China issues

[BuffJim]

Is fine China still a thing? Or is that just something old people care about?  My Mom has 4 sets of China. She’s heading to assisted living, and can’t take it with her. My brother snagged the best set for his daughter. She did spend a year living with her Grandparents, so in a way she deserves them. They were gold rimmed from the UK. Set 4 are everyday plates and not of interest. I can take set 2 (Christmas theme) for my daughter and set 3 (Harvest Theme)for BuffCarla.  Set 2 and 3 are both Spode from England. My oldest brother has set himself up as the distributor of the assets. I’m not greedy, but I would like things to be distributed fairly equally among the 5 of us children. But my brother seems to want to distribute it Willy nilly. There’s some big ticket stuff. A Lincoln worth 12-15K, and a Grand Piano maybe worth 25-30k. 
 

What do you think of the two patterns. 

[shootingstar]

I think the most important thing amongst immediate family, they must want particular piece(s).  The gold rimmed dishes is more symbolic now. Dearie's mother did have some. I have no clue where the pieces are now.

I think alot of women in my generation and younger, just want a nice dish set but it doesn't have to be real china.  Having those Christmas ones would be really nice for such dinners for family members who want to have them. It is possible your daughter may not yet fully appreciate such dishes at this stage in her life.  But soon she will...

Then the others, you should have them auctioned off or go to antique shop.

[shootingstar]

I just remembered a good close friend of mine whose parents died each over 20 yrs. ago, she and sis inherited some incredible Welsh fine furniture that belonged to great grandparents from Wales.  I saw it arranged in the house when parents still alive....the furniture was incredible and had some unique characteristics.  She's has to pay storage costs..for now.

Dearie's brother is a true expert on pianos. He did work for Steinway's @headquarters in NYC for over a decade. HIs whole working life has been piano sales across the U.S.  Did you want me to give his email? He lives in Easton, PA.

[Further]

You can have my share of the china for your share of the Lincoln 

[Further]

My wife has her families china, passed down for at least a couple of generations. Never been out of the boxes it came in, at least 6 years ago. We also have her dads organ (oh shit}, I poked at the keys for a few minutes when it first showed up, she told me to quit making a racket.

[BuffJim]

13 minutes ago, Further said:

You can have my share of the china for your share of the Lincoln 

I didn’t even get a hubcap. Car went to my next older brother.  I don’t need an extra car now. So far the two youngest brothers haven’t gotten anything. It’s not an estate. My mom is still alive, but owns everything, but can’t use much of it once she gets to assisted living. She actually has an older Lincoln in the garage, but it’s not worth much. 

[ChrisL]

From my experience fine China & tableware is a thing of the past. Younger kids want function over style.  Their tastes & habits have changed & aren’t trying to impress while entertaining in their home. They’d rather show of their 80” TV, electronics, cars & such. 

[shootingstar]

22 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

I didn’t even get a hubcap. Car went to my next older brother.  I don’t need an extra car now. So far the two youngest brothers haven’t gotten anything. It’s not an estate. My mom is still alive, but owns everything, but can’t use much of it once she gets to assisted living. She actually has an older Lincoln in the garage, but it’s not worth much. 

An extra car is just extra cost...and you must run it or it won't run at all in about 6 months or more. We learned that when we left the car in garage after my father died. The good thing my father drove the car for 25 yrs.

Another friend now has a 2nd car in their driveway....it's her parents' who are now in assisted living and can't really get in and out of car by themselves now. (They are 94 & 92 yrs.).  So it's only her hubby driving...for 2 cars.  So they use this (bigger) car to schlep her parents to a distant park for relaxation, ec. 

[jsharr ★]

We have that Christmas pattern and we use it.  We had two sets of Spode that we sold

[Longjohn ★]

My wife bought expensive fine china and silverware on a payment plan before I met her. I ended up paying for it. She also inherited a fancy set of stainless flat wear. The kind that comes in a fancy wooden box. I’m never going to use it. I think door to door sales people hit up young single girls telling they are going to need this crap.

