So at the time I bought my first charm, I had, well, one charm.  And one charm does not a bracelet make.  So conveniently most sellers of Zoppini charms will also sell what they refer to as "starter bracelets", which are really a bunch of blank links hooked together.  Of course, you can get them from non-Zoppini makers, and of course it probably matters less for the links that don't have charms, but remember, I was and am a Zoppini snob, so for consistency I went with Zoppini.  My choice, then, was between matte and shiny stainless steel links, bearing in mind that the background of the links with charms on them is shiny.  I thought all that shiny surface would be a bit much, so I went with matte.

Note that Italian charm sellers are savvy business people.  A bracelet for a grown woman is about 17 or 18 links, so they build their starter bracelet with only 14 or so links.  So with built-in incentive to buy more, all I had to do was choose...

About five years ago, two things dawned on me.

First, name anything random and somewhat self-contained that is produced or distributed worldwide, and I'd bet someone collects it.  Shot glasses, cookbooks, golf tees, pillboxes, decorative swords... you name it.  Not only would someone collect it; probably someone I know would.

Second, I didn't collect anything.

Naturally that second part had to change -- particularly since my employer (yes, I mean eBay!) has done a pretty good job of facilitating the uniting of buyers and sellers of all things collectible, and I had a vested interest in getting to use the eBay site a bit more.  So I kept an eye out for things I might want to collect.  I thought about what it is that I like to do, and what I'm interested in, and how that might translate to a tangible object that wasn't too big or too expensive.  And one day, ironically while shopping for eBay merchandise, I found the perfect thing: Zoppini Italian charms.

Italian charms are small, decorated metal links that you can link together to form a bracelet -- or in my case, an ever increasing number of bracelets.  The decorations range from country flags to animals to food items to zodiacal signs to other random objects.  What I decided to do was to build a collection of charms that represents me -- whether it's my job, my hobbies, my home town or -- most of all -- my travels.  I also decided to stick with one brand -- Zoppini -- that's particularly high quality, using only stainless steel links decorated with real 18-karat gold and enamel.  Now, whenever I travel anywhere, I pick out a new Zoppini charm that somehow represents the trip.

I'll use this blog to tell you about my charm collection and my favorite charm sellers on eBay, with the added bonus that I get to talk about traveling!

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Disclaimer: While I am an eBay employee, these opinions are my own.