10 Mistakes That DESTROY The Value Of Your China (#3 Is In Your Kitchen Right Now)
Walter Ashford
450 views
👉 How to find out what your things are really worth → https://mrwalterashford.com
Everything that makes your china worth money is sitting on the outside of it. 🍽️
Not baked into the plate. Lying on top of it, in a layer thinner than a sheet of paper. The gold on the rim, the pink in the roses, the little flourish somebody painted by hand before your mother was born. The glaze gets fired hard first, and then the gold and the enamels go on OVER that finished glass and get fired again, much cooler, because gold cannot take glaze heat.
Which means the most valuable part of the object is also the least protected part of the object. There is nothing above it.
⭐ AND THE DETAIL THAT REFRAMES EVERYTHING: not one of tonight's ten mistakes is neglect. Every single one is an act of care. They stacked the plates so they would be tidy. They hung them so they would be seen. They washed them so they would be clean. They soaked them so they would be cleaner. They glued the handle because they could not bear to bin it. The object cannot tell the difference between care and harm — it can only tell you what happened to it. The people who lose the most in this subject are almost never the ones who did not care.
So we walked through the house, room by room, and named the mistake living in each one:
🍽️ THE CABINET — bare stacking, and the unglazed foot ring grinding a grey circle into the plate below it for fifty years. Rake a lamp across the face at a low angle and you will see it in ten seconds.
🖼️ THE WALL — the sprung wire hanger gripping the exact two inches where every chip in the history of ceramics has started. And the honest half: modern adhesive discs really are the kinder answer.
⚡ THE MICROWAVE — why a gold band behaves like a little aerial, arcs, and burns a scar INTO the glaze in thirty seconds.
🫖 THE KETTLE — boiling water into a cold cup. Glaze and clay expand at different rates, and what gives is the glaze. Crazing cannot be undone by anyone, at any price, ever.
🚰 THE SINK — and why a crazed plate is no longer waterproof. Plus the trap that catches the careful: pre-1960 repairs were made with animal glue, and a long soak takes them apart in your hands.
🧴 UNDER THE SINK — bleach on crazing. It goes in, it stays in, and it keeps coming back out for years.
🧪 THE DRAWER — the three-dollar tube that shuts a conservator out of the room permanently. A disclosed old repair is survivable. A hidden modern one is not.
🍴 NUMBER THREE, IN YOUR KITCHEN RIGHT NOW — the dishwasher, and the ten-second test that measures exactly what it has already taken: hold a cup you use next to one from the very back of the cabinet.
🥣 THE SIDEBOARD — he takes the forty plates and leaves the tureen, and nobody in the room feels cheated. The lid is the money. A tureen without its lid is a bowl, and it stays a bowl forever.
📦 AND NUMBER ONE — not something you did. Somewhere you put things, for the best reason in the world.
The gold and the enamel and the little painted flourish survived two world wars, a depression and eight house moves — and they survived because for most of that time, nobody was helping them.
Turn it over. Read the bottom.
📕📗📘 The three books — Turn It Over · Never Take the First Offer · The Ashford Ledger
https://mrwalterashford.com
#WalterAshford #Antiques #FineChina #BoneChina #KnowWhatYouOwn #ChinaCabinet #AntiqueValues #Heirlooms #EstateSale #TurnItOver #Crazing #GoldRim #Dishwasher #Porcelain #Tableware #MakersMarks #Collectibles #Downsizing #Inheritance #AntiqueTips #VintageChina #EstateClearance #SeniorLiving #AshfordLedger #DontCleanIt
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10 Mistakes That DESTROY The Value Of Your China (#3 Is In Your Kitchen Right Now)
Walter Ashford
450 views
👉 How to find out what your things are really worth → https://mrwalterashford.com
Everything that makes your china worth money is sitting on the outside of it. 🍽️
Not baked into the plate. Lying on top of it, in a layer thinner than a sheet of paper. The gold on the rim, the pink in the roses, the little flourish somebody painted by hand before your mother was born. The glaze gets fired hard first, and then the gold and the enamels go on OVER that finished glass and get fired again, much cooler, because gold cannot take glaze heat.
Which means the most valuable part of the object is also the least protected part of the object. There is nothing above it.
⭐ AND THE DETAIL THAT REFRAMES EVERYTHING: not one of tonight's ten mistakes is neglect. Every single one is an act of care. They stacked the plates so they would be tidy. They hung them so they would be seen. They washed them so they would be clean. They soaked them so they would be cleaner. They glued the handle because they could not bear to bin it. The object cannot tell the difference between care and harm — it can only tell you what happened to it. The people who lose the most in this subject are almost never the ones who did not care.
So we walked through the house, room by room, and named the mistake living in each one:
🍽️ THE CABINET — bare stacking, and the unglazed foot ring grinding a grey circle into the plate below it for fifty years. Rake a lamp across the face at a low angle and you will see it in ten seconds.
🖼️ THE WALL — the sprung wire hanger gripping the exact two inches where every chip in the history of ceramics has started. And the honest half: modern adhesive discs really are the kinder answer.
⚡ THE MICROWAVE — why a gold band behaves like a little aerial, arcs, and burns a scar INTO the glaze in thirty seconds.
🫖 THE KETTLE — boiling water into a cold cup. Glaze and clay expand at different rates, and what gives is the glaze. Crazing cannot be undone by anyone, at any price, ever.
🚰 THE SINK — and why a crazed plate is no longer waterproof. Plus the trap that catches the careful: pre-1960 repairs were made with animal glue, and a long soak takes them apart in your hands.
🧴 UNDER THE SINK — bleach on crazing. It goes in, it stays in, and it keeps coming back out for years.
🧪 THE DRAWER — the three-dollar tube that shuts a conservator out of the room permanently. A disclosed old repair is survivable. A hidden modern one is not.
🍴 NUMBER THREE, IN YOUR KITCHEN RIGHT NOW — the dishwasher, and the ten-second test that measures exactly what it has already taken: hold a cup you use next to one from the very back of the cabinet.
🥣 THE SIDEBOARD — he takes the forty plates and leaves the tureen, and nobody in the room feels cheated. The lid is the money. A tureen without its lid is a bowl, and it stays a bowl forever.
📦 AND NUMBER ONE — not something you did. Somewhere you put things, for the best reason in the world.
The gold and the enamel and the little painted flourish survived two world wars, a depression and eight house moves — and they survived because for most of that time, nobody was helping them.
Turn it over. Read the bottom.
📕📗📘 The three books — Turn It Over · Never Take the First Offer · The Ashford Ledger
https://mrwalterashford.com
#WalterAshford #Antiques #FineChina #BoneChina #KnowWhatYouOwn #ChinaCabinet #AntiqueValues #Heirlooms #EstateSale #TurnItOver #Crazing #GoldRim #Dishwasher #Porcelain #Tableware #MakersMarks #Collectibles #Downsizing #Inheritance #AntiqueTips #VintageChina #EstateClearance #SeniorLiving #AshfordLedger #DontCleanIt