Charms & Charm Bracelets

A perfect Valentine’s Day gift! Or any other occasion like Mother’s Day, or Graduation…

An upscale and very popular member of the charms jewelry world is Pandora Jewelry of Copenhagen, Denmark. They make a unique line of necklaces, bracelets and charms that is patented for it’s creative design and safety features. This isn’t cheap junk jewelry – they make their bracelets and beads from sterling silver, 14k gold, Murano glass beads, genuine gemstones, and high quality cubic zirconium.

A bracelet alone – without any charms! – will retail for $1000 and up if its in 14k gold, and start at around $50 if it’s sterling silver. The beads or charms start at around $25 each for sterling silver, and about $150 and (waaaay) up for the 14k gold charms. Celebrities Jennifer Garner, Donna Karen, Lara Logan, Queen Latifah, Sandra Bullock, Katie Couric, and Iman are just some of the more famous fans of this beautiful line.

These are also known as “European charms,” but don’t confuse them with Italian Charms which is a different thing entirely!

What’s unique about the design is how the beads or charms are attached to the bracelet. Unlike the bail/jump ring attachment onto a linked chain of traditional charm bracelets below,

Pandora charms have a threaded hole in the center which is how the charms are attached. The bracelet is more like snake chain than the link bracelets used for traditional charms.  There are 3 types of bead: charms, spacers, and clips.

Its very much a mix-and-match system, as all charm bracelets are, but the effect of the Pandora bracelet (and the Pandora necklaces, which are built on the same system) is more like a bangle bracelet than a loose dangly bracelet – in other words, you can make it more rigid than a traditional charm bracelet.

They have silver- and goldsmiths/designers in Copenhagen and release new designs about four times a year.  Pieces eventually get “retired” so you have to look on the secondary market for them. And here’s where it can get tricky, because there are A LOT of knock-off Pandora jewelry pieces out there! If you don’t mind buying a fake in order to get it cheap, and you don’t mind that it doesn’t have the high quality look of original Pandora jewelry, then just shop for price. But if authenticity is important to you, then here are a few tips to make sure you’re getting a good deal on the real thing.

eBay is a great source of discount merchandise. Unfortunately it’s also a fertile ground for some less-than-scrupulous sellers who will try to deceive you and sell a knock-off or fake. I just did a search on eBay for Pandora charms and it resulted in over 16,000 items listed. However, a careful look at the listings shows that what is presented isn’t always what you think it is…

• Look at the prices of the items listed and compare them to retail prices. No matter how naive you are, you just cannot believe that a 14k gold charm that sells for $300 retail will sell on eBay for 19.99 and still be genuine. No way, no how.  It’s probably only gold-plated and not solid gold. It might not even be that – it could just be “gold-tone” or gold-colored base metal.  Remember, if it looks too good to be true, then it is! Keep on looking.
• Look at the title of the item and the description carefully. If there are words like “for,” “fits,” or “fit,” it is most likely a generic European style bead that is sized to fit the Pandora bracelet. Look for other brands mentioned like Troll (or Trollbeads), Chamilia,  Biagi, Baci etc., then this confirms that it’s a generic bead and not the brand name. Some of these are very nice – real sterling silver, or gold, but you should NOT pay the same price as pieces marked with the brand name.
• Look at where the seller is located. If they are located anywhere in Asia, 9 times out of 10 they sell fakes and not the genuine article. This is a notorious problem with eBay and these sellers are very clever. Often they have high feedback ratings – mostly from novice buyers who don’t know a real Pandora piece from a hole in the ground! But again, some knock-offs are higher quality and some of these sellers do sell the better fakes. Read the feedback, especially from buyers who have high feedback numbers themselves.
• Look for the Pandora name on the bead or chain. If the picture doesn’t show it, ask the seller to provide it. All authentic Pandora pieces are marked.

I re-did my search on eBay to exclude the words fit, fits, for, style, and the other brand names above. It dropped the 16,000+ items down to about 2000! And I could still see that many of the listings were not genuine Pandora brand items. But the discounts are decent for those that are there, so you can find some good deals on the real thing. This is especially true of distressed sellers who, in these tough economic times, need the money more than the bracelet.

So go ahead and shop on eBay and get some great deals on Pandora or generic European style charm bracelets. They are just gorgeous, and they’re really HOT right now!

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