Originally Posted by
Mojo31
My wife is into dishes like I'm into watches and cars. We have china, silver and crystal for 12 that gets used every few years that we got when we married. She has three sets of "everyday" dishes and two sets of stainless, both to serve 12. She has 10 - 15 sets of placemats. And, a set of Christmas dishes.
There are a few really nice bikes in all of that.
I don't get it, but can't really say much.
Between Mrs. GeneJockey and myself, we have inherited at least 4 sets of dishes, none of which we wanted. One set was something that Mom and Dad got back in the 1950s, heavy beige stoneware with mushrooms drawn in them in very 1950s style. We sold the whole set at a garage sale for $10. Mrs. GJ made the mistake of accepting a check, which turned out to be rubber and I think we ended up paying a $25 fee for some reason. Mrs. GJ and I agreed it was worth it to be rid of them. Then there was her mother's Pfaltzgraf, which we used for a few years and also got rid of. And somehow she inherited dishes from both her Grandmothers. She was unable to stop her cousin shipping one set to us, so now they're sitting in two boxes somewhere. Fortunately, she was able to stop a different cousin shipping her other grandmother's set to us. I guess we could put them all in the china cabinet that I inherited from my Great Aunt, which we also don't want and which sits at what used to be my parent's house but now belongs to my oldest sister, which is currently chock full of all kinds of dishes and stuff.
I've concluded that the middle class of the 20th Century acquired a lot of stuff that meant something to them at the time, probably that they were upwardly mobile and could afford some frippery like fancy dishes you'd never use in a decorative cabinet you had to dust, but now that we, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are inheriting it, mostly we don't have any space or interest.