Does the dishwasher eat flatware like the dryer eats socks?

[politicat]

I know I bought 5 piece services for twelve. There are two of us. We don't take the flatware to work. The cats don't play with the flatware.

So why am I down to service for seven, and only if someone's willing to use a salad fork??? And when I called Oneida to get prices on replacing pieces, they told me the pattern was discontinued the same year I bought it, even though their packaging and the warranty clearly stated that they would not do that for at least five years! (which would be this year) I've been carting around that packaging for five years against just this kind of problem...

Sigh. Urgh. Argh!!!! We have silver service for 20, but I don't use that because it's antique, hard to clean and expensive to replace.

So now I get to schlep my butt all over, looking for something to replace this. Any recommendations of brands, because Oneida has definitely lost my business.

Or... is there any way to use mismatching flatware that doesn't look really awful? The environmentalist in me would much rather recycle flatware from the local resale shops, but getting matching patterns is pretty much not going to happen.

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

1. I've never lost silverware.

I've lost pie pans, cake pans, bread pans, etc, but never silverware. The dryer eats, eats, eats socks.

Here's a site that you probably know about if you decide to go the route of filling in the pieces.
http://www.replacements.com/

I can't give any recommendations on brands etc.

A good way to go if you want to use mismatched flatware is to give each person a complete matching set. No one will notice that their neighbor is using something different. You can also use different pieces for dessert or coffee spoons.

[politicat]

2. Replacing the stainless would cost more than purchasing new.

Went there first. I'm still feeling the sticker shock.

To buy five sets of 5 and a couple of extras, I'm looking at almost $700. The teaspoons alone are $23. Each.

It's stainless. It's my casual flatware. I think I got it at B, B & B. If I paid more than $300 for it in 2001, I'd remember because that would have been a big purchase. I can get silver for less than replacements wants.

Thanks for the tip on mismatch. I may not be able to float it by my husband - he's finicky that way - but when I present him with the Replacements bill, he might relent.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. You must have some special stainless ........

We have two patterns of stainless. One was given to me for my first wedding by my aunts. It is a big set, but nothing special. I still have evry piece of it. Sparkly and i bought a set that's really cool looking. We got it at one of the odd lot stores .... TJ Maxx, I think. It was $20 for a set of four places. We bought two sets. Even if we double that, that's just not a lot of money for what I think is good quality, heavy weight stuff.

Replacements' prices are just plain outrageous. Go on eBay. Lots of the same stuff as Replacements for lots less.

[politicat]

7. Not terribly special stainless, no.

Just not common, I think.

Thanks for the ebay tip. I'm a really not big fan of ebay, but I'll give it a shot.

[kestrel91316]

10. The dryer does NOT "eat" socks, silly. It teleports them into the back

seat of my friend's car. He keeps accumulating unmatched socks back there, and has no idea where they come from. They're not his. They just build up. He has concluded they are everybody's lost socks.

[Warpy]

3. Hey, don't look at me. I didn't get matching stainless flatware

until I was 48 and my dishwasher is at the end of my arms so I haven't lost any of it.

However, if you're really concerned, get place settings that are reasonably close and give everybody a different pattern.

None of my stuff ever matched. Even the Woolworth's white dishes were supplemented with yard sale finds. Nobody ever seemed to care.

[politicat]

4. It was very much a necessary thing at the time...

When I bought my house, the dishwasher came with it, and I didn't own a car. I rented a car for 24 hours when I first moved in to get the basics, because coming out of an abusive situation, I came out with little more than some of my clothes, some of my books and my job. The two months I spent in a rented basement using paper plates and plastic forks made me a little domestic, I think. So when I got my house, there was an emotional and temporal element to getting the things I did.

Hitting the resale shops ended up just not being the best use of my time at the time. It's really hard to schlep home anything other than groceries when using the bus, and the thrifts are open for more limited hours than the big boxes. (And we keep and use the dishwasher because the 11 gallons of water it uses for a load of dishes is about 50% less than the same amount of dishes would take by hand... and I can get my partner to load the dishwasher.)

I remember getting the flatware - the big box was a better buy than the individual place settings, and I had money available because I got a very good deal on the house, and the owners were so happy to get it off their hands they gave me a carpet replacement rebate.

I suppose I shouldn't complain that I got five years' use out of the set, but I don't expect metal to just disappear that way...

[babylonsister]

5. The same thing happens with my corn holders; I think they get

thrown out with the scraps.