[shootingstar]

23 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

My wife bought expensive fine china and silverware on a payment plan before I met her. I ended up paying for it. She also inherited a fancy set of stainless flat wear. The kind that comes in a fancy wooden box. I’m never going to use it. I think door to door sales people hit up young single girls telling they are going to need this crap.

Well dearie had a super contemporary designer stainless steel set made in Denmark..I know his daughter is happy to have the set and I'm happy for her.  It was used for every special dinner occasion. The design is sleek and arty, is about 30 years ahead of its time.  It really is a cool set and usable.

I'm just happy to have a set that's not....stained and 1 design. That's all.  I know the focus is on the cooking technique and taste.  What IS worth is perhaps cast iron cookware or decent 3-4 ply copper bottom stainless steel cookware set with good handles.

[Longjohn ★]

She also bought a lifetime guarantee pots and pans set. They were quite expensive. The lifetime guarantee was not for our lifetime but the lifetime of the company. When our pots and pans started falling apart we tried to contact the company, no longer in business.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

1 hour ago, BuffJim said:

My mom is still alive, but owns everything, but can’t use much of it once she gets to assisted living.

The fact that your Mom can't use an item once she gets to assisted living seems of no matter to me. 

Even if your Mom wants to give these items away, it seems that everyone/anyone should be gladly paying your Mom fair value for what they receive to help her with her expenses once she does enter assisted living.

Even if she thinks she doesn't need the money.

 

[maddmaxx ★]

8 hours ago, ChrisL said:

From my experience fine China & tableware is a thing of the past. Younger kids want function over style.  Their tastes & habits have changed & aren’t trying to impress while entertaining in their home. They’d rather show of their 80” TV, electronics, cars & such. 

We checked the value of an inherited set of Waterford Crystal and were advised that the market is very poor for this sort of thing as the younger generation doesn't do the large fancy dinners that older generations did.

[Dirtyhip]

I love the idea of fine china, but I would break the pieces.  I am still operating on these old duck plates that my grandma gave me.  They are not classy of fine china by any means.  They are just a simple nature theme. I think these plates have a touch of melmac in them.  They don't break so eaily, but they feel like normal china.  I see nice complete sets at the second hand store and it is slighty tempting.

The pattern on the left is quite popular.  I remember that pattern.

[Airehead]

Christmas China will always be a festive way to celebrate.  I suspect she will use the Spode Christmas and make memories.  Heck, you can even eat pizza on it.  I think it would be great if she could have these.  Seems like if your mom is still able, she should be passing out stuff--- not your brother.

[BuffJim]

3 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

We checked the value of an inherited set of Waterford Crystal and were advised that the market is very poor for this sort of thing as the younger generation doesn't do the large fancy dinners that older generations did.

My parents loved dinner parties and formal holiday meals. We are much less formal, but will enjoy using the autumn themed set at Thanksgiving. For my daughter, she’ll use the Christmas dishes once or twice a year and enjoy the link with the past. 

[Dirtyhip]

3 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

My parents loved dinner parties and formal holiday meals. We are much less formal, but will enjoy using the autumn themed set at Thanksgiving. For my daughter, she’ll use the Christmas dishes once or twice a year and enjoy the link with the past. 

I love the idea of dress up dinner, but everyone around me prefers a more relaxed dinner thing.  I love the idea of multiple forks.  I have a dishwasher to make things easier. 

[BuffJim]

Just now, Airehead said:

Christmas China will always be a festive way to celebrate.  I suspect she will use the Spode Christmas and make memories.  Heck, you can even eat pizza on it.  I think it would be great if she could have these.  Seems like if your mom is still able, she should be passing out stuff--- not your brother.

My brother has Power of Attorney for all my Mom’s business affairs. I do have to ask my mother, but I don’t think she’ll have a problem with it. My mom is lucid but severe memory issues. We just talked about dinner plans the next two nights and worked out a menu (including local corn on the cob tonight from the Amish farmer). As soon as we talked through tomorrow’s meal - Taco Tuesday, she said then we just have to figure out tonight’s dinner. We just did, Mom. Hot dogs vegetables and corn on the cob. She said, Oh that’s right. 
 

