I check out the website before I go and look at the pictures. That is the time I decide on the things that are coming home with me. No matter what. I do have my set point...but if it is a certain thing that I need it is most definitely coming home with me.
Case in point. The glasses that match my every day china are Fostoria Virgina in the color brown. I have 8 but that of course is not enough at Thanksgiving or any other family get together. And we wind up drinking out of plastic cups--which is just not right. I have been trying to complete the set now for a couple of years. I find them on eBay and have found some pretty reasonable prices...but the shipping is always prohibitive. So imagine my joy/excitement/etc. when I saw 16---yep count 'em 16 on the auction website.
Long story short--I got 'em for 20 bucks!!! Whoopie! Yeah! And so on. Now I have 24. That's right 24. I probably could have waited until the auctioneer went down to $15.00 or maybe even $10.00, but sometimes that starts a bidding war.......nobody but me bid on them. So I figure I did really well. I got about $160.00 worth of glasses for $20.00. I will be patting myself on the back for the next few days.
The other thing that made me happy was this almost complete set of Oneidacraft stainless set--Lasting Rose. It is service for 12, 3 of the knives are missing and a couple of the forks, but everything else is there--the serving pieces-butter knife, sugar spoon, pickle fork, cold meat fork--you name it. All in the original plastic holder. Now here's the thing, flatware is like socks around here--it just disappears and I always run out at Thanksgiving. So I bought it for $10.00. A good run through the dishwasher and it is as good as new and now resides in the china cabinet awaiting the next family get together.
And I bought a small box of silver plate flatware for $5.00 that had 4 serving pieces, 4 forks, 4 salad forks, 12 teaspoons, a butter knife, a sugar spoon, a pickle fork and a few other pieces that went from this...
to this with a little silver polish.......
the patina is very pretty...these pieces too now reside in the silver drawer of my china cabinet...I've decided that I will continue to buy random pieces of silver plate...for you know when I entertain here in rural MS...Oh and I really didn't mean to have a theme...but I bought these two gorgeous coffee table cookbooks. And the recipes are wonderful as well......I wonder if I could sale 'em on eBay.........
Oh and I bought a cool old trunk too, but it's still in the trunk of my car....all and all it was a great day.