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Over the years on this blog I’ve featured my Oneida Chandelier stainless steel flatware many times. I inherited my set from my great-Aunt Hazel, who passed away in 1990. We used it for family dinners in her home throughout the 1970’s and 80’s, and as far as I know it was her only set – there was no “fancy silver.”

I recently learned that Chandelier was introduced in 1976 – which means that in 2026 it’s officially 50 years old. So it’s a great time to say Happy Birthday, and celebrate this versatile, durable, and beautiful stainless pattern!

The journey for Chandelier began in 1931, when the General Mills Company (creators of the Betty Crocker homemaking persona) partnered with Oneida Community to launch what would eventually become one of the country’s most popular and enduring consumer loyalty programs. A unique offer for it’s time, General Mills put coupons into Gold Medal Flour which homemakers could redeem for free pieces of flatware. The first pattern offered (made originally by William Rogers & Sons, which was acquired by Oneida in 1936) was the silverplated “Queen Bess” with its pretty floral motif.

Eventually the program evolved with coupons being offered in a much wider variety of products, and could be mailed in along with token payments of cash to expedite the collecting process.

The idea of coupons for products took off for Betty Crocker, and they introduced a catalog showcasing their coupon/premium items in 1962. They partnered with Oneida to offer new and beautiful patterns over the next four decades and beyond. The Betty Crocker Coupon Catalog was at one time the largest distributor of Oneida flatware in the United States.

While Betty Crocker (via General Mills) had the products and marketing channels for distributing the coupons, Oneida itself brought to the partnership a reputation for quality workmanship, attractive pattern designs, and durability. The company had begun in 1848, producing steel animal traps and chains before turning to flatware in 1899. Their silverplating and stainless steel techniques produced a wide variety of flatware patterns. Popular silverplate patterns from the company’s early history included Bird of Paradise, Avalon, and Morning Star. Among their stainless patterns, Beethoven, Voila, and Allegiance were a few that were offered in The Betty Crocker Catalog.

It was into this catalog that Chandelier was introduced in 1976. Unique for its combination of beautiful scrollwork, glossy finish, and pierced handles, the pattern was produced and sold from 1976 until 1985. I love to think that my aunt received her catalog one day, along with millions of other homemakers, and fell in love with the pretty new stainless pattern by Oneida. Chandelier has remained popular but affordable on the secondhand market, readily available on eBay (which is where I found my own copy of the 1976 catalog!) and via Replacements.

Over time, Betty Crocker expanded their catalog offerings beyond flatware sets, eventually adding a range of housewares such as glassware, dinnerware, storage solutions, and more.

For me, Chandelier has been part of my family’s daily dining since its first appearance in the Betty Crocker catalog. I personally have been using this set daily since 1990, and of course before that it was Aunt Hazel’s daily flatware. I love it because it’s durable and beautiful even after 50 years, and because it’s incredibly versatile. Here are a few of the tables I’ve set with it, showcasing its chameleon-like ability to enhance nearly every tablescape style!

Chandelier can be romantic! Here it’s set with pieces from my small collection of Rose Chintz by Johnson Brothers – coincidentally, this was Aunt Hazel’s dinnerware pattern, though these were not her pieces. This combination of plates and flatware carry a lot of fond memories for me.

And here it is on its 50th anniversary, used on this year’s Valentine’s table.

Chandelier can also be festive. Here it’s set on an “old world” Christmas table with Lenox Holiday Tartan.

Chandelier can herald Spring! Here it’s used on a light-and-bright Springtime table.

Chandelier can look international! This pretty table from 2019 was inspired by the colors of Provence, France.

Chandelier can look antique! It’s right at home with this sweet dessert plate in the Allegheny pattern by English potter Thomas Goodfellow, produced between 1828-1854.

Chandelier can be spooky! I knew it was going to be the perfect choice for my Gothic-themed “haunted house” table.

And so many more tables, enhanced by this beautiful pattern! I expect to use Chandelier as my daily flatware set for the rest of my life. Its beauty and durability ensure I’ll be able to pass it on to my daughter someday if she wants it – it’s been part of her life, too!

Happiest of birthdays, Chandelier – you’re looking fabulous at fifty!

(All text and images copyright Janet Green 2026, unless otherwise noted.)

Have you ever looked closely at a piece of Johnson Brothers Old Britain Castles dinnerware and become curious to learn more about Blarney, Cambridge, or Stafford Castle? If so, then you’ve experienced the hidden super-power of classic transferware!

In the early 19th century, British potteries began producing large quantities of illustrative transferware aimed at a growing American market. The pieces produced by Clews, Ridgway, Enoch Wood, Johnson Brothers (pre-Castles), and others depicted American pastoral landscapes, architectural scenes of New York and other cities, river scenes, and natural wonders such as Niagara Falls.

These dishes were affordable and beautiful, and the designs subtly served as visual history lessons at a time when books were expensive and literacy was not universal. Dinnerware could literally show Americans what their country looked like beyond their front door, and build a sense of national identity through depictions of events, landscapes, and architecture.

In her collector’s volume The Blue China Book, first published in 1916, Ada Walker Camehl states “… this group of English pottery is not only a valuable record of the American country and cities as they appeared a century ago, but is at the same time a surprisingly complete history of the first three centuries of our national life.”

As it turned out, Americans – who at the time still believed that superior pottery came from England – were eager to snap up these pieces, seamlessly blending history into domestic life. For transferware at this time was not relegated to display cabinets – it was handled, washed, stacked, and used daily. Through repetitive use, the imagery of transferware became part of our collective conversations and knowledge.

