Many people receive bone china dish sets for wedding gifts. They cherish these pieces for a lifetime and often hand them down to children or grandchildren. A family with its own china set is one that generally gets together on a regular schedule for important holiday meals. They celebrate and the china has its own place in their family traditions. Unfortunately, using these pieces means they sometimes break.
Bone china pieces cannot easily be fixed once they are broken. Bone china is a porcelain material that is fired at the hottest of kiln temperatures. This makes it brittle and it tends to shatter if dropped on a hard surface. Replacements can easily be found unless the manufacturer has discontinued that particular line. In the case of bone china sets that have been handed down through families, this is often the case.
Not all is lost if a piece is broken and the set is not complete. Many manufacturers of fine bone china now have their own online sites. These sites often list replacements for patterns that are still being made. For those patterns that have been discontinued, manufacturers often list companies that specialize in replacement dishes. These are dishes made by the original manufacturer, but they have been acquired from many sources.
There are many families that cherish their bone china set. Not all families pass sets down to younger members. Sometimes this is because no one ever replaced broken pieces and the set is no longer whole. Other times it is due to changing tastes in design. For whatever reason, many of the remaining pieces are sold to collectors. There are many online sources to find bone china pieces for incomplete sets. Some of them are auction sites, but the majority of sellers specialize in certain manufacturers and patterns. Finding a reputable company is generally only a few clicks away.