Yes, we have those at our charity thrift store as well. They don’t sell very well.
This is what I learned from Replacements. Oh well.
The wedding venue we looked at earlier this month for D1’s upcoming wedding had all kinds of lovely mismatched china. If I were cleaning out a place that had many sets of china I would contact any “rustic” wedding venues in my area to see if they wanted it.
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I got quotes (their current market pricing) from Replacements for two different sets of silver. Then I got an offer from a local reseller who came to look at a bunch of stuff we had. His price was good enough that it made no sense to send to Replacements, especially since I wasn’t confident they would accept all of it. The impression I got from their paperwork that came with the “quote” was that they are very picky about quality. I’m guessing the local guy would sell it for scrap but I didn’t ask. I just wanted it out of my house!!
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What’s the name of the facebook group?
I have some inherited silver I was thinking of selling right as COVID was starting. I should look into that again.
Thanks
Antique and Vintage Silver discussion forum
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Years ago (1980?) when the silver market was soaring, I was able to get a few more place settings of my mother’s silver pattern from the 1950s (not very popular and out out of production) from a pawn shop. Many were selling them to scrap dealers but a few of the pawn brokers were rescuing them from the melting pile and selling them as …silverware!
There are always pieces on ebay too, sometimes as much as $50 for a teaspoon. I bought an entire set (same as my mothers so now have a lot of the same pattern) for $400 years ago. I’m pretty sure I could sell hers and mine for $2000+ today.
Tastes change.
Those who are dying off now (in their 70s, 80s, 90s) grew up in an age where middle class and up aspired to have silverware, china, and crystal glasses. Also, nice brown furniture.
Wife and I (50s) have more contemporary china (from the 1990s), some crystal (barely used) and ~no silverware (perhaps a piece or two floating around).
Our kids might pick up some cheap china from a 2nd hand shop or as hand-me-downs, but it doesn’t really interest them.
~15 years ago, I persuaded my wife to let me get rid of a nice, but surplus set of china she had gotten from a grandma or great aunt or something. It was a nice pattern, ~complete, IIRC. Took it to a nice consignment shop, in a nice part of town. I think they marked it at ~$300 (we would have gotten ~half). After ~6 months, not sold, they marked it down further. A bit longer and they were “you can come pick it back up, or we’ll donate it on your behalf to XXX”. We donated. People don’t want that stuff (much).
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Stamp and coin collections. Model trains. Hummels. China, silverware… Decorative plates.
Popularity goes up, then back down (mostly).
Precious Moments, Snowbabies, old wine glasses, soup tureens, wine carafes. I could go on and on….even Dept 56 Christmas Villages.
No one wants these either.
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Please do not dismiss the value of stamp and coin collections. They should be evaluated by experts. Of course, if they are just common stamps they probably have little value. However, (my being the wife of a serious stamp collector), those little suckers can have a lot of value. Over the years DH’s collection has gone up quite a bit – over and above the recent acquisitions.
We once knew a dealer who told us about a widow who wanted to sell her husband’s collection. One unscrupulous dealer offered her $5000 for the whole thing. Our friend looked at the collection and said that the 1st page of the collection had a value of at least $8000.
Stamp collectors are a funny lot. Some will tell their family that the collection is worth a lot, when in fact it isn’t. The others will imply that the collection has little value (so spouse doesn’t know what they are buying) and then have the collection be quite valuable.
I know what DH’s collection is approximately worth and I already know what auction house will get to sell it. We have passed this information on to our 3 DDs. The same thing applies to coin collections.
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lace doilies, hand embroidered tablecloths (my grandmothers each made one before they got married- took MONTHS), stop me before I start to cry!
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While there are indeed old stamps and coins (and entire collections) that have increased in value, in general, the interest in both hobbies has declined, and, IMO will continue to decline.
My kids (circa college-age) don’t even know how to send something in the mail and kinda freak out on the rare occasions when they have to. I can of course mail stuff, but have little interest in old stamps. I think there are some in an old envelope somewhere that I acquired as a boy in the ~1970s. My father, I think, collected lightly, as a lot of folks did in the 1940s. Back then, colorful stamps from around the world were a novelty. Postcards from servicemen overseas, etc. - it’s easy to see how it once captured the imagination of a high % of folks. How many folks in their 20s or 30s today care about stamps to the same degree as folks did ~2-3 generations ago? The hobby, at least among the young, is likely at ~1/20th of its former strength.
Does that mean you should pitch willy-nilly the old coins or stamps you find in someone’s estate? Of course not. But don’t be surprised when casual inquiries on the internet or at local stores suggest values much closer to ~$0 than to the inflated valuation the 80-something collector had in his mind before he died.
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I can’t bring myself to get rid of my china (2 sets!) so my deal with myself is that I have to use it. Not everyday, but when in doubt, yes!
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The next time our family will be going through this is when my MIL passes away. She is 75, with declining mobility, and has a lifetime’s worth of possessions collected in her 1500 sq ft house w/2 car garage.
DH & his sister have said that when the time comes to go through it all, they want to keep hardly any of it. Just to put some perspective into how much stuff we’re talking about, here are some examples:
- 12 different sets of dinner plates, with matching bowls & salad plates & serving plates. I’m not talking about 12 dinner plates. I’m talking about 12 sets of 8-12 plates each.
- probably 4 dozen breakable decorative Christmas trees of different sizes
- a different set of bathroom decor for every month of the year. And she has 2 bathrooms, so there’s 2 sets per month. So 24 different bathroom rugs, decorative hand towels, soaps, bathroom containers, even different trash cans.
- a gigantic 1970s-era sewing machine cabinet that’s big enough to stash a coffin in.
- enough tablecloths to wall paper her large family room with just tablecloths.
- a large kitchen pantry full of spices she’s saved up for the last 30 years and never thrown out.
- a box of rusted C-clamps from the 1950s
- clothes from the 1980s that her mother used to wear. Including underwear.
- 2 very large master bedroom closets packed to the gills with clothes and shoes
- dozens of ceramic cat figurines
- checkbooks back to the 1980s
- mattresses that are as old as my marriage (and I got married in 1995!)
She does have a few antique furniture pieces which DH & SIL will keep, but almost everything else will be tossed or donated.
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@sbinaz i completely understand. When my mother died, the contents of her 3 room (not 3 bedroom….3 room) apartment included 12 complete sets of dishes and at least that many sets of eating utensils. We kept one set of plain white porcelain dinnerware that we use for our everyday dishes. Everything else went. I swear, we outfitted are least 4 young folks moving into their first apartments. Including sets of Farberware, sheets, towel, etc. They were grateful to have the freebies.
My goal is to get rid of everything that I had to dispose of when my mother died. I won’t leave my kids with the same mess.
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That sounds like time to call the estate sale folks. Y’all take what little you want and let somebody else get rid of the rest of it.
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The first time I found myself in line at Bed Bath and Beyond about to purchase a cheap glass salad bowl because I had dropped my cheap glass salad bowl the day before… I remember daydreaming about the ginormous stacks of glass serving bowls we had given away when cleaning out my parents place. You like Waterford? Here are four. Modern more your thing? Here’ are a few Orrefors bowls- perfect for salad or cut fruit. You need something to go in the dishwasher? We have a dozen arcoroc glass serving bowls in various sizes.
Etc. No $25 purchase ever caused me more pain. Except a month later I needed to replace my Pyrex measuring cup (they are indestructible until they’re not) and thought back to the dozen measuring cups (glass, plastic, all colors and eras) we had sent to Goodwill. And a few weeks later- salad tongs.
Ugh. I hate buying cheap stuff when I have good stuff (like Cinammon… I’d rather use what I have and enjoy it) but sometimes when you’ve gotten rid of boxes upon boxes of the good stuff… you end up in line at Bed Bath…
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The cosmic joke … if you throw away something you’ll never need, you’re going to need it soon afterwards. But if you keep it, you’ll never need it.
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[quote=“MWDadOf3, post:73, topic:3619915, full:true”]How many folks in their 20s or 30s today care about stamps to the same degree as folks did ~2-3 generations ago? The hobby, at least among the young, is likely at ~1/20th of its former strength.
[/quote]
That’s a ballpark guess, of course.
In any case, when did you last see someone 18-40 years old take up the hobby of stamp collecting? I’m old enough so I can barely remember the kinds of albums people collected stamps in, if not the actual hobby. But now? Meh…
Coin collecting will probably be more durable, for various reasons - intrinsic metal value of some coins, age of some coins (old ones go back 2000+ years vs. <200 years for stamps I think). But as the USE & value of coins for monetary transactions falls sharply, coin collecting will also become a rare niche, and I suspect the value of old coin collections will not be great.