What’s interesting about the images themselves is that, for the most part, they were created by illustrators working from pictures by established, “published” artists. While a few potteries sent their staff artists “across the pond” to make their own sketches, more often they worked from existing paintings, prints, and even sketches from the notebooks of returning English tourists.

For example, the Irish-born artist William Guy Wall is one of the most influential figures for American-view scenic transferware. His successful print series known as the Hudson River Port Folio was eagerly adapted by English potters. These pictures depicted scenes of a naturally beautiful but culturally refined America, where nature coexisted peacefully with civilization. Educated in European artistic traditions, Wall created carefully balanced compositions showing that America had landscapes equal to those in Europe, believing that they deserved to be seen and remembered. Wall wasn’t just painting scenery – he was stylizing, editing, and curating his pictures to depict how America wanted to see itself and how it wanted to be seen by the world. Because of the established popularity of the pictures from the Port Folio, pottery depicting these images was practically guaranteed to be successful on the commercial market. Thus, many Staffordshire plates trace their origins directly to Wall’s compositions.

Additionally, although they depicted American subjects, the wares were engraved and produced in England. As a result, early American history was filtered through British artistic conventions and romantic ideals.

These additional filters, or layers of interpretation, explain why American buildings sometimes appeared slightly altered, landscapes were softened or felt grander than reality, and proportions leaned toward the English Picturesque style. These visual choices reveal not only what was depicted, but literally how history was framed for consumption. The dinnerware did not merely reflect culture; it actively participated in shaping it.

Despite the English artistic influence imposed upon American scenes, Camehl nonetheless concludes in her book that “So thoroughly did the early nineteenth-century artists perform their task of securing sketches of American scenery… that it is quite possible by means of the decoration… to enable the student of our early history to make a fairly complete tour of the land, and to look upon it as it appeared a century ago.”

By the early 20th century, as American tastes changed, the educational direction of transferware had also shifted: English potters began introducing American consumers to British history and heritage. One of the most beloved examples is the afore-mentioned Old Britain Castles by Johnson Brothers introduced around 1930 and still widely collected today, almost 100 years later. These scenes of castles, abbeys, and ancient ruins invited American buyers to romanticize Britain’s deep past.

Beyond Old Britain Castles, English potteries produced many transferware patterns aimed at American buyers that showcased other British architecture, landmarks, and scenery. Johnson Brothers itself also produced the Old Britain series, featuring cathedrals, manor houses, bridges, and rural landscapes. Their Coaching Scenes series featured historic coaching inns and roadside taverns.

Additionally, potteries such as Enoch Wood, Ridgway, Davenport, Clews and Wedgwood produced designs focused on historic British homes, landscapes, and architecture. These designs traded themes of American patriotism and identity-building for the romance, ancestry, and allure of the Old World – qualities that resonated strongly in U.S. homes from the late 19th century onward. They taught British geography and architectural history through repeated daily use, much as earlier wares had done with American themes.

Another more modern example of transferware that educates – or at least ignites curiosity – would be Royal China’s Currier and Ives. Introduced in 1949, this American-made pattern was beloved by mid-century homemakers and families for over four decades. The scenes depicted on the dinnerware were taken directly from commercially successful prints produced by American lithographers Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives from 1835-1907. These prints, popular and affordable in their time, depicted romanticized scenes of American farm life, historical events, and other subject matter. Prints chosen for the dinnerware line included The Homestead in Winter, The Old Grist Mill, The Rocky Mountains, Maple Sugaring, and others.

I think it’s probable that English and American potteries did not intentionally set out to educate anyone – I doubt we’ll ever unearth an upper-management memorandum directing the marketing department to find a way to teach history through dinnerware! These companies were, first and foremost, commercial ventures with the end goal of making money. They studied the American market, and produced products they believed would sell. By carefully choosing images that spoke to the American desire to evolve a national identity (and later, to a sense of collective American nostalgia), and by putting these images on something as ubiquitous as dinnerplates, the potteries unwittingly became visual historians. Ultimately, they had an unintentional but very real educational impact.

What collectors hold today, in antique and vintage transferware, is not a photographic record of the past, but a carefully edited artistic vision of it. For tablescapers, this adds another layer of meaning. When you place an American-view transferware plate on the table, you are sharing not just a scene, but an artist’s interpretation of a young nation filtered through British/European (and later, nostalgic American) eyes.

Furthermore, mixing American-themed transferware with British scenic patterns creates a table that reflects a transatlantic conversation about mutually appreciated and interpreted history.

By collecting and using transferware, we are not just preserving beautiful useful objects. We are curating fragments of cultural education that was delivered without books and in the most family-centric way possible: around the dinner table. By bringing these pieces back to the table through present-day tablescaping, we’re allowing history to once again take pride-of-place, and reclaim its seat beside us.

A note about using antique or vintage dinnerware: Many antique and vintage dinnerware pieces were produced before modern food-safety standards were established. As a result, some may contain lead, cadmium, or other materials that can leach into food and beverages, particularly when used with acidic or hot foods. While lead leaching does not cause immediate ill effects, repeated exposure over months or years may cause eventual health issues. Children and pregnant women should not consume food from dinnerware that is not certified as food-safe. Do your own research so you can make informed decisions for yourself, your family, and your guests about whether to actually use older dinnerware.