Saturday, February 7, 2009

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD ...AND THE WORD WAS JEWELRY!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was JEWELRY...and the Word had a name and the name was Jeanne, I mean Sayde....um, no! I mean Etta, my great grandma’s name...and forever after her legacy has been passed on to me and my daughter in the form of an unending love and enjoyment of antique and vintage jewelry. And with that in mind, Posh Adornment was born and the jewelry gods smiled on our new venture.

Welcome to the Posh Adornment blog! I’ve had so many people ask me about me, about how I got into the jewelry business, what it is I love about it, wanting to know who the face is behind the jabber and how and where I find our jewelry that I have decided to blog about it…tell you some about us and our journey, how we think, and show you some fabulous jewelry along the way…mine and others’.

So here the journey begins!

I’m Susan and my daughter is Bryana and we decided to join forces as a team and run this business together. Keeping it all in the family has its pros and cons…mostly pros, and it’s great to be working with the next generation of jewelry addicts in my great grandma Etta’s line. I remember my great grandmother even tho’ I was only two or three years old when she passed away. It was because of her incredible collection of jewelry. She always wore something sparkly or full of lively colors, and even when she was ill at the very end of her life, she wore her beautiful jewelry. I loved the diamond pin, long and graceful encrusted with sparkling stones and always sitting right where I expected it to be at the base of her throat.

I started buying and selling antique jewels thirty four years ago and eventually chose to set up our existing business as a full time entity as a way to feed my addiction and allow me to continue buying and collecting what I love. First I set up my shop Jeweljuggler on eBay where we still run our auctions under the jeweljuggler name. After many years there, I decided to expand developing Posh Adornment which is currently being hosted on Etsy.com. Bryana and I are now on the brink of launching our private website which will be coming soon so keep an eye out here for our announcement on February 18th.

Being born in the Chinese year of the Tiger, I have a voracious appetite for almost everything and lots of initiative, imagination and determination. I was the wild child and everything I have done has been done with great vigor and an intensity that has sometimes been off putting, but always interesting and quirky. Eccentric and quirky are great words to describe me and even as a child I was quirky, talking to invisible friends who I knew were real, ardently digging through mom’s jewelry wearing her baubles and good stuff for dress up and fueling my unending curiosity for information and history all the while.

Nowhere was it written that I had to be ‘normal’ and even today I have no idea what that means. When everyone else was out on the playground I was reading books on history, taking art classes, drawing on everything I could find, dreaming of a life in ancient Egypt and talking in my mind to the oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece. I loved the fantasy of being ‘back there’ and adored the costumes of old European times and the jewelry and buttons of the day. Who woulda thunk it, that I would one day pull all these interests together combining them with my insatiable appetite for eclecticism to form the business that I am now enjoying!

That leads me back to the future…well not really the future…but the nearer past. I found MY first score of gorgeous jewelry and what a pleasant surprise it was. It was 1975 and I was in Los Angeles. I went to participate in the controversial Primal Scream Therapy with Arthur Janov and while living there for two years screaming my head off I made great discoveries. I found the flea markets, the antique shows, the many stores of Rodeo Drive and the Rose Bowl. Not for playing football mind you, but for the largest, once a month colossal flea market you have ever seen and it was there I started officially as the jewelry junkie dealer…but it was an accident.

Working in LA was something of a challenge at that time. I’d found a job on Sunset Strip at an infamous bar called Filthy McNasties and I was the front door girl bouncer who took your entrance fees and screened those customers who could and couldn’t come into the club. The owners affectionately called me “Ruth in the Booth” ! Not the most lucrative or safest job in the world but I got to come in late at night and do some scat singing with the band and a gal named Ruby, had all the Tequila I could drink and never had to wear high heels and pantyhose to work. So I learned to live with it and enjoy.

During my days when not sleeping, I crawled the local flea markets for goodies and fresh air and one Sunday I discovered the Rose Bowl flea market. Exhilaration was my emotional state and I was well on my way. I bought an antique gold ring with three little diamonds for $5 and then another, an aquamarine ring in 14K gold for $5 and another and another until I had all ten fingers decked out. I stood in front of someone’s booth and the lady said, “Honey, I love your ring!” I asked her which one and she said “All of them, how much you want for ‘em?” It only took me two minutes to contemplate and I sold them all for $250 and that’s how it all began. An investment of about $50 and one hour later a profit of $200. Wow! That was so easy and in a flash… an epiphany of light and I started the long trail forward bedecked in incredible jewelry deals for the next 34 years! I will tell you tho’, that I kept those very first two rings and here they are, now in the proud ownership of my daughter’s much beloved collection and worth a few pennies more than the $5 each I spent.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excellent jewelry and written presentation. Lovely and unusual pieces not to be found anywhere else! Congratulations.

Mary East
Auburn, AL