At this point, your hobby may start to become more serious and time intensive. If you wish to become a specialist in vintage jewelry, you should be making every effort to begin making money from your passion.
In this final part of How to Start Out as a Vintage Jewelry Collector, we teach you how to bring the personal and professional worlds together.
Make Money Doing What You Love
You may have had a few years of experience either working in retail, in an apprenticeship or taking classes at your nearest jewelry university – but the worlds of the Artist and the Businessperson should be coming together. That is, the worlds between your personal and professional life should start to meld together. Whether they fuse together harder than titanium alloy is up to you.
No one said it was easy to turn Art Deco engagement ring collecting into a profession, but if you truly love your field, understand your market, and work with similar minded people you will be able to become a professional collector.
Step 4: Become a Resource in Your Community
Similar minded people will begin to seek you out. You may have a talent for exposing fake Victorian mourning jewelry, or you may be extremely detail oriented and be able to re-assign clasps to broken period jewelry in the historical fashion of the time. Regardless, if you have the talent, the community will come to you.
Others will want to learn what you have to teach them. Here are some ways you can pay it forward and further develop your resume, inspiration, and network list:
- Showcase your expertise on social media.
- Become a board member of an association related to your fine estate jewelry specialization.
- Start a blog and update it continually. Invite your new friends to write stories on it.
- Create an Etsy, EBay or Amazon account and sell your wares online.
- Join an antique jewelry university. We recommend the GIA, Revere Academy, or the American Society of Jewelry Historians.
- Work for a boutique that sells the type of vintage jewelry you are most interested in. By interacting with clients, vendors, and other staff members you will grow in your craft, becoming a super collector! This will also expose you to the best deals in the industry as you will be at the intersection of trade and e-commerce.
We hope that this guide has been helpful. If you wish to know more about how others in the industry got to where they are at, ask professionals at local stores or make inquiries at websites like Lang Antiques. You can do it if you stay diligent and put your mind to it!
Antique Jewelry 