GetCrafty Craft Facts

Q: I wonder if anyone can advise me. A couple of days ago, I bought from an antique fair a large box of findings, crystals, and rhinestones. Apparently these were from an old Jewellers in Hatton Garden in London, and I was told that these date from the 1920's/30's. When I got home I was amazed to find that it contains trillions of 'Swarovski' crystals, rhinestones, stones. There are also many packets of other austrian crystals, stones, rhinestones and marcasites. They are all in their original packaging with some old receipts. Help! I have spent 2 days sorting through this lot, and am not quite sure what to do with them. Should I sell them at auction? in which case would I be better to sell them in small lots, or larger lots, or does anyone know of a shop, or repairers that may be interested in them. I also have the opportunity to buy the original marcasite findings?/castings from the jewellers again from the 20's/30's that are unfinished pieces, in that they need the stones setting in them, again, has anyone got any ideas?

A: Several people auction lots of Swarovskis on eBay. If you'd rather not do that, I know that 'Buddy Conklin' (whose E-mail address I have somewhere) buys vintage 'Swarovski' beads and rhinestones. There is also a bead shop in the California Gold Country (Auburn), "Gypsy Wind", who buy old 'Swarovskis'. Too bad you're not local to the Bay Area; I collect old 'Swarovskis'... There is a fair sized market on eBay for vintage Swarovski. If you have access to a scanner and don't mind all the work of shipping internationally (most of your interested customers would probably be from the US), selling them on 'eBay' is a possibility. Selling larger lots to secondary market dealers such as Buddy Conklin or Halstead Beads in Arizona is also a good way to dispose of such a treasure! I would advise that you carefully make an inventory of what you have - colors, sizes and types (bead and rhinestone styles) and then do some research about their worth on the secondary market. Some of the larger sizes and difficult to find colors such as Heliotrope can be worth much more than a few pence!! There are several bead websites in the US that specialize in vintage Swarovski such as Purple Finch at http://www.conknet.com/~m_bunis/pfinch/PFhome.htm