bone china place settings What to do with Grandma's silver?

Somehow my wife and I took my grandmother's silverware.
It seemed a bit strange to me at the time, because I had two sisters and the children of her daughter who could receive it.
It may be because she gave it to her son, my father, for the first time.
My mother used that silver for a family dinner.
Thanksgiving and Christmas
When my wife and I took over these parties, it was natural to hand us the silver, and we have since. Well, sort of.
We actually passed it on to one of our daughters, but she kept giving it back to us when she went on vacation, so it could still be around us at any time.
We stopped using it for special dinners.
Most of these dinners were taken over by our daughter, and the tradition of using silver has disappeared.
The silverware is a bit annoying in any case: it is beautiful but it will tarnish and need to be polished.
In any case, too much trouble and not enough setting for dinner.
The high price of silver as a metal makes it annoying in another way.
We don't like it because we are afraid of theft.
According to the current silver price, there is quite a lot of money in that box.
That's why it's moving around.
Interestingly, for years, my wife and I thought it was stolen.
As a result, we put it in the wrong place.
It seems hard to understand considering the size of the box, but we actually have two silver boxes with plates in one of them.
That was the box we misplaced or lost, so we actually saw the real silver for years --
We thought it was a plate.
One day, I looked inside and was surprised to find that Grandma's silverware was still in our hands.
If there is no such strong emotional bond between my grandmother and I, we may have sold it years ago.
I find this idea really unimaginable, but I think it will happen one day.
I didn't do it.
Helen Drake mcdwell, my father's mother (1889 Boston, 1984) m. Frederick R. S.
Her father mcdwell (1863 Boston 1939)
Most silverware is engraved with "McD" (for McDewell), so it's actually the silver of my grandmother's parents.
Some of them have a pattern date of 1892 and the rest 1905, so they must have bought it after these dates.
They (her parents) got married in 1888 and my grandmother was born in 1889 and got married in 1911, so it was clear that they bought some shortly before their daughter formed her own family.
I don't know when they gave it to her.
Some of them are old, however, without engraving.
For example, the unknown part below is part of it. -that is, .
800 fine (80% silver ).
Because there is no official guarantee of testing.
I 've posted this photo on several boards and emailed it to some dealers, but so far no one has been able to tell me more about it.
I wish I wanted to ask my grandmother when she was still alive, but she might be too old to know where it came from.
This is not uncommon for old, unapproved items.
This may never be certain.
Even if someone else has a work with similar marks, there is nothing to say and someone else is not just copying them.
In addition to what may be an unidentified thing, this silverware may be of little value in addition to being a gold bar.
That is to say, although these patterns are quite old and very beautiful, they are basically sold at silver prices today --
Sometimes even less, especially for knives that may have base metal handles --
The extra processing needed to melt these things will reduce the price.
Depending on what you think will happen with silver prices in the next few years, this may mean investing in real silver cutlery is a good investment.
If these things are really melted, the value of antiques will increase greatly in the future.
Although if you think that the price of silver has been artificially pushed up by speculators, the value of antiques and collectibles may never reach the gold value of today, so it may be time to buy this kind of thing.
I have asked a lot of people about this: dealers and collectors. Nobody knows.
Most people would say buy it if you want to have a real silver place because they don't know what the future will look like.
What bothers me is that passing heir may end up being discarded, lost or sold.
It looks like our kids won't have their own kids, so I 've been looking for Cousins to find a home for these things.
We have given some to our children, but I suggest to them that they may seek a more final disposition from their cousins.
I realize that it is impossible to control the future.
At some point everything is lost, stolen, thrown away, accidentally destroyed or sold.
I can't control this, but I feel obligated to manage it all as much as I can and choose carefully who will get a part of it.
I can only hope they have the same obligations.
This page may live longer than me.
I hope it can be found, and I hope that the person who finally got this silverware will find these words one day, and perhaps have a better understanding of its origin and history.