About Me
My harmaniabegan at the age of ten, when what I wanted more than anything else in the world was a bracelet with a mad money charm, complete with a little hammer to break the glass in an emergency. After a couple of years and a few more charms, I lost interest, as children will, though I still have that original gold charm bracelet. But it wasn until much later that I fell in love with vintage silver charms and began collecting them. I've been leading a charmed existence ever since.

I'm often asked about my favorite charm, so here it is, a Victorian moving Punch figure:

About Vintage Silver Charms
As a collector and dealer, I asked many of the same questions over and over by eBay buyers, and so three years ago I put together a couple of web pages on which I answered those questions and shared some of what I know and think about charms. I've now added to it and moved it to my web site (though if you bookmarked the original pages, your links will still work) as the FAQ section. I begin with general matters of terminology and taste, move on through various subjects including the important and often misunderstood ones of patina and polishing, and end with practical answers on the care and feeding of charm bracelets. Click on the link to A Charmed Existence at the top of this page to read what I have to say, or you can now also read it here on eBay in the form of two guides, Charm FAQs for Vintage Charm Collectors I and Charm FAQs for Vintage Charm Collectors II.

I've also written two eBay guides expressly meant to help you buy wisely here (or anywhere, for that matter) and avoid some of the pitfalls that both new and experienced collectors can encounter. Please take a look at my brand-new guide for collectors of antique and vintage heart charms, Heart Charm Buying Guide: Victorian, Vintage, or Repro?, as well as the guide I wrote last year, Vintage Charms & Charm Bracelets Buying Guide.

And though some of the information in it overlaps with what I've written in the buying guide, you might want to also take a look at a very important warning for collectors of vintage charms that I posted four years ago. It's still worth reading, and is even more important to heed today than it was then. To read it, click here.

Vintage Charms Discussion Group
Would you like to share your passion for vintage and antique charms with others who feel the same way? Then I'd like to warmly invite you to join the Vintage Charms & Charm Bracelets discussion group here on eBay. You'll find a friendly, safe, non-commercial environment where we collectors and sellers of vintage charms can share our collections and our knowledge, ask questions and find answers, foster truth and accuracy in listings, and of course indulge our charmania. When I first started the group in August 2003, our focus was exclusively on silver charms. But so many of our more than 250 members collect gold charms as well, not to mention costume charm bracelets, that opening it up to collectors of all sorts of old charms seemed like a fine idea. All of our discussions remain active, so you can not only start new discussions but also read and add to past ones like:

Name That Charm! (a.k.a. What Is It?)
REPOUSSE HEART CHARMS: A Basic Guide
Does "fixing" a charm hurt its value?
Bracelet themes
TRAVEL BRACELETS -- the world on your wrist
Patina, oxidation, tarnish, etc.
Solder or not?
Ugly charms and buying mistakes--yikes!
Questions about charms, bracelets, or makers
Bracelet storage
How to Build a Better Bracelet ...
What's Your Favorite Charm?
Clasps
Charm vent thread--let it all out!
International buying, selling, and shipping
What they look like on ...
Shield charms or crests or coats of arms

If this sounds like fun to you (and it is--we have such a good time!), click here to go to the group Welcome page, then click on the orange Join Group button to request an invitation to join. I look forward to seeing you there!

My Favorites
Here are a few of my current favorite bracelets. First is a c. 1900 bangle I've filled with turquoise-themed hearts, almost all of them Victorian (plus a few later ones).

This is my summertime By the Sea bracelet, with four mechanical lighthouses, lobster and crab traps, an 1899 love token with engraved sailboat, and seashells, one of which opens to reveal a mermaid.

This one's called You Can Put It in Your Mouth. It's stuffed (the appropriate term!) with food and cooking charms from all over the world and from many different decades.

And finally, here's my celebration of one of my favorite places, Florence, with architectural and sculptural icons of the city. It's one of a series of four Italian bracelets--one for Venice, one for Rome, and one for Italy in general, besides this one--that started out as a single bracelet and outgrew its original home. Four bracelets are not too many when you're in love with a country, at least not in my opinion!

Remember--when you wear a charm bracelet, you're never alone!

To see all my current eBay auctions with gallery photo previews, click here.

To add my auctions to your Favorite Sellers list in My eBay, click here.

All text and photographs on this page copyright 2001-2006 by A Charmed Existence. None of this material may be reproduced in any form, or linked to electronically, without the express written permission of the author.

The above page is maintained by: gelatogrrl( 3145)

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