simple past vs past perfect

Question

I'm studying English and I want to ask about a sentence from my book:

For myself I kept a solitary piece of china, one of the few remaining plates from the set my grandfather bought my mother for her wedding.

I think it should be like this:

For myself I kept a solitary piece of china, one of the few remaining plates from the set my grandfather had bought my mother for her wedding.

It's because — clearly — grandfather had bought the china before I took them.

I think grammatically had bought is more accurate. However, is bought grammatically acceptable? Or is the book wrong?

Answer 1

Mechanically, simple past tense bought works, as the verb functions in the past tense within the dependent clause "one of the few remaining plates from the set my grandfather bought my mother for her wedding." The reader is dealing with two distinct clauses: an independent, followed by a dependent. Were the thought expressed in the dependent clause part of the independent clause, then past perfect would be more consistent. For example, "For myself I kept a piece of china that my grandfather had bought my mother for her wedding."

Stylistically, though, it seems had bought would make the time of the purchase clearer, due to the proximity of the two thoughts. This edit would come down to the copyeditor's choice. I would most likely choose clarity over mechanical correctness and go with had bought.