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We finally became real adults the other year, in that we were hosting a big Thanksgiving at our own place. When we pulled out all the fine china that we'd been

We finally became real adults the other year, in that we were hosting a big Thanksgiving at our own place. When we pulled out all the fine china that we'd been handed down we found that we were going to be short some table settings. We looked at all the traditional stores (Penny's, etc) and found the prices for new china sets to be quite a lot. On a lark, we went to the charity shop to just see what we could find. Hey, maybe, just maybe, there would be a set that matched what we already had? The kitchen area was just chock-a-block with fine china. Glasses, plates, little forks, you name it. The silver was real silver judging by the tarnishing, still in those wooden velvet lined boxes. A bit of cellotape binding all the various items together. A whole coffee pot, pure silver, just sitting there next to dozens more. Any style or coloring or gold plating that you liked. Yeah, some of the sets were incomplete. Missing a tea up or a spoon. But no gold lined dinner plate made in Italy or Japan was ever more than a dollar. We pieced together a whole set for 16 people of everything we could think of for under $200. Little oyster forks, big dinner plates, gold plated napkin rings, you name it, we have it now. And if we ever break anything, back to the charity shop to just replace it for under $0.50. Get a whole new set of them for under $10. People are practically giving away all the fine china in my part of the world, and they still can barely find anyone to take it. I don't know what our ancestors were thinking with this stuff, but I doubt it turned out like they thought it would. A good lesson to us all.

eestrada 3y ago
I remember hearing from my mother about how her grandmother (my great grandmother) got her chinaset. It was during the great depression, and some flour companies held long running promotions where a piece of China would be placed inside the bag of flour. If you ended up with too many pieces of one type (for example tea cups), you could trade with your neigbors to equal out your set. It was a way of buying/owning something nice when you barely had money to pay for the food itself. I'm not sure how apocryphal this story is though. Could the China really have survived transport that way? Maybe the purchaser redeemed the China piece another way. They would also use the bag the flour came in as material to make underwear. Literally nothing was wasted. That is probably also why this stuff got passed down to our generation: they couldn't bear to part with anything.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
Some full sets are worth quite some money but most of that crap is mostly worth its weight in silver (it's not pure silver) and that's it. Now here's the kicker: some of these sets have several kilograms of silver in them. Here'd be the biggest french auction site and full "menagere" can go from 2 K EUR up to 15 K EUR for the rarest and biggest ones: https://drouot.com/fr/l/22652407-couverts-espagnols-en-argent-p https://drouot.com/fr/l/22652407-couverts-espagnols-en-argen... They're usually listed with the weight of the various pieces. If it's 750/1000 silver (or whatever: it's not pure silver I think) and there are x kilograms, you can figure out what these are more or less worth. > The silver was real silver judging by the tarnishing I wouldn't be so sure... Many other material do look not unlike silver and were precisely used to make it look like they were silver. These aren't worth anything.

eestrada 3y ago

I remember hearing from my mother about how her grandmother (my great grandmother) got her chinaset. It was during the great depression, and some flour companies held long running promotions where a piece of China would be placed inside the bag of flour. If you ended up with too many pieces of one type (for example tea cups), you could trade with your neigbors to equal out your set. It was a way of buying/owning something nice when you barely had money to pay for the food itself. I'm not sure how apocryphal this story is though. Could the China really have survived transport that way? Maybe the purchaser redeemed the China piece another way. They would also use the bag the flour came in as material to make underwear. Literally nothing was wasted. That is probably also why this stuff got passed down to our generation: they couldn't bear to part with anything.

TacticalCoder 3y ago

Some full sets are worth quite some money but most of that crap is mostly worth its weight in silver (it's not pure silver) and that's it. Now here's the kicker: some of these sets have several kilograms of silver in them. Here'd be the biggest french auction site and full "menagere" can go from 2 K EUR up to 15 K EUR for the rarest and biggest ones: https://drouot.com/fr/l/22652407-couverts-espagnols-en-argent-p https://drouot.com/fr/l/22652407-couverts-espagnols-en-argen... They're usually listed with the weight of the various pieces. If it's 750/1000 silver (or whatever: it's not pure silver I think) and there are x kilograms, you can figure out what these are more or less worth. > The silver was real silver judging by the tarnishing I wouldn't be so sure... Many other material do look not unlike silver and were precisely used to make it look like they were silver. These aren't worth anything.