They supply components to a couple of high end appliance companies in the US. Buying very expensive European appliances not designed or approved for use in the US with zero parts and technical support doesn't really compute. There are companies here already trying to make a go of it and their reputation for customer friendliness isn't exactly stellar.

Thank you all for your wonderful advice! Formerly LanaRoma, I'm lana_roma now. Apparently, my email address was lost during the move, but my old username still remained in their database, although I couldn't get it confirmed even after multiple attempts. I asked the GW/Houzz staff to restore my account but received no help from them. I gave up and got a new account to be able to use GW. Oh well. The point about looking for hand painted vs decal is a great one. Now I'll make sure to have a magnifying glass with me when looking at china. Made a list of brands that you suggested and Googled them. Mottahedeh looks fabulous and very high end. V&B Anmut is such a sophisticated choice! Royal Doulton looks lush and Victorian - wish I had a Queen Anne house to go with it. :-) Spode Stafford is lovely. Lenox, Limoges, Pickard, Wedgwood and Bernardaud are on my list too. There's a lot of Noritake and Mikasa china on CL, but my understanding now is that those are pretty much mid-range brands. I'm confused about Haviland. There are Haviland sets for sale on CL, but some ads say that not all the items in the ad are Haviland, although they all have the same design. For example, this set is lovely: The ad Haviland Set on CL says that some pieces are "Haviland France, some are marked Z.S., & Co. Bavaria, and one is marked Japan", although the pattern is identical. Am I right to doubt whether it's a quality set? I'm a little confused about bone china too. I have two cup and saucer sets of hand painted bone china made in St. Petersburg, Russia. The china is very thin, translucent and with fine detailing. I also have a cup and saucer set marked as bone china and made in England. It's a nice set, but not as fine as the Russian sets. Thicker, a bit clumsier in shape and doesn't look so refined. Funny, when I browsed the local CL today, there were two Mikasa Classic Flair sets for sale. I like my Classic Flair set because I'm partial to Art Nouveau styling, although it's definitely not everyone's thing. Tureens - I use my Noritake Belle Rose tureen to microwave rice pilaf that comes in boxes. Works great! But it's marked as Cook'n Serve. Also, is there a high demand for fine china overall? Some CL sellers ask such high prices for used china. Like $1500 for a Royal Worcester Evesham Gold set: Evesham on CL . This baffles me. I have an Evesham Gold serving dish ( a gift) and it isn't really that high end to me. It's pretty, but not more.

My paternal grandfathers family traces back to the late 1600s. I gather they were quite a prominent family in Maine. I'm not as sure about the other branches of the family. A great-aunt on my mother's side seemed to revel in her Swedish heritage, and I think her parents (my great-great-grandparents) may have been born in Sweden. I think a great-grandfather (my father's mother's father) was born in the Netherlands. Certainly his given name was Dutch and not one I've heard elsewhere. He was active with the Holland Land Company that did a lot of land reclamation in the Sacramento River Delta. My ex-husband is Chinese-American, and branches of his family have been in the US for 5 generations. His grandmother, however, was born in China after her father traveled back to China from the US to find a wife. Thanks to the Chinese Exclusion Act, he was unable to return to the US immediately, and my ex's grandmother was not able to come to the US until she was 12 years old.

@gail.katz Delta provided replacement parts on 2 separate occasions, but the faucet continued to develop leaks over time. My kitchen is currently gutted with new Brizo articulating faucets on site and ready to be installed along after new cabinetry and countertops. The old, leaking Delta faucet has already been discarded. I don't know the model, but it was one of the standard, gooseneck pull-downs from probably 20 years ago. My understanding is that Delta's new DIAMOND Seal technology is supposed to go further toward preventing leaks than the technology that was available at the time my old faucet was manufactured. Not all of Delta's faucets feature the DIAMOND Seal, so make sure whichever one you get has it if you go with that brand. I did as much research about faucets for my kitchen renovation as essentially any other component, which means I was researching faucet quality and visiting showrooms with faucet displays over about a year's span before deciding on a Brizo articulating faucet in the Artesso style. Brizo is a Delta brand, but I really liked the articulating design so decided to upgrade to the Brizo line which is on the expensive side but about middle-of-the-road on price when you compare to other luxury faucet brands. The faucet I chose has a PVD-applied stainless steel finish which makes the finish among the most durable available in the industry today. Any of Brizo's styles that list "Brilliance" in front of the finish name are PVD, so "Chrome" finishes are just electroplated, but "Brilliance Stainless" in the Brizo brand, for example, would be a PVD finish. And, all of Brizo faucets come with the standard Brizo/Delta lifetime warranty. I had read some earlier reviews about the Brizo articulating faucets failing at the joints, but I was able to confirm that this has been fixed, so unless you order old stock from a showroom somewhere, all the newer articulating faucets should wear well. The styles of articulating faucets with covered hoses are all newer with the upgraded joints. You might really consider splurging on a Brizo articulating faucet if you like the design. It is adjustable in many ways to help prevent back strain, and there is no retractable hose to get caught. I found a sale on Brizo from Quality Bath and got good pricing on mine. One had some surface damages and had to be replaced by the supplier, but that process went smoothly, My renovation involves a large sink, 42" wide, so I opted for 2 of the faucets to go with the large sink. I hope that helps, and I'm sorry to hear of your faucet problems.