This article explores the shifting uses and meanings of Manchester civic plate, a huge silver dining service purchased in 1877 to coincide with the opening of the city’s neo-Gothic Town Hall. The authors explore how the silver collection has successively forged relations with a host of different people, places and objects, exemplifying the changing processes through which objects are understood, utilized, valued, maintained, stored and curated. Three key processes are deployed to illuminate these shifting entanglements: the use of the silver to express municipal prestige and advance particular cultural values, the maintenance procedures that have responded to the silver’s vital material constituency and practices of display, storage and curation. In accounting for these diverse and volatile processes, the article argues for the virtues of theoretical breadth in exploring the multiplicities of material culture.

本文探讨了曼彻斯特市民餐牌的变化用途和意义，这是 1877 年购买的巨大的银色餐饮服务，恰逢该市新哥特式市政厅的开幕。作者探索了银器系列如何与大量不同的人、地点和物品相继建立关系，举例说明物品被理解、利用、估价、维护、储存和策划的变化过程。三个关键过程被部署来阐明这些不断变化的纠缠：使用银来表达城市声望和推进特定的文化价值，对银的重要物质成分做出反应的维护程序以及展示、储存和策展的实践。在考虑这些多样化和不稳定的过程时，