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The Wiki Wiki One Day Vintage Collectibles & Hawaiiana Show returns to the Blaisdell Hawaii Suites from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
Ming’s collector Linda Lee and Hawaiiana collector Watters O. Martin will give a free, informal, verbal evaluation of Ming’s jewelry and/or a Hawaiian souvenir spoon per person from noon to 2 p.m. at table 44. Up to three additional items will be evaluated for a suggested donation of $5 that will be donated to Honolulu’s Shriners Hospitals for Children.
Ming’s, once hailed as the "Tiffany of the Pacific," closed the doors of its Fort Street Mall store in 1999 after 59 years of business.
The closing was a boon for collectors, who have seen the price of Ming’s jewelry shoot up more than 90 times its original value in some cases.
Inflation has soared on Ming’s recognizable style — whether in hand-painted, carved ivory bracelets; sterling silver flora jewelry embellished with ivory, jade beads or pearls; or necklaces of pierced gold beads.
Ming’s earrings that sold for $3 from the 1940s through the 1960s now fetch more than $200 on online auction sites, and Lee will be able to offer an estimate of the current value of your mother or grandmother’s vintage jewelry.
The Wiki Wiki One Day show will feature only items that are 20-plus years old, with more than 70 vendors showing estate jewelry, midcentury decor, Niihau shell lei, stamps and coins, ukulele, Hawaiian monarchy and Victorian items, aloha shirts, postcards and more.
Admission is $4.50, $15 for early entry at 9 a.m. Call 941-9754 or visit www.ukulele.com/wikiwiki.html.
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STAR ADVERTISER 2002