I'd go with mismatching; who cares, and if they do, they'd be a bit too snooty for me! :silly:

[DawgHouse]

8. My flatware started disappearing very slowly

and I eventually found the missing pieces out in the backyard. It seems that when my son couldn't find a suitable digging tool, he borrowed my flatware. :) Other than that, I don't see how flatware can disappear!

[politicat]

9. I have occasionally used a fork as a mini rake on a plant...

But I always put it in the dishwasher.

DH *says* he hasn't taken them to work, but I know this may not be entirely truthful, and since he refuses to use the lunchbox I bought him (he prefers recycling the grocery bags as lunch bags for some reason) I know that things can slip out from time to time.

So I have my suspicions.

The fact that he's the difficult one about matching flatware (he has very mild Asperger's syndrome, so he can get a little obsessional from time to time) makes this sort of amusing in a weird way.

[GoneOffShore]

11. Try IKEA

They have some pretty good open stock flatware with a nice heft to it. Generally very plain in that Scandanavian way.

And it's not too pricey.

[politicat]

12. What's IKEA?

The closest one is in Texas. I don't know why Denver hasn't been graced with their presence yet, but so far, no dice.

I may hit the one in Arizona when I'm there in May...

[GoneOffShore]

17. They have a pretty good website

and you can shop online - http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/IkeaNearYouView?storeId=12&langId=-1&catalogId=10103&StoreName=homeshopping

[yellowdogintexas]

13. what is the pattern?

I have an Oneida pattern that I love. Still in production.

However, if you follow the other suggestion and find a pattern that complements it and get 6 place setings of it then you can alternate the place settings if you are having a big dinner for 12.
I had 17 people for dinner once, and used my white pottery and white china, and alternated the place settings. I used my silverplate with the china and stainless with the pottery. It looked great. I was more worried about the seating than the place settings. LOL.

I am missing 3 dinner forks, and I don't know how it happened. So I am checking replacements, amazon etc. Did you try EBAY or Amazon.com.?

Do you live near an outlet mall? Sometimes the Oneida store will have the discontinued patterns there.

[Lorax]

14. Teenagers

Teenagers eat flatware, not the dishwasher. Especially teenagers with ADD who forget what they are doing when scraping the plate into the trash and end up throwing the fork in the trash too. Or the kind of teenagers with ADD who will walk around with a spoon in her hand (probably just been dipping it into the ice cream) until something else catches her attention. The spoon ends up in a dresser drawer, or in the hamper, or placed in a book for a bookmark. I refuse to buy anything even semi nice until she moves out of the house. I buy the cheapy, cheapy flatware that's like 6 for a dollar and we can't even keep that for very long. When company comes I break out the silver and watch her like a hawk.

Do you have any teenagers around?

[politicat]

18. Nope, but I have a mildly Asperger's husband.

Very mild - most people don't even realize he's got it, and he's very, very good at coping with it. And while he can be very meticulous about certain things (even obsessive at times) other things... not so much. And I have a feeling the forks and such have either disappeared with the trash or gotten left at work or fallen out of his lunch bags on the way home. (There's a reason we no longer use the expensive tupperware and rubbermaid...) The problem is that he counts things (somewhat obsessively) and setting a table with mismatched flatware is just a recipe for having a dinner party with Rainman. (Some things, I don't fight... they're just not worth the effort.)

It's a lot like living with an ADD kid, and the best solution I have is to laugh at it.

I dunno what to do next. Probably wait until May and look at Ikea in Phoenix, or order the set I found at Overstock.

[politicat]

19. Not on ebay at the moment.

And the outlet mall was a miserable experience. The teenybopper behind the counter wasn't even sure of the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. Just lucky, I guess... *sigh*

It's the Rossini pattern. There's tons of the ordinary Rossini, but the satin is apparently hard to come by. I found another source for it late last night, but I got an email back this afternoon telling me that they were out of stock. (The prices were better - $7.95 for a spoon - but they don't expect to have any.)

[mcscajun]

15. Try eBay with a "Saved Search" for Oneida and your pattern's name

You'll get e-mails when listings show up matching your search.

Alternatively, you could buy an entirely new set, and help to finance it by selling your pattern piecemeal on eBay as replacements for other "lost souls". :)

[NMDemDist2]

16. are you sure your tool challenged SO hasn't stolen them all for his

tool box??

:rofl: