diff --git a/src/java/com/threerings/io/ObjectOutputStream.java b/src/java/com/threerings/io/ObjectOutputStream.java
index 6ebd8d781..25e26426c 100644
--- a/src/java/com/threerings/io/ObjectOutputStream.java
+++ b/src/java/com/threerings/io/ObjectOutputStream.java
@@ -93,14 +93,16 @@ public class ObjectOutputStream extends DataOutputStream
             _classmap = new HashMap<Class,ClassMapping>();
         }
 
-        // otherwise, look up the class mapping record
-        Class sclass = object.getClass();
+        // otherwise, look up the class mapping record (if the target class is
+        // an enum, convert it from its potentially enum-value specific class
+        // to the main class for that enum)
+        Class sclass = Streamer.getStreamerClass(object);
         ClassMapping cmap = _classmap.get(sclass);
 
         // create a class mapping for this class if we've not got one
         if (cmap == null) {
             // create a streamer instance and assign a code to this class
-            Streamer streamer = Streamer.getStreamer(sclass);
+            Streamer streamer = Streamer.getStreamer(object);
             // we specifically do not inline the getStreamer() call
             // into the ClassMapping constructor because we want to be
             // sure not to call _nextCode++ if getStreamer() throws an
@@ -146,7 +148,7 @@ public class ObjectOutputStream extends DataOutputStream
     public void writeBareObject (Object object)
         throws IOException
     {
-        writeBareObject(object, Streamer.getStreamer(object.getClass()), true);
+        writeBareObject(object, Streamer.getStreamer(object), true);
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/src/java/com/threerings/io/Streamer.java b/src/java/com/threerings/io/Streamer.java
index de8dc8b2a..97b175b18 100644
--- a/src/java/com/threerings/io/Streamer.java
+++ b/src/java/com/threerings/io/Streamer.java
@@ -80,6 +80,18 @@ public class Streamer
         }
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Returns the class that should be used when streaming this object. In
+     * general that is the object's natural class, but for enum values, that
+     * might be its declaring class as enums use classes in a way that would
+     * otherwise pollute our id to class mapping space.
+     */
+    public static Class getStreamerClass (Object object)
+    {
+        return (object instanceof Enum) ?
+            ((Enum)object).getDeclaringClass() : object.getClass();
+    }
+
     /**
      * Obtains a {@link Streamer} that can be used to read and write
      * objects of the specified target class. {@link Streamer} instances
@@ -90,7 +102,7 @@ public class Streamer
      * does not implement {@link Streamable} and is not one of the basic
      * object types (@see {@link ObjectOutputStream}).
      */
-    public synchronized static Streamer getStreamer (Class target)
+    public synchronized static Streamer getStreamer (Object object)
         throws IOException
     {
         // if we have not yet initialized ourselves, do so now
@@ -98,12 +110,7 @@ public class Streamer
             createStreamers();
         }
 
-        // if the target class is an enum, convert it from its potentially
-        // enum-value specific class to the main class for that enum
-        if (target.isEnum()) {
-            target = target.getDeclaringClass();
-        }
-
+        Class target = getStreamerClass(object);
         Streamer stream = _streamers.get(target);
         if (stream == null) {
             // make sure this is a streamable class