Having fancy china/dish sets for display isn’t really a thing the youth is worried about. It used be a social thing, having guests over to eat off (or just see the display) your fancy dinner plate is probably the social equivalent to having the box of 64GB of ram on a shelf above your computer. In other words “yes, we have money and you can shut about it up Aunt Gertrude”

A closed cabinet with glass doors to display what ever you collect is a nice thing to have. The doors help keep dust and cats out.

My parents (Gen x) have one that they got from my boomer grandma passing. They have a billion different sets of china they’re trying to sell or auction, but no one wants it. They’ve told me it’ll be mine when they pass and ugh. I appreciate that it’s nice and all, but truly I’ll probably just donate it to a rage room or something. A soup kitchen so they can all feel sophisticated. Dunno. I don’t want it.

Nope. I think it’s mostly a dead idea.

My mom is still hoarding (for me) a set of fine china dishes I inherited from my grandmother. They’re really nice.

But what am I going to do with them? Add specific furniture to my too-small home to store them so I can pull them out for certain dinner parties? We barely host for dinner anymore, and when we do, we keep it casual.

I think china cabinets go along with a whole bunch of social niceties that were important in the 20th century and have since withered.

You mean cabinets manufactured in China? Yeah, a whole kitchen full.

My peers aren’t buying china, but a couple are using china cabinets or hutches to display the things they do collect. There’s pretty much an open request that if anyone spots good quality used furniture, to put it in a group chat.

So. Funny enough. Yes. You see its massive and the people did not want to try and move it when we purchased the place. We also got a dining room table and chairs. They actually tried to suggest a few hundred to have them and we are like. Nope. So they just gave them to us.

China is a pretty big country not sure how it would fit in a cabinet.

I don’t know about the cabinets, but you can find used China really cheap at thrift stores. Most people don’t care about it anymore, so it isn’t worth much. As the boomers are dying their stuff is getting donated.

I personally don’t care about fancy dishes, but a lot of folks like to use it ‘just because’ rather than waiting for a special day.

My mom still has all of her mom’s old china from when she passed. It fills up an enormous, ugly, heavy cabinet that eats up a pretty significant chunk of the living room and doesn’t go with any of the other decor. I have never, in my nearly 40 years of existence, seen her use a single piece of it. It was always “for special occasions”, but we always went out for special occasions, so they still never got used.

I think she only keeps them because they were important to her mom, who inherited some of it from her mom, and possibly even further up the chain. I don’t think they’re even worth anything; she could maybe get a couple hundred bucks if she were to sell the whole collection, maybe a bit more if she got creative with the listing. There were times growing up where we were dirt broke and couldn’t even afford soap to wash a dish and ate dinner off of paper towels, and she still wouldn’t let anyone use the china. But it was important to those before her, so I think my mom just wants to preserve it in their memory.

My display case is full of Warhammer 40k armies, which I feel is a better use. And possibly more expensive, ive never bought China so idk

Used to until we moved. We left the china and the china cabinet behind. Only thing we took that was in it was my mom’s snow globe collection.

I wouldn’t bother getting another. I have no desire to have a set of fancy dining ware that gets used maybe once a year. The only fancy dining ware I need is anything not paper and plastic.

No, it seems to be a “I misunderstand being an adult” thing. I witnessed all our friends who made the middle-class dream of “take neverending debt and buy a house” their reality at some point having a china-cabinet.

And I undeestand it now. For our wedding the colleagues of my wife got us those fancy wine glasses, engraved with our names. Like those crystal shiny thingies, which break when you look at them for too long. So where do you put those? Apparently that is the time, when you need to give up precious space in your home for a china-cabinet 😅. Because you better never use those glasses, but how would people know, that you’re married otherwise? And I guess you get more of that shit, when you age, or something.

I inherited most of my grandma’s mid-century dining room set, so yes. I keep her china in the bottom, and use the top as a display case and liquor cabinet. She wouldn’t exactly be thrilled with my setup, but she’d be happy the furniture stayed in the family.

(Speaking as an early Millennial)

I have a gigantic cabinet in my dining room/kitchen (not much wall between them so it’s kinda the same space). It’s 8 feet tall, solid hardwood except for the glass doors, and was originally a built-in from a house in the next neighborhood over. They put it out on the curb and I saw it, hitched up my utility trailer, brought it home and installed it. Best curb find so far.

I use it as a pantry because my house small and doesn’t have a closet-style pantry.

I also have a set of fine china that a friend gave me as a wedding present (even though we didn’t have a gift registry), but the pattern isn’t really our style and I’ve never taken it out of the box. I don’t have plans to buy other fancy dishes, either. I’m very happy with my cheap Corelle (except for the fact that they discontinued the pattern and I wish I had more sets of it).

So, technically, I “have” both china and a china cabinet, but it is very much just a Boomer thing anyway.

They are a common wedding gift in some rural communities.

But I don’t have one yet.