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Dr. Lori: Art and Antiques China and other kitchen collectibles

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Kitchens are one of the best places to spot valuable collectibles. From antique fine china to vintage appliances, kitchen collectibles can hold their value for generations and serve as wonderful accessories in the most popular place in the house. The kitchen and its collectibles are on display in the room where everyone gathers.

Kitchen collectibles range (pardon the pun) from aprons to zesters and all of these objects are making a strong market impact. Utensils, cookie jars, bowls, trays, cookbooks, coffee pots, and sterling silver flatware have always been available to estate sale and yard sale shoppers, thrifters and collectors. Now with much of the collectibles market online, everyone can find vintage kitchen stuff.

Have you heard that entertaining is a dying art form? Not true … not by a long shot. In fact, young adults enjoy the art of entertaining and are actively collecting barware and vintage kitchen items for parties, gatherings, and social events. Everything from 1960s martini shakers to Sunbeam Mixmasters are in new 21st-century kitchens assembled in groups by 20- and 30-something collectors.

Collectors with an interest in the history of cooking look for items like cookbooks, antique utensils, and Victorian food processors. Despite the varied collectibles from the kitchen, when it comes to value and high style design, some of the most coveted collectibles are also the most common. When it’s all said and done, dishes win the day.

Collectors and shoppers look for fine china, holiday patterns, and established brands as they are desired by collectors. Fine china serving sets are not as fashionable as they once were but collectors in the know are still collecting china services from big names in fine china like Meissen, Spode, Haviland for Limoges, Lenox, Herend, Royal Copenhagen, Royal Doulton, etc.

My video call appraisals with clients reveal that folks are busy searching online, thrift stores and estate sales for fine china pieces. Seasoned collectors are telling their grandchildren about the value in fine china and the family history that goes along with it. As a result, many fine china sets are staying in families for the next generation and hopefully, generations thereafter, too. This is wonderful.

Collecting a few individual fine china pieces is very much in style now. Fine china items used as accent pieces in a kitchen and around the home are bringing new collectors into the fold. And, mixing and matching is totally acceptable unlike the tables set by our grandmothers, where a match or die attitude was the only way to entertain.

The kitchen mix or match idea harkens back to the 1990s when variety in dishware was embraced. There are collectors who seek out specialty pieces of fine china like oyster plates, celery dishes, platters and trays or bone dishes from the past. China is sought after with today’s collectors and they are paying good money to get the style and pattern they want and values vary based on manufacturer, color, pattern, condition, etc.

Today’s resellers are grabbing fine china off the estate sale, yard sale, and thrift store shelves and reselling it online for top dollar.

While collectors amass kitchen objects in bulk, the trend for resellers is to find the bargains and market the stuff on YouTube Thrift with Me channels, social media groups on InstaGram, and Facebook and by old fashioned word of mouth. These are just a few of the trends that I see in the market and are discussed with my fans, clients, and followers on my You Tube show and social media pages. It goes to show you that cooking collectibles are still very hot.

Antiques appraiser, author, and award-winning TV personality, Lori Verderame Ph.D. presents antique appraisal events nationwide and appears on “The Curse of Oak Island” on History Channel. Visit DrLoriV.com, YouTube.com/DrLoriV or call 888-431-1010.


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