She’ll probably ask me five times if the Olympics will be on TV tonight. 

[MickinMD ★]

The Harvest theme fits the occasion more often than the Christmas theme, so I like Harvest better.  Otherwise I like the Christmas one better artistically.

[Randomguy]

I like the idea of fine china way better than the practice.

I like that there may be acquired history and memories of generations of plates/setting, and that they may have been part of many family get-togethers throughout your life..  It does seem fussy to have plates put away for fancy occasions, though, storage is an issue for lots of folks, and also there is always the worry of breakage, plus you could end up with lots of sets of china without really wanting to.

The minimalist in me wants just enough plates for feed whoever drops by, but not much more that I would have to pull out and put away all the time.

[Longjohn ★]

My wife used to get out the fancy china and silverware on occasion. Then I would have to wash it and put it away. I would rather use Correl.

[ChrisL]

2 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

I love the idea of dress up dinner, but everyone around me prefers a more relaxed dinner thing.  I love the idea of multiple forks.  I have a dishwasher to make things easier. 

We break out the paper plates when everyone comes over to eat.  MIL was mortified until we said fine, you do the dishes then. She quickly adapted to paper. 

It’s more about the food than what it’s served on in my book.

[Allen ★]

I inherited my mother’s china and silver, and a set of my grandmother’s China. Mother made me promise to use them rather than let it gather dust in a cabinet. I use my Grandmother’s pattern (Furnivals Quail) as daily ware because I don’t love it and don’t care if I break the occasional piece. Mother’s set (Lenox something or other) is gathering dust in the cabinet—sorry, Mom.

I use the silver every day. Don’t need to polish the silver if you use it. 

[Longjohn ★]

My mom sold nobility princess China back in the sixties. It was expensive. I just looked it up and it still is.

[shootingstar]

19 hours ago, shootingstar said:

Well dearie had a super contemporary designer stainless steel set made in Denmark..I know his daughter is happy to have the set and I'm happy for her.  It was used for every special dinner occasion. The design is sleek and arty, is about 30 years ahead of its time.  It really is a cool set and usable.

I'm just happy to have a set that's not....stained and 1 design. That's all.  I know the focus is on the cooking technique and taste.  What IS worth is perhaps cast iron cookware or decent 3-4 ply copper bottom stainless steel cookware set with good handles.

Well, there might be a struggle over this stainless steel Danish cutlery set.  I'm not kidding...amongst dearie's children and his brother.  Everyone in his family loves it.

 

[Kirby]

Based on our experience cleaning out 3 houses/apartments, not a lot of people want fine china any more.  My sister has our grandmother's set, and complains every time sh ehas to get it down from the top shelves for a special event.  Nobody wanted my aunt's, and nobody was too eager for my Mom's..  My niece and nephew had no interest, but my nephew's fiancee seemed interested when they got engaged.  She may have only been saying that to please her future mother in law, but that was good enough for us.

I recall reading an article in the Times about how hard it is to sell pianos now as so many of the baby boomers are downsizing. and  a lot are coming onto the market.  I'd check with a furniture dealer if you were trying to come up with a value for the piano.

We were always happy if someone in the family would take something and use it because it had emotional value to t hem.

[Longjohn ★]

My daughter in law had a baby grand her dad bought her. Even those take up a lot of room. He built an addition on his house for the piano and another bathroom. After she got married they have never had room for it. My son is on his third electric piano. They take up a lot less room but don’t survive six kids taking piano lessons very well.

[BuffJim]

My mom’s piano is a Kawai. Not sure if it would be considered grand or baby grand. It’s not huge but it’s in great condition. It’s about 20 years old. She said she promised it to my niece. 
 

She did promise us the two sets of China today, but not quite ready to part with them. 

[JerrySTL ★]

WoJSTL bought Wedgwood china when we lived in England. We even went to the factory a couple of times. Angela is the pattern, I think. Also a Christmas set.

When we cleaned out my mother's and step-father's place, we found a lot of silverware. More than one incomplete set. We sold it for over $2,500. That paid for about 3 months of assisted living.