Tandy's Silverplate

I have been looking for silver flatware since before I was married in 1994, but was unable to find a style I liked. Then I discovered www.ebay.com and I found a pattern that I really liked. It turned out to be silverplate rather then silver, but that did not matter since I loved the pattern. Christian and I got up at 2 in the morning to try to win the auction, but someone out bid us at the least second. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I discovered that I could piece together the same set for a lot less then we were bidding. Officially this set the basic 66 piece set and the chest was a present to me from Christian for our fourth anniversary. A 66 piece set includes 12 5-piece place settings, and 6 serving pieces, but I have picked up other pieces already.

The silver chest is solid cherry with a lift top and one drawer. On the top there is a brass plate with Christian and my names and our wedding date engraved on it. Here is a photo of one like it. They do currently make some pieces of Coronation, but not as many pieces as they used to so some of these things will have to be estate pieces. I think the estate pieces are really cool because they seem to have more history to them. In this case Coronation is truely a piece of history, Community created the Coronation line in 1936 in order to honor a Coronation that in the end never happened...Edward VIII ended up abdicating throne in order to marry American Wallis Simpson before his Coronation happened.

This is my fantasy set...though I do believe one day I will have everything listed here. I love the "odd ball" pieces that you do not see with modern silver flatware such as the bonbon server aka cuke server, pictured here. I have found the best prices for the estate Coronation from a woman named Jo Stockstill, she runs Mainstreet Silver. She has now retired so this link doesn't work, but she was always a great resorce for me both for silver plate and for information.

Then there is always Nancy's Silver Shop, but for my pattern it is best not to buy any new pieces from them since it is easy to find the new piece at a much lower price at an Oneida Factory Outlet. I nearly kicked myself when I found my cake server at a fourth of the price I spent at Nancy's at the factory outlet.

With Ebay it is important to make sure that you know what you are bidding on. Some people are trying to auction new Coronation saying it is Estate. The way to find out if it is new or not is to ask what is on the back of the handle if it says "Community Plate" inside a box then most likely it is new stuff and if it says made in Canada no doubt about it it is the new stuff and do not bid much on it because you can get it at the Oneida Factory Outlet for less most of the time. I was able to get a rare find on eBay recently, a six piece tea set. Here is a photo of it.

My current inventory and wishlist

* denotes an item available at the Oneida Outlet.