Have you seen *Hacks* on MAX yet? I just finished the fourth season and was once again struck by the similarities between the lead character, Deborah Vance, played by the incredible Jean Smart, and the late comedian Joan Rivers. Long before Rivers put her name on jewelry, she was already competing in the male-dominated world of stand-up comedy and late-night television.
While the small screen tale isn’t directly modeled after Rivers’s life, there are a number of parallels, including a wardrobe I can’t help but admire and lots of eye-catching costume jewelry. That got me thinking about all the jewelry marketed under the famed Joan Rivers brand because the fictional comedian in Hacks also sold on QVC during her career.
Just like Kenneth Jay Lane, Rivers made quite the splash on QVC. She was a popular guest alongside the network’s regular show hosts, and her Joan Rivers Classic Collection sold very well. So well, in fact, that there is a lot of Joan Rivers jewelry available in the secondary marketplace now. If you’ve been following some of my buy it or leave it articles, you know that means some pieces will be worth more than others.
Let’s explore the world of Joan Rivers jewelry a little more, and then I’ll give you some pointers on what to buy and what to leave behind, including some items that aren’t what they appear to be.
How the Joan Rivers Classic Collection Began
Rivers often joked about her husband Edgar in her comedy bits, but by 1995, she was writing Jewelry by Joan Rivers in tribute to the fine jewelry collection he helped her build, and some of the copies of those gems were sold on QVC. After noting how expensive high-end costume jewelry could be for the average woman, Rivers began toying with designing a collection. Not long after that, in 1990, QVC wanted her to endorse a cosmetic line. She pitched the idea of jewelry instead, and a nineteen-year partnership began.
In the book, she also writes about working with designer David Dangle, who previously designed her stage costumes, to “create a collection of costume jewelry that would be at once beautiful, wearable, and, best of all, affordable. Our plan was to explore the world of jewelry, find the very best pieces, then adapt them so they would work for real women in the real world.”
The first item that sold was a strand of faux pearls with a removable enhancer that could be worn as a brooch. It was modeled after a Fabergé design. Other designs mimicking fine jewelry were added later as line after line sold out, and her fans clamored for more. Many costume jewelry pieces offered inspiration as well, and Ciner of New York even provided designs from their archives that were produced in Asia as co-branded pieces for Rivers’ collection.
Joan Rivers Jewelry to Buy, and What to Leave Behind
If you do a simple search on the Joan Rivers brand in the WorthPoint Price Guide, you’ll discover tens of thousands of entries. That’s no surprise considering the success Rivers had on QVC. Paging through some of those lovely designs, you’ll also note a wide array of price points.
When it comes to necklaces, a couple to look out for include the Love, Luck & Hope collection in a velvet Victorian-inspired heart-shaped box and the Hearts & Flowers necklace. Both can sell for a few hundred dollars in the original presentation boxes. Rivers was also famous for creating egg charms inspired by Fabergé, and necklaces featuring those can also exceed $100, depending on the style of the eggs (some single examples can be worth less than $10 each).
A cuff bracelet inspired by fabulous Coro jewelry made during the 1940s is also a great find worth several hundred dollars. This bracelet is part of a Luxe Editions collection produced in celebration of the fifth anniversary of Joan Rivers jewelry. Like other jeweled flowers in the collection, it is a limited edition and harder to find than average designs, so they usually sell for good sums. If you find a piece that isn’t run of the mill or has big and bold qualities, it could be a winner.
The items worth hundreds aren’t the norm, however. It’s safe to say that most Joan Rivers jewelry will sell in the $20-100 range in the online marketplace, but the only way to know how much to invest in a piece is to do some on-the-fly smartphone research while you’re at an estate sale or thrifting. Missing a find while agonizing over the price is one issue, but you might not want to stock up on cute but hard-to-sell pieces worth $10 or less. And, of course, that leads us to the reproductions to avoid altogether.
Joan Rivers Jewelry Reproductions
Yes, unfortunately, some styles of jewelry that look super close to Joan Rivers pieces have been spotted for sale on Asian import sites for very low prices. They’re then purchased and resold as authentic Joan Rivers designs. Sometimes that happens unknowingly when they make their way into thrift stores, but the same pieces are still being marketed at retail, so it just takes one seller with few scruples to buy and market them as authentic Joan Rivers to pull a fast one.
How can you tell the difference? First, the ones I’ve seen are unmarked. They also look different on the back when compared to an actual piece of Joan Rivers jewelry. Comparing photos of signed and unsigned pieces in a very similar style, it’s evident that the example without the mark is not up to par.
There’s no reason not to buy as many signed pieces of Joan Rivers jewelry as you like; just watch the price points and look for the few styles that are worth far more than average.
Will Seippel is the founder, president, and CEO of WorthPoint. Will has been an avid collector since 1974 and dealer of just about all things antique—with an emphasis on ephemera— since 1984. He is also the creator and founder of HIP, a website devoted to recording the best of the world’s history that has been saved on film.
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