(30:19):
You didn't get a barn.
I see a barn back there.
Anything, you could part with.
Old farm equipment.
Geez, dude, an old farmhouse for Rusty.
For sure.
is just a treasure trove of goodness.
And then he finds thatold rusted out Trans Am.
And he's like, I'm goingto make an impulse buy.
He shouldn't do it, but it'stugging at his heartstrings.
So flow will be so mad, but he's like, Oh,that reminds me when I was 16 years old.
(30:46):
Then he's going to have it outon, on blocks in the yard, do it.
Stuff's growing up all around it.
That'll become him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Totally for a year.
I always do think it's interesting whenyou drive through the countryside and Old
vehicles just buried back in the woods.
I'm like, why don't you just scrap it?
You gotta be worth something.
So I don't know.
Anyway, any other stuff on costume jewelrythat we should know to make money from
(31:09):
it, because what we're going to do, just,I want to lay this out for folks, one
of the things that struck me, Matt isso busy, he's head down, working hard.
Head in the.
I'd like to say head in the cloud.
He's out there just doing what he's doing.
But what I would, what I think aboutis like, how would I recognize?
So we're going to bring on somedifferent costume jewelry brands and
(31:30):
manufacturers to give you an idea.
Not today, but in, in a future show orshows, I think it'll be more like shows.
To give you an idea of whatthese things look like.
We still are going to doa live show at some point.
Yeah.
We can even do it on Podbean,so we're going to do a live show
once we can get it all together.
Basically, the deal is, people,it's really hard to pin Matt down.
He's like lightning in a bottle.
(31:51):
He's just, he's out movingand shaking and grooving.
Any other stuff generally about sellingcostume jewelry to make us a fortune?
I would say that, if you have a bunchof stuff that isn't terribly valuable
or is damaged, don't throw it away.
You can still makemoney off of that stuff.
How you can sell that in groups.
On eBay, like in lots to people who needthose gemstones to, or those rhinestones
(32:15):
to harvest and use for their own jewelrythat's missing something, or people just
like to craft all kinds of differentcrafting and things like that, that
people do, they'll buy that stuff.
Oh, yeah.
The other thing is, if you're needingstones to replace some pieces you have.
There are, you can get somereally good high quality stuff.
There's like Czech glass, rhinestones outthere and things you can buy pretty cheap
(32:37):
that can make your piece really nice.
Sometimes people will justpull out some of the stones.
They don't like this color and thenI'll put another color in there
and now they like this brooch.
And if they're, if they're justglued in, it's easy to pop them out.
And then point is don't throw it away.
It has value.
You could be either a buyer or sellerof that and get a good deal, honestly.
All right.
(32:59):
We are trying our very, very darndestto keep our shows under 40 minutes.
It has been a challenge.
We keep going long cause we areapt to do, but we're just getting
back into the groove of thingsas sir. Matt has come back.
The king of the birdshas come back stateside.
So we're both going to get in our feetwet again on this, but we are looking
forward to some of this new stuff.
(33:20):
Coming up.
Remember if you have any ideas, Inoticed we've been getting a lot of
comments lately, so keep them coming.
Yeah.
If you have any ideas of shows thatyou want to see, we keep a list of them
and periodically we go through the listand say, all right, is this the time?
So if you've given us an idea andwe haven't done a show on it, don't
think that we're not going to do it.
We just trying to work out theproduction schedule and all that.
(33:41):
Email us at what's old podcast at gmail.
com.
Write us a comment, all of thosethings, follow, like, and subscribe.
All that craziness that makes shows go.
But we do really appreciate thoseof you that are dedicated listeners.
We know you're out there andwe want to keep bringing you
as good content as possible.
Please email us if you have any questions.
(34:02):
Matt, any last wordsfor the folks out there?
Huhhhh.
Just be aware when you go to Englandor the birds, just watch out.
Watch out.
I love it.
These, when I give Matt the final word,I always like, sometimes it's deep, very
powerful comments about things you do.
And then there's some times wherehe's just lighthearted, like
(34:22):
King of the Birds that he is.
All right, everybody have a great week.
We'll talk to you soon.
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