A new search tool from Replacements Ltd. made it easy to learn the age and manufacturer of this dish, made by Kedaung Industrial Group of Indonesia (above). Simply click on the red camera icon at the top of the company’s web page (lower left), and the website will find pieces similar to the one you’re looking for.
It’s funny to think about it, but the golden age of antiques and collecting happened in the days before it was easy to look things up with a few keystrokes and the click of a mouse.
Of course, that very technology may be partially to blame for the collapse of collectibles markets — what once was rare became more widely available, thanks to eBay, followed years later by the Rubylane and Etsy sites.
Bidding now is widely available for art and antiques offered by both international and regional auction houses, courtesy of www.liveauctioneers.com and other sites.
All that information, and availability, has had an impact on markets — when something no longer is as rare as previously thought, prices drop.
And so it goes.
All of those websites are great reference tools for looking up prices when you know what you’re looking for.
But what if you have your grandmother’s dishes or silver or crystal and want to find more pieces, or at least know a pattern name?
COURTESY PHOTOS
Replacements Ltd., the North Carolina matching service for china, crystal, silver and other discontinued items, recently launched a new search tool, which makes pattern identification much easier.
In years past, you signed up for Replacements’ mailing lists, which no doubt cost the company a fortune in postage.
I remember receiving pages-long lists of silver and china pieces back in the days before you could shop online. They were cumbersome and offered no photos.
Now, the company’s entire inventory is available with a few keystrokes, and most listings offer photos of the items.
And once Replacements went online, you could email a photo for identification, which meant a researcher at Replacements had to look it up. It was nice — and the team there is great to work with, too — but this new search tool offers instant gratification.
Case in point: a blue bowl.
A co-worker sent me a photograph of a bowl her sister had picked up while thrifting. It was a pretty piece of blue pattern glass. The sister wondered whether it was a vintage piece of Depression glass.
COURTESY PHOTOS
I didn’t recognize the pattern, though the pale blue glass was similar to the color made by any number of American companies 90 years ago and more.
I clicked on the camera icon at the top of the Replacements site, at www.replacements.com, uploaded the photo and quickly received my answer: No, it was from Indonesia, and definitely not American Depression glass.
According to Replacements, the bowl actually was made by Kedaung Industrial Group, a company founded in 1969, some 30 years after the Depression era. We had our answer in seconds.
I’ve used the tool for other searches, including a bag of silver in a display case at a thrift store. I hoped the flatware was sterling.
The Replacements site displayed for me a range of pattern options that included the set of silver in question — no, it wasn’t sterling; it was plate.
Scott SIMMONS
Replacements’ camera tool, which will remind you of the Google image search, may not find you the answer for everything, but it may point you in the right direction — and who doesn’t need a little help with directions? ¦
"dish" - Google News
August 04, 2022 at 12:30PM
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Here’s the dish on a handy new online search tool - Florida Weekly
"dish" - Google News
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