Collections. Why would anyone want someone else’s collection in most cases? A collection probably means “lots” and you’d really need to be into that item yourself - unless someone wants a collection for selling!
Thank goodness my
Mom didn’t have collections and I do not “collect” either. H has some collections which besides coins IMO are just space users.
China Cabinets. This one is interesting. I can see them losing popularity jist due to the fact that many people don’t care about dining room space. But I do think a china cabinet can store more than china. Or collections
If someone is short on kitchen cabinets a china cabinet could store mugs, smaller
Serving pieces, wine glasses, etc
I volunteer at a charity thrift store….and we frequently get collections when people downsize or their parents die. Things we have a LOT of trouble selling: fancy china, anything silverplate, collector plates (think Franklin Mint, Norman Rockwell, etc), ceramic dolls unless they are very valuable which most aren’t, stemware, collections of things like Precious Moments and Snowbabies, milkglass. People just don’t want this stuff.
Re: china cabinets…no one wants them. You can’t give them away. Most younger people don’t want a glass front cabinet to store mugs, and serving pieces. And they don’t want that style of furniture even in their house. I have a smaller china cabinet that no one wants. I’d give it away….if I could.
I’m not doubting you about the cabinets especially the cabinets from like the 80’s and 90’s….but a mid century modern cabinet like this??? I follow a guy in town who sells MCM and he turns these around SO fast….HOT item (and I’d like one - but not putting china in it!)
@abasket my MCM lover kid would love the bottom part but would hate those sliding glass doors and the upper part. YMMV of course.
A teak cabinet like what you pictured would be more desirable by some than the darker brown or oak or maple furniture that most people are trying to get rid of. Those are what can’t be given away.
My 25yo D just bought a curio cabinet. My first reactions was, “Where did that come from?” thinking that it was hidden somewhere in the house she just bought. No, she bought it (secondhand, cheap) to put some of her collections in. It has glass shelves and a light. Lol. I don’t have a china cabinet or a curio cabinet. I don’t have china or curios.
It would be very easy to take the top off and then get a quartz top for the bottom piece. It will look fantastic. This is exactly what a friend of ours did.
@BunsenBurner that would be nice. But my 30 somethings would be unlikely to spend the money necessary to remove the top and get a different surface. Those MCM pieces aren’t cheap anyway…and adding to the cost wouldn’t be in their wheelhouse.
One thing about “getting rid of possessions” …many people think the value of something is way higher than it actually is. Really, the value is what someone will pay for it…and that might be far less than what it was initially purchased for. In my charity shop right now, there is a set of Limoges dishes. This week the whole set will be marked down to about $75, and we will pray it will sell. I’m quite sure the initial owners paid more than $75 for this very complete set.
My kids (21 and 18) love to thrift. My 21 yr old shares an apartment with a friend and they have outfitted it with thrift store finds and some older pieces we had including much dark brown furniture. That was the preferred color, actually, and light brown like that MCM curio cabinet was not what they were going for. My 21 yr old specifically was looking for that really dark brown stuff. Also collects many curios and tea cups!?! This is not my jam so I don’t know where this came from. But it’s in a bit of an ironic way I guess. I mean they genuinely like the dark brown wood and the curios, but they also have kind of a goth thing going on.
I have a box of dolls from a bunch of European countries that were given to me when I was about 7 years old. So they are over 60 years old…mint condition. Can’t give those away either.
We don’t have a true china cabinet but both parents did. We do have a sideboard, on which we incorporated some of MIL’s objects (yellow) and my mother’s (green). I’m no expert but did extensive online research first on in-laws stuff (no real value) and based on that knowledge, later checked my parents (only a few items with true collectible value). So what we keep in our house from both homes were items we can use, family traditional objects, display items that I like to look at (i.e. give me joy so to speak),and a handful of small MIL deco to make husband happy.
Let me just say that our garage has a number of cartons that husband brought from Connecticut to Illinois and we subsequently moved to California. And put in the garage, where they have resided for seven more years.
We had just moved literally days before my mother passed away so after all that packing and discarding, I was very circumspect about how much to keep. Brother lived five minutes from her and kept a lot, plus apparently also has a number of cartons of our parents stuff when they moved from Michigan to Chicagoland. I had no idea and wish I’d known when we were going through stuff. He forgot he had it all, theoretically.
I told son (who always worries he might make mistakes) that he has clearance to throw out anything and everything he wants after we’re gone, since I will never get husband to discard anything. I am thinking of putting notes on the few things that do have monetary value so he can set those aside if desired.
The only two dolls I kept from my childhood were my Barbie Doll(with a case and lots of outfits) and my Charmin’ Chatty. And, of course, I ended up with two boys, and no granddaughters yet!
I still have barbie dolls from me and sis…. and two cases, full of a wardrobe hand sewn by our talented seamstress grandma (who commented she would NEVER do that again, would much rather create a full sized dress). They will be hard to get rid of someday.
Per china cabinets, I am still wistful about giving up the childhood hutch from my mother’s apartment. Had to do it though, since I ready had the bow front china cabinet from her aunt. During tricky Covid times I did find another couple in her apartment complex to take it. Gotta admit I had a pang when I saw the exact model (but not ours) at a thrift shop. In theory, I had room for it in the den. But I opted instead to take the 3 two-drawer yield house walnut filing cabinets my mother had hand finished decades ago. Mom had tons of file folders, including a lot of ancestry research. So it was the right choice.
I never had to worry about my child hood dolls. My mother gave them away. Including two Ginny dolls with tons of clothes neatly in their original boxes. And my ceramic head Tiny Tears. And my very original Barbie! I would have loved those for my daughter. Oh well.
When my mother died, she left me 12 sets of dishes. And no I’m not exaggerating. We gave sets to every college kid we knew who was setting up an apartment. Donated some, and kept one set of plain white ones which we use. And she left 12 sets of eating utensils too…Sterling to stainless. We gave a lot of those away too.
Ohh, I got the wants reading about that Barbie wardrobe. My neighbor and I played by the hour, the epic trades with piles on each side were legendary. I still have mine, in the basement & the most valuable stuff, to us, were the very early well made Barbie clothes we got from slightly older girls in the neighborhood.
I have some very nice original Barbie clothes and gowns as well as some clothes my mother’s friend/neighbor made. I had an original Barbie game that my parents got rid of when they moved and I was away at college. I was very upset that they did not consult me first!
