DEAR MISS MANNERS: My niece is graduating college in Iowa next year. I have several family heirlooms I would like to periodically give her on special occasions. I have no children, and these are special items I inherited.

One of these is a set of Wedgwood fine china my great-grandmother bought nearly 100 years ago. It’s kind of cool: Each plate has an illustration of a different building at Harvard University. My niece knows her great-grandfather and great-uncle both graduated from there.

Is this an appropriate gift for her college graduation, or should I give it to her another time? China would be more appropriate for a wedding, traditionally, but why wait?

GENTLE READER: Because it implies that she should have gone to Harvard, and because a large, fragile set for which she is not likely to have any use in the immediate future would be a burden on a new college graduate.

While it is kind of you to make your niece the heiress to these family treasures, surely you should also take into account what might be pleasing to her, and when. You could even tell her now that you want to give her the family china when she has a household to accommodate it.

Meanwhile, didn’t you inherit something that might be useful to her now? A coffee machine? A car?

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