Top Up Your Old Silver Service For Less

Where to find the missing pieces for your grandmother’s old silver service for less.

SPENDING SMART | Early last April when we were busy launching Frugalbits, I was also busy buying sterling silver flatware. The only other time I’d purchased sterling silver was the last time the U.S. and Canadian dollar were at par. Whenever the dollar is near par, I think about buying things south of the border that I’d otherwise consider an indulgence; much as I love it, sterling silver flatware falls into this category.

I was shopping for sterling because the U.S.-made silver flatware my grandmother had left me was several place settings and serving pieces shy of a complete service for 12. My grandmother’s sterling, which came from Bullocks, a long-gone luxury department store in Los Angeles, was a Gorham silver pattern called Melrose, introduced to upwardly mobile American households just after the Second World War. I never really liked its flowing, sculptured scrolls and flowers when I was a kid, but I do like it now because it’s an attractive contrast to my plain white contemporary dinnerware—and because it reminds me of her.

Where To Find Your Pieces Of Silver

It turns out that Gorham Melrose is pretty common, and getting more of it was not the problem I’d thought it would be. I found it made to order at Silver Superstore online for $649.95 for a five-piece place setting, and I found the same number of pieces pre-owned and refurbished at Replacements.com for $189.95. As you might guess, I went with Replacements. Both times I have purchased from this company, my pieces came individually wrapped and shiny as new. There is no duty on American-made products, but I had to pay Canadian taxes and shipping, which was around $30.

Replacements.com is a huge operation out of Greensboro, North Carolina, that claims to have the world’s largest selection of old and new dinnerware, including china, silver and stainless. With more than 300,000 patterns on their roster, it may be true.

A friend who found extra pieces of Birks sterling in the Old English pattern on the site introduced me to Replacements.com. Just for fun I called Birks in Vancouver and asked the price for a five-piece place setting: $600 plus. Replacements had no Old English in stock, but if there had been, the price would have been $293.85 for the same number of pieces. Taxes, shipping, whatever: Replacements.com is worth checking out. —C. Rule

For more on Replacements.com, visit www.replacements.com; for Birks, visit www.birks.com; for the Silver Superstore, visit www.silversuperstore.com

Photo: C. Phaisalakani