Tina's Favorite Things: Serving Dishes

Some of my favorite items are kitchen items. I especially love serving dishes. I'm a big fan of an eclectic grouping of dishes. None of my dishes match and I love it. I mostly find things at Marshall's or Ross, though sometimes I'll pick up an item in an antique shop, or at Goodwill.

This past Saturday I decided to go "antiquing" around the U street corridor of Eastern Market.
I was there a few weeks ago with some girlfriends and we stumbled across the most wonderful junk shop: Ruff and Ready. The place is a mess, piles and piles of just stuff. It's definitely not a place for someone who isn't ready to dig around and get dirty. If you're willing to put in the effort though it can me worth it. I found the two serving dishes below in a bow full of kitchen things.

As you can see they are more than diamonds in the rough. They were both filthy and disgusting.
I had a feeling they were silver though. I haggled with the shop keeper and got both pieces for $15. I took them home and gave them a good scrubbing with some silver polish, and now...

Just lovely!

I looked up the serial numbers of the plates online and I was only half right. One of the dishes is stainless steel, and resells for about $40. The other piece however is antique silver from 1949. It definitely made my money back on that investment! Not to mention it's my first piece of silver!
I'm really excited to add something so old to my serving collection. I intend to get a lot of use out of both of these items, and at $15 they were both quite the steal!

Stay tuned in tomorrow for another post!