How Popular is Vintage Costume Jewelry Collecting?

I heard somewhere that vintage costume jewelry was the number 2 collectible. So, I thought I'd see if I could track down some statistics to confirm that.

I pretty much struck out. I did find the reference where I heard the rumor though. The Kovel Antiques website, keeps track of the top 20 collector searches each month. In January 2009, "jewelry" was the 2nd highest search term. This is searching within their online price guide. So, while not a general statistic about the popularity of vintage jewelry collecting, it does mean that lots of people seem to be trying to establish jewelry values.

I did some more googling to see if I could find any statistics on the most popular collectibles and really didn't turn up anything useful.

So, unknown just how popular it is in general, but it sure is #1 in my book!