Suddenly everything’s coming up solid gold in the fashion collector world. Whispers of Victorian lockets, heavyweight mid-century bracelets, and French tank rings are lining the wishlists of fashion insiders and savvy shoppers alike. It’s no wonder: In just one year, the price of one troy ounce of gold has risen to $3,000—up nearly $1,000 from 2024, and double the cost it was just four years ago.
With those record-breaking figures comes a new wave of people investing in chunky, heavy vintage and antique gold jewelry—plus rare, archival pieces coming to the market from older generations looking to sell given the current cost of gold. Enter a new slew of vintage and antique gold jewelry sellers on Instagram, with hoards of pieces that sell out instantly.
Courtesy of Kim Limle
Kim Limle of EstateJewelryMama lists affordable pieces as well as jewelry from the Victorian era to the 1980s, which followers snap up on Instagram livestreams before Limle can even list them on her website. TalesFromTheJunkPile, launched by Ruby Casas, brings followers antique and vintage gold that otherwise would have been melted, for low price points via Instagram stories. It’s impossible not to notice the community of vintage gold sellers that has been fostered specifically on social media in the past year, with accounts like Oldgoldganster, Bhunicorn, Julzgoldx, Gildedlane, Thegoldbuglondon and many others becoming go-tos over traditional jewelry shops. These days, for many vintage lovers, solid gold jewelry has surpassed the old guard of designer handbags as the de rigeur investment.
“With the popularity of vintage and antique jewelry right now, customers are definitely appreciating pieces that are solid gold and less expensive than comparable new jewelry,” says Casas’s mother Elisa, who runs the ChelseaGirl.NYC account alongside her daughter. The duo source pieces from gold scrappers in the New York City diamond district, rescuing everything from contemporary charms to historic pieces from the 19th century from being melted. “My mom and I are kind of the yin-yang when sorting in our junk piles,” says Ruby. “She’ll often first spot something antique and collectible, versus I’ll first spot a currently trendy piece millennials would die for. With that being said, when the other one picks it up, we don’t even have to speak, we can just shoot each other a look that says, “Yes”. They also curate pieces from dealers in Europe and provide competitive pricing based on the current gold market price. “One of my favorite parts of my job is selling items that I truly believe in, that hold real value, that are smart financial choices for our customers,” adds Ruby. “Gold is akin to dollars, just last week gold skyrocketed to the highest dollar per ounce in history. And the best part? They get to wear their investments!”