Tuesday, December 15, 2009

A WARNING ABOUT CHRISTMAS DISHES

Holt HowardWarning! Think before you put Christmas dishes in the dishwasher. I unpacked my Holt-Howard Santa Claus mugs so I could fill them with candy. One looked dusty, so I put it in my new dishwasher on the anti-bacterial cycle--never thinking about the temperature of the water for that cycle. Imagine my horror when Santa came out of the dishwasher with a white face (his flesh had been skin-tone) and almost no red decoration. We have warned collectors for years to be careful about using the dishwasher for fine crystal, gold-decorated china and glass, hollow-handled silver knives and anything with an overglaze decoration. Most Holt-Howard pieces are made with underglaze decorations and can be washed in a dishwasher. Not my Santas. From now on, I will hand-wash all my 1950s-80s collectibles, including my lady head vases, salt and pepper sets, and tiny ceramic rabbits. Take a close look at our "before" and "after" Santa pictures. One more washing cycle and I think Santa will be all white.




TAYLOR SWIFT'S TAKE ON ANTIQUE SHOPS


A quote we like: "I'm developing a theory that all people who work at antiques stores are friendly and delightful." That's Taylor Swift on Twitter awhile ago. She's the cross-over country singer who keeps winning awards for her work. Wonder what she collects? She was at the Nashville antiques show in November.




9 comments:

Anonymous said...

But an interesting candy-cane result.

Anonymous said...

The same goes for older pyrex peices

cathicog said...

Oh, wow. I bet it made you sick to see that. Yeah that on the older pyrex as well...the color comes off. I don't have a dishwasher, but have warned my children, since i have given them some older Pyrex, my grandmother's pieces from the 30's and 40's...I still use the ones from the '50's...

Anonymous said...

For someone who deals with antiques and collectibles, using a dishwasher to clean an item with cold paint is quite ignorant! Even washing cold paint by hand can cause loss of paint ... even if you wash by hand a "cold painted" painted area, you can cause a "paint rub". Antique dealers are ignorant ... they put price tags over cold paint, and taking off the price tag removes the cold paint! Simply amazing!!

The Country Gourmet said...

I posted this once before but will do it again. Never ever put anything in the dishwasher that does not state somewhere on it that it is "Dishwasher Safe". Also, never put wood handled utensils,spoons or bowls, etc. Never ever put your knives in the dishwasher, I talking about carving,chef,paring,etc. Some commuter mugs and insulated items should never be put into the dishwasher as well. Those retro Pyrex and FireKing, measuring cups, dishes and nesting bowls should NEVER go into the dishwasher. One last item...you should never put silver flatware in the dishwasher and never ever put silver next to stainless steel in the dishwasher as it will turn the metal and also chew up the silver.

I had my great grandmothers butter paddle/spoon that she used to scoop the butter out of the churn. It was very well seasoned with over a 100 years of butter residue (something you want on an antique butter paddle)on it. I was out of town for a couple weeks and my dear husband saw it hanging with my other heirlooms in the kitchen and thought it needed cleaning. He put it in the dishwasher and it ruined it by taking all the years of butter making residue off of it and it then split in two because the wood had dried so badly from the bleach in the dishwashing soap. I still want to cry every time I think about it. Please,please take the time to hand wash those special heirloom pieces. You will be glad you did.

Anonymous said...

I agree with anonymous, why would anyone even think of putting antique dishes with any kind of decoration on them in a dishwasher is beyond me!

Anonymous said...

I bought two Holt Howard nut cups.(for twenty cents). I then sprayed one of them with an all purpose cleaner...and watched in HORROR as the paint came off!! Anyone interested in two white Holt Howard nut cups with NO red left on them??

Anonymous said...

Recently, I bought a vintage no parking sign. But because it had road residue on it I chose to put it in the dishwasher. Now I have pure white sign. It took all the red paint of the embossed lettering. Lesson learned.

Anonymous said...

you're kidding me right? all old/antique/collectible items should be cleaned with extreme care starting with the mildest cleaning cloths/solutions and working ones way up. Maybe a sandblaster would have worked for you...