10 Old Bakelite Pieces That Are Secretly Worth A Fortune (You Might Own One)

Bonhams sold one Bakelite bracelet for $6,375. Most old Bakelite is worth about twenty dollars, and a cotton swab is what separates the two. Nobody clearing out a house ever runs it. Plastic is the one category the clearance trade bins without testing, which is exactly why the good pieces are still sitting in ordinary jewelry boxes. This countdown goes through ten kinds of old Bakelite jewelry and what each one actually made at auction: plain carved bangles, painted figural animal brooches, laminated color-block bangles, charm necklaces on their original celluloid chains, signed artisan dot bangles, articulated brooches with moving limbs, carved message brooches, deep-carved figurals, gumdrop and bowtie bangles, and the hinged Philadelphia bracelet at number one. The three tells that separate real Bakelite from Lucite and later plastic come first, before the countdown starts, so you can check a piece while you watch.