I wonder how regional that is?
It seems lots of places that sell second hand due sell their sets… but of course my wife’s tends to find great buys on certain thing’s that don’t
There’s a wonderful book by Jennifer Crusie where Franciscan Desert Rose dishes play a part.
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Our family (I’m including my folks in their 80s here) hasn’t used “the china” for maybe 20 years, it has a greek key gold rim and always had to be hand washed. But my Mom collected all the Spode Christmas Tree dishes for decades, and when we’re with them in the month of December we use them every night (and we put those in the dishwasher!).
My Mom does have all “the family silver” as she was the only one who wanted any of it 50+ years ago. It’s a couple of full sized chests of sterling flatware from the 1850s to the 1910s. One side of the family had been well off but they were grain merchants and lost all their money in The Depression, but somehow they kept “the silver.” There’s also a sterling silver tea service set on a tray, complete with a tilting sterling kettle that is suspended over a burner. And lots of sterling spoons from the 1800s with girl’s names engraved, and various specialty serving implements.
When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s we used to take it all out before Thanksgiving and polish it all, and then put it away again after Christmas. But it really hasn’t been used in years now.
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No wedding gifts here. We used hodge podge dishes until I finally rebelled and bought Twist Alea (sp?) for everyday use. I also acquired Christmas Chirp plates and my husband gifted me a set of Old Country Roses from Costco of all places 
. These get used occasionally… but not every day. I don’t do formal dining here! Neither of the three is “china” in my opinion. I also bought a tea set by Lomonosov back in the day when we were lucky enough to visit St Petersburg. Those are “china” IMO. So delicate and beautiful.
Ooooh, that is very nice!
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My husband and his family is from Leningrad (back when it was called that) and his parents always used to serve us tea with their Lomonosov tea set. I agree they are very delicate, more so than most of my mom’s eclectic china collection.
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I use mine at holidays, and that’s about it. It’s white with some black and gold at the rim, Mikasa, I believe. Very inexpensive at the time and more to our taste than the Lenox everyone was buying 40+ years ago. I put it in the dishwasher on a delicate cycle & so far, so good.
There’s the Old Country Roses tea set from my MIL that I last used at the reception after my mom’s funeral in 2018, plus a ton of china tea cups (inherited from MIL and her sister), and a sterling coffee set that I rescued from my SIL.
I have loads of decorative appetizer and dessert plates, large glass cake plates - some on pedestals, some depression glass, some antiques.
It should all be used a lot more than it is.
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So funny. I consider Old Country Roses my formal set and use it exclusively at Christmas. It sets a beautiful, elegant, festive table with snowy white linens and lots of silver and crystal. I chose it as our wedding pattern but no one liked it, so we only got one set. We had to fill in the rest ourselves over the years as we could afford it. During our Boston years, we did tea in the afternoon regularly and put our OCR tea service to good use. It’s my favorite pattern.
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I can see how OCR can be a formal set depending on how it is set up on the table!
IMO, “formal” and “china” are not always interchangeable!
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Would anyone like to buy some of my Old Country Roses pieces that I inherited from my SIL? 
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Just put a hold on it at the library! Thank you!
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Thank you -
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I mentioned I have never had or wanted china. Though some of it is so pretty (@BunsenBurner blue set above is gorgeous)!
What I do like to collect is vintage or mid-century modern small collections or serving pieces. Non-matching. So I might have 6 bowls of a certain pattern and 8 dessert plates of another pattern. These I use as I feel like it. Makes my evening scoop of ice cream special. 
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When we married, I registered for Lenox’s Opal Innocence Carved, because I thought it would be a nice neutral and it was dishwasher safe. It gets used whenever we have family over, dinner parties, or sometimes just when it has the best-shaped bowl for what we’re going to be serving. And when the kid needs to set up a first apartment, I could see sending him with our “everyday” dishes and then just using the Lennox, though we do also have a set of Corelle’s Bella Faenza (do we detect a theme here? 
) as the kid really is a klutz in the kitchen. We never registered for nice stemware.
My grandmother had over a dozen sets of china. When she passed this year, I got my nephew to take her most frequently used set of Rosenthal (a white-on-white pattern), though nobody has been interested in the gold-leaf set that had been much more expensive that she brought over from a trip to Germany.
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It turns out that even Lenox “stoneware” (I think it was called) fades in the dishwasher when it’s been 30 years
My mother had very fancy china and one day she started using it for shabbat meals and using the dishwasher because otherwise it was a very fragile dust-catcher. Yes, the gold faded a bit.
I have a close friend and she’s an only child married to an only child. They inherited something like six sets of dishes. She mentioned to me (before she had kids) that it’s too bad the china just sat there because it “has to be” hand-washed. I said, who says? You want pristine dishes to go to your estate? I don’t know if she started using her dishwasher, but I sure hope so.
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When I tried to get rid of the china I had inherited (which I did not want or like), I was told by several places (consignment, antique, etc.) they were not interested because they would not sell since they had flowers on them. Ended up giving them to a large rummage sale - hopefully they sold there.
I sold mine a long time ago. I travel light! But I love looking at china when I run into it in stores or thrift shops. I am about to sell my great grandmother’s silver tea set. My kids don’t live a lifestyle that would value a china set or tea set. End of the line for china…no room!
I have Lenox as my wedding china, which has dark blue and a gold rim. I still really like it. Use it for holidays (Thanksgiving this year) and for dinner parties, book group dessert. It lives in a glass-front cabinet so I get to see it. I was able to get extras at the Lenox outlet, except for soup bowls which are way too expensive on the replacement sites or even ebay. I hope that one of my kids may want it some day. I don’t run it through the dishwasher.
I have silverplate from my wedding, half my mom’s set, and some picked up very inexpensively at a garage sale. Comes out with the Lenox for special holidays and occasionally every day when i need extras. As others have said, I put it in the dishwasher with no stainless. And I check to make sure when my kids or nephews are doing the loading!
I also have the Spode Christmas tree dishes. I doubt that my kids will want that but I like it for the season.
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