Spring Hill woman pursues case of the missing pottery
Her dinnerware was mistakenly given away during a move, and she's scouring thrift stores and searching eBay to get back everything she can.
By BETH N. GRAY
Published November 22, 2006
SPRING HILL - Anyone who has moved knows the confusion and disarray: what to keep, what to discard, what might have sale value, what to give away.
During a move last year from Port Richey to Spring Hill, Eileen Danch lost something precious to her, and now she's desperate to find the missing goods.
The saga began when Danch's daughter, Kathleen Weiss, came from New Jersey to Florida to help her mother with the move. Weiss, claiming all the while that her mother had too much stuff, did much of the packing and tossing. Danch, who was suffering some neurological health problems, didn't observe it all.
The Salvation Army and Goodwill Industries arrived at the Port Richey home to accept myriad donated goods.
Unbeknownst to Danch, out the door went a prized set of pottery that her father had sent to her from Japan, where he worked in the 1960s - pattern 1776 Independence by Interpace Japan, according to the inscription on the back of each piece. Danch had carted the set with her from her home in Pittsburgh and throughout moves to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Port Richey.
She loved the pale yellow color. And the set was perfect for special occasions: huge, eight to 12 place settings, with all of the serving dishes and accessory pieces.
When her boxes finally were unpacked in Spring Hill, Danch discovered the loss. To retrieve the lost goods, she has been scouring Salvation Army thrift shops in Pasco and Hernando counties since February 2005.
She picked up a small platter for $3.99 at one store. She found four small soup or salad bowls at an online store. The set must have been broken up; maybe a box went here while another went there, she surmised.
Danch posted a reward poster on the door of the shop she thought most likely to have sold the pottery. She was preparing to place classified ads in local newspapers.
Recently, she discovered a covered soup tureen and sugar and creamer set on eBay, offered by a seller in Port Richey. It had to be part of her set, she thought, but the now 70-year-old couldn't access the purchase mode on her computer. She feared someone else would buy the cherished pieces before she figured out the technicalities of eBay buying.
Friends and a researcher with the Hernando County Public Library System answered her calls this month. She made contact with the seller, Troy Spencer of Port Richey. He told her he had bought the pieces at the Goodwill thrift store on U.S. 19 in Port Richey.
Those were the only items of the pattern Danch searched for so diligently.
"If the whole set was there, I would have bought it," said Spencer, 32, who regularly shops thrift stores and resells items on eBay.
Danch and Spencer figured that someone bought most of the set and left a couple of accessories. Spencer bought his three items "for about $10," he said. On eBay, he priced each at $14.99.
Danch was willing and eager to pay. But when Spencer heard her story, he told the Times, "I'm going to give her money back."
The find is a start. But Danch yearns to reassemble the set. Anyone who bought pieces of 1776 Independence by Interpace Japan may contact her at 352 263-2268. She is a willing buyer.
Beth Gray can be reached at graybethn@earthlink.net.