My only purchase on e-Bay is this brooch, which I bought for under $30 over a decade ago:

It belonged to the seller’s grandmother, and I remember wondering why she was selling it and feeling badly for buying a piece of her personal history so cheaply. In the listing, the seller wrote that a jeweler had determined the five pearls to be real Akoyas set in base metal, and that he had said that first-quality pearls were often incorporated in high-end Japanese costume jewelery pieces in the 1950s....