Fine housewares.
Dec. 31st, 2003 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaFor almost ten years, my parents have had a box deep in their attic labeled "Aunt Kings china - for Rebecca." This Christmas, they dug it out and gave it to me to bring home.
I don't remember my Aunt Kings, whose real name was Elizabeth Kingsley. She was a spinster, my father's mother's sister. She might be the only one of my father's blood relatives whom my mother unreservedly liked. I wish I'd known her.
Setting the table on holidays was always my favorite job. I would iron the tablecloth and napkins, set out water goblets and wine glasses just so, arrange the centerpiece, polish the silver - I liked to make the table look perfect. When I was allowed to choose between my parents' wedding china and my Aunt Kings' china, I always chose hers. I just loved it. Somewhere along the line, without discussion, it became accepted family knowledge that one day her china would be mine.
This Sunday I brought the set home. The pieces are an odd assortment - I've got 12 dinner plates, 13 lunch plates which are possibly salad plates, 7 bread-and-butter plates, 4 teacups, 6 saucers, and 3 unidentified dishes that I think must be for sauces or relishes. This is the pattern.
Searching online for pieces that might make up a more complete set, I made a shocking discovery. "Michael, there are people who want, like, $350 for a serving bowl in this pattern." He looked up, startled. "We're going to need to increase our renter's insurance." Somehow, even knowing that the china was antique, I had never thought about its financial value. I looked at more prices: $200 for a sugar bowl. $45 for a single cup and saucer. $39 for a lunch plate - we had thirteen. I started to multiply numbers in my head and feel nervous.
I had always loved the idea of using these dishes in my own home, on my own table. I had always thought that I would use them more often than my mother used them - not every day, but certainly not just three times a year. But now I saw them accidentally crashing to the floor. What if someone broke in and smashed up our stuff? We live in a high-crime city. Don't I have the responsibility to take extra-good care of a valuable family heirloom?
Eventually I settled down. What makes this china a family heirloom is the fact that it's been admired and loved and used. I certainly don't feel the same way about my great-grandmother's silver tea service, which was always packed so securely away that I've never even seen it. Aunt Kings' china won't be an heirloom to my children if they've never carefully laid it onto a freshly ironed tablecloth and watched the gold rims glint in the candlelight.
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what they're worth. I'm not going to sell them. They're not an investment - they're plates. And plates are meant to be eaten from.
I don't remember my Aunt Kings, whose real name was Elizabeth Kingsley. She was a spinster, my father's mother's sister. She might be the only one of my father's blood relatives whom my mother unreservedly liked. I wish I'd known her.
Setting the table on holidays was always my favorite job. I would iron the tablecloth and napkins, set out water goblets and wine glasses just so, arrange the centerpiece, polish the silver - I liked to make the table look perfect. When I was allowed to choose between my parents' wedding china and my Aunt Kings' china, I always chose hers. I just loved it. Somewhere along the line, without discussion, it became accepted family knowledge that one day her china would be mine.
This Sunday I brought the set home. The pieces are an odd assortment - I've got 12 dinner plates, 13 lunch plates which are possibly salad plates, 7 bread-and-butter plates, 4 teacups, 6 saucers, and 3 unidentified dishes that I think must be for sauces or relishes. This is the pattern.
Searching online for pieces that might make up a more complete set, I made a shocking discovery. "Michael, there are people who want, like, $350 for a serving bowl in this pattern." He looked up, startled. "We're going to need to increase our renter's insurance." Somehow, even knowing that the china was antique, I had never thought about its financial value. I looked at more prices: $200 for a sugar bowl. $45 for a single cup and saucer. $39 for a lunch plate - we had thirteen. I started to multiply numbers in my head and feel nervous.
I had always loved the idea of using these dishes in my own home, on my own table. I had always thought that I would use them more often than my mother used them - not every day, but certainly not just three times a year. But now I saw them accidentally crashing to the floor. What if someone broke in and smashed up our stuff? We live in a high-crime city. Don't I have the responsibility to take extra-good care of a valuable family heirloom?
Eventually I settled down. What makes this china a family heirloom is the fact that it's been admired and loved and used. I certainly don't feel the same way about my great-grandmother's silver tea service, which was always packed so securely away that I've never even seen it. Aunt Kings' china won't be an heirloom to my children if they've never carefully laid it onto a freshly ironed tablecloth and watched the gold rims glint in the candlelight.
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what they're worth. I'm not going to sell them. They're not an investment - they're plates. And plates are meant to be eaten from.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 08:52 am (UTC)But you're right-things need to be present to make them valuable. Some of the most special things I've inherited aren't necessarily hugely valuable, but are personally valuable, while others carry both personal and monetary value, like the gold half circle pin, from my grandmother. Which I should wear more often, but I'm terrified that something will happen and I'll lose it...and it's irreplaceable. But it's meaningful because my grandmother almost always wore it, regardless of the actual value.
I think it's great that you have the china and that you'll use it.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 08:55 am (UTC)"Valuable" doesn't mean "worth a lot of money."
It means "useful."
A beautiful sofa that you're not allowed to sit on is worthless. A beautiful plate that you're not allowed to eat off of is worthless.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 09:09 am (UTC)I don't normally like floral china patterns, but that pattern is quite pretty. :)
I'll ask my sister if she has any of the pieces hanging around (she buys/sells quite a bit of china on e-bay and at markets) or if she's seen any of your missing pieces around (bread & butter plates, cups, saucers). If she has any or sees any on her rounds, would you like me grab them? I could pass them on to you at APC11, if you're going.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 09:09 am (UTC)I know that my mother wishes she'd been thinking more like you before the Northridge quake.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 09:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 09:33 am (UTC)I feel pretty much the same about the Noritake china I brought home from Okinawa. The replacement cost would be prohibitive, but I didn't buy it as an investment. It was bought to be used, and we use it.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 10:11 am (UTC)It helped me put a replacement value on what we've got, for our insurance company - although I'll probably want to call the company and inquire; ours is dated "1924" on the bottoms, and if the pattern was around for a while after that, newer pieces might be worth less.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 10:16 am (UTC)Businesses that handle replacement china have very high standards for what they sell -- buyers want as close to mint condition as possible. When my parents bought new china for everyday use, they tried to resell their old stuff, and the dealers rejected most of it. Therefore, chances are that a well-used (and well-loved) set doesn't have quite the monetary value you may hope/fear.
Just FYI.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 10:45 am (UTC)I need to invent some more occasions for putting effort into my table, actually.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 11:16 am (UTC)exactly. My mother has Fostoria leaded crystal for 12, I think. We've always used it at holidays. She also has an antique leaded crystal bowl from a great(something) grandmother that always was used as a serving dish. I get my mother a piece of crystal something every year.
A couple of years ago, she talked about getting rid of that dinner service and I about pitched a fit. They're *mine*. I grew up with them and they're a part of me. We later found out that it's about $100 to replace a salad plate in her particular pattern.
You're right, though. It's not about the price tag. It's about the memories and creating them for another gneration.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 11:24 am (UTC)But we use it. It sets aside the meal as being Important, and honors the occasion. Anything that is worth using the Agony Dishes for must be something pretty wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 11:34 am (UTC)We don't need any kind of precise valuation of the set - we just need to know roughly how much it would cost to replace the pieces, in case of a natural disaster or something. Per-piece prices aren't of course accurate - besides which, they vary depending on where you look - but they do give enough of a ballpark range to let me know that, for example, we probably need closer to $2000 worth of coverage than $500 or $5000.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 05:37 pm (UTC)all the teacups and saucers broke years ago, so my mom spent a couple of years assembling single teacup/saucer sets in *other* patterns. it's really beautiful at the end of the meal to look around and everyone has the same plates, but each cup and saucer is unique :)
i have my grandmother's silver tea set. apparantly she had two. my aunt wanted the one that always sat on the mantle and never got used. my mom apologized to me that i "only" got the one that was used, and is missing the top to the sugar. i was thrilled. i much prefer having the one that my grandmother polished and poured, and entertained with. it has faint scratches from years of use, and the platter is different than the rest of the set. i adore it. especially as i never met that grandmother (she died beofore i was born) but i feel exceptionally close with her anyway (despite my mixed blood i look a great deal like her, and have many of the same quirks as she did, and apparantly her same posture as well :)
n.
who loves this kind of thing :)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-31 07:40 pm (UTC)In the back room is a box I just brought down from the ranch. In it is some china, real china from China. I remember a very few occasions when it was used, but mainly it wasn't. Partly that is because there isn't much of it left. Not enough to set the table for more than one or two!
It dates, most probably, from just before the turn of the century when a Great, Great Uncle of mine was in the Merchant Marine. The patern is called "Rose Medalion". The cups are eggshell thin, so thin as to be translucent. The rest of the service is similarly light and lovely. Mom never liked it much and always claimed it was "cheap old stuff" which my research on price partly bears out (insufficient gold). Still the new pieces that are still being made in the same style lack the lightness and delicacy of these pieces. I'll use them, maybe... But probably just for the odd cup of tea.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-01 04:44 pm (UTC)MKK