1. Vintage Treasures

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    My good friend, the Brooklyn-based journalist Randi Gollin writes about jewelry, fashion, shopping, food, and travel for numerous publications and websites, including Edible Brooklyn, The New York Times Marketing Services, Vintage Magazine, The Washington Post, and Zagat Survey. She also blogs about her latest obsessions and discoveries at brookylngal.com.

    Dear Reader - I am pleased to introduce Randi in her first piece for Ajaline, no doubt she too was inspired by the estate and vintage events we’ve hosted on our site. 

    Vintage Treasures

    Nowadays, in our lightning-speed techie age, any item bordering on ten years old seems to be anointed with the handle of ‘vintage.’ Just a few decades ago, however, when time moved a bit slower, ‘vintage’ truly signified something old and perhaps even something rare-a keepsake worth holding onto. To me, that’s the ‘real’ vintage. p. I can trace my fascination with vintage jewelry back to my very first childhood find: a chunky blue wooden pin bearing a hand-painted image of a Dutch lady-a token from an unspecified bygone era. I discovered it while scouting around a church jumble sale one autumn afternoon with my sister, her best friend and her best friend’s mom, an avid antiques collector with a penchant for picturesque pitchers and chamber pots. From that day forward, I was hooked on all things vintage.

    In time, I ransacked my mother’s jewelry box, begging her permission for rhinestone pins that had long lost their glitter. I also coveted some of her other timeworn (and therefore wondrous) possessions, like a lace-lined, moth hole-ridden black cashmere sweater, with the added glamour of a snap-off fur collar and a pearl-and-rhinestone clasp. And I admired her strand of lustrous pearls, which my father had bought, long ago, on a whim, after spying it in a shop window. My mother gave me that pearl necklace on my wedding day, just weeks before she passed away, and, I must admit, I shed a few bittersweet tears every time I take it out of its maroon leather box.

    My love affair with retro baubles and valuables has yet to wane. Over the years, my husband has willingly participated in my quasi-obsession, surprising me with 1950s pieces, like flower-shaped gold-and-pearl earrings (that we converted from screw-backs to pierced) and a slim, oblong-faced watch with a burgundy leather wristband; and from the 1920s, a delicate gold-and-turquoise choker engraved with Jewish stars.

    Recently, while shopping at one of my favorite secondhand shops in Brooklyn, I added to the collection: I fell for an inexpensive heart-shaped locket of indeterminate provenance. All it needed was a gold chain and a new owner (me!).

    Like many women, I am enamored by the status names in fine jewelry, but in the realm of vintage, I’m far more interested in my relics’ secret past. Who (if anyone) wore my acquisitions before me? Were they young or old, sad or gloriously happy, blonde or brunette? Did they live charmed lives or pawn every last possession just to survive?

    When I put on my beloved vintage jewelry I can conjure up a million story lines and let my imagination run wild.

    (Source: ajaline.com)

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