Gold Plated

‘WHILE Britons munch roast beef and two veg off the Royal Doulton and the Chinese dine off Ming dynasty china, America eats its Monster Thickburgers off plates with pictures of a Monster Truck on them.

The Queen of Plates

With each bite of the chunky artery-clogging traditional lunch, a little more of modern Americana is exposed.

And if trucks being wrestled by men with necks wider than their heads doesn’t get your juices running, the Franklin Mint can just as easily provide ‘A Doggone Egg-Stravaganza Plate’, which depicts an assortment of dogs dressed up as Easter bunnies.

Not your thing? Then no worries, because the Franklin Mint can just as easily turn its skilled hand to ‘The Little Rascals Franklin Mint Plate – Silly Sultans’. It’s limited edition.

We’d like to mention the entire collection, but there are just too many.

However, when Hello! was invited to look around the home of ‘Franklin Mint billionaires’ Lynda Resnick and her husband Stewart, we grew excited at the prospect of seeing the entire collection in situ.

Their Los Angeles mansion is indeed an emporium of gilded splendour.

It’s as if Lynda and Stew have bought the most expensive thing in the store, then, having asked the dumbstruck shop assistant how to make it more ‘exclusive’, ordered it to be dipped in gold.

Lynda would like to tell us about the history of her empire, the humbly named Resnick Foundation, which, we are told, ‘contributes to many of the projects [Princess] Diana held dear’.

We’d like to tell you how she bought the ‘Elvis dress’, the figure-hugging gown Princess Diana – the face that launched a thousand plates – wore to the Albert Hall in 1989.

And we’d love to let you know about Jackie Kennedy’s pearl earrings which, although fake, Lynda bought for $218,000 at a charity auction.

But we are unable to. We are simply too disappointed by what we see – or, rather, don’t see – to communicate with our normal fluency.

Because when we get to the grand dining room, with its vast highly-polished wooden table, illuminated by a massive overhead chandelier, our eyes blinking like a miner emerging into the light after a long shift underground, we cannot believe what we see.

There on the table are no fewer than eight plates (there are more, but our view is obscured by Lynda and the Chelsea Flower Show that passes for the table’s centrepiece).

And on no plate can we see a picture of a teddy bear in a woolly jumper frolicking in the snow.

On not a single plate is there an image of TV’s The Simpsons hunkering down in front of the telly.

And stare as we do, we cannot for the life of us see the first-ever shamrock-shaped heirloom collector plate, depicting a cosy thatched cottage embellished by the inspirational Irish toast, ‘May the road rise to meet you – may the wind be at your back’ in emerald-green lettering.

But just as we about to cry ‘foul’, we understand. Such fine china as that aforementioned is not for just everyday use – it must be saved for best.

And we are sure that when the sultans, princesses and heads of state come to feast at the Resnicks’ abode, they eat from plates with an image of the crew of the Starship Enterprise saluting ‘They who are about to dine…”

Posted: 19th, November 2004 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink