Dinnerware

Stoneware, porcelain, Corelle glass and enamelware on a soup-heavy table:

most everyday sets are ceramic or stoneware: heavy, cheap and happy in the microwave, though the glaze on the rim is where they give way. Porcelain is thinner and harder than it looks, and it is the set kept back for a first communion or Sunday lunch with the in-laws. Corelle and other laminated glass plates weigh very little and stack thin, which suits a small kitchen, and they rarely chip, but when one does break it bursts into sharp splinters rather than a few clean pieces. Melamine does not break at all, which is why it ends up at the farm, on the terrace and with small children, but it scores under a knife and never goes in the microwave. Enamelled steel plates and mugs last for years in a country kitchen until a knock chips the enamel and the steel underneath starts to rust; they stay out of the microwave too. Count the deep plates before you settle on a set. Many imported sets come with flat plates, side plates and small cereal bowls, which leaves a family that eats soup several times a week short at the table. Platters and soup tureens are in serveware, and the glasses and pitchers for fruit drinks in drinkware and bar.

Hand-painted majolica from Antigua and Totonicapán:

Guatemalan majolica is soft earthenware fired once, coated in a white tin glaze, painted by hand and fired again, hotter. That soft body is why it chips more readily than factory stoneware, and a chip shows the colour of the clay straight away. Hand painting also leaves clues you can check: the brushwork shifts slightly from plate to plate, and the back often carries the workshop’s painted mark. A pattern that repeats exactly on every piece, with edges too clean for a brush, is a printed decal on ordinary ceramic, which is not majolica whatever the listing says.

Quetzales for a factory set and for a hand-painted one:

a plain ceramic set for four to six people runs about Q150 to Q250 new, and branded porcelain sets climb to around Q600. With new prices that low, a used everyday set sells on being complete and unchipped rather than on its brand, and one missing two bowls gets priced as loose plates. Majolica works the other way. It is sold by the piece, each one thrown and painted by hand, and a full matching run is hard to put back together once it is broken up, so a complete set in good order holds its value far better than anything off a factory line.

Crazing, cutlery marks and gold rims on a used set:

tilt each plate against the light. A fine web of cracks in the glaze, called crazing, lets water and grease into the body underneath, and those plates stain and pick up smells over time. Grey streaks on a matte glaze are cutlery marks, which usually clean off. A gold or platinum rim rules out the microwave, and years in a dishwasher show as a rim worn thin or patchy. On melamine, look for deep knife scoring and stains that will not shift; on enamelware, any chip that has turned brown is already rusting.

Listing a boxed wedding set or a run of Antigua majolica:

lay out one full place setting and photograph it from above, then take a close shot of the backstamp, which tells a buyer the maker and whether the set is marked for microwave and dishwasher. Say which pieces are later replacements, because a hand-painted plate from another firing rarely matches the blues of the original. For a wedding gift that was never used, show the box open with the pieces still in their slots. A buyer driving in from Cobán will want to lift every plate to the light before paying, so have the set unpacked on a table, with newspaper and a sturdy box ready for the ride home.