eBay, schmee-Bay. Everyone knows about eBay, that it's not only a source for electronics and Louis Vuitton knock-offs, but also a great place to find jewelry. eBay has lots of interesting contemporary and vintage jewelry...but you have to wade through 20,000 pages to find what you're looking for. For the more discerning (or more impatient) lover of jewelry, be it estate, vintage, or contemporary high-end designer, there's Trocadero.com. I found the amazing ca.1950s 14K gold, Persian Tuquoise, and Pink Sapphire ring there (above). So colorful and fun!

Trocadero bills itself as "the essential to buying & selling fine arts and antiques online." It's a site with little online stores by antique and collectibles dealers, with an efficient search function and easy-to-use layout. Every dealer maintains his/her space, and ships the pieces themselves. And the variety of jewelry here is outstanding: you have everything from platinum estate jewelry to 1980s gold by Paloma Picasso for Tiffany to watches modernism to art deco...and more. And we all know, vintage is never out of style...many of the pieces are super-trendy, in fact.

Check out this unbelievable brass neckpiece from Art Smith, a 1950s Greenwich Village jeweler and a pioneer of the modernist style whose influence we all still see today.

While much of the jewelry on Trocadero is sort of serious, there's always a little kookie something here and there. I just had to show this little Bakelite pig pin from the 1930s. Oink Oink.

Have fun searching...and let me know if you find any excellent pieces or designers I should investigate further!