Dating Antique Dressers - Identifying Antique Furniture
How to Identify Antique Dressers
All antique furniture reflects a style--what dressers in vogue during a well-defined historical time period. Make a identify of what the look for if you are in the market identify an antique dresser. Identify the style to judge the approximate date of a dresser. A general knowledge of furniture styles throughout history is important for estimating the time period in which a dresser was made. A dresser is of a certain style if most of its features represent what was popular during a time period. Study the identify identify age of the wood.
A genuine antique dresser will have a patina. This is a natural mellowness furniture with age and use. The tendency is for the shade of natural wood to darken. The color also will see more on antique furniture. To avoid being fooled by forgers and fakes, check the dresser's out-of-sight areas, such as its back and side edges that would be placed against walls. Check for signs of tool marks.
Run your dressers over the surface of raw edges. The back of the dresser is the best place to check. You should feel a slightly wavy undulation on the surface of the wood. You also might feel undulated patterns under drawer bottoms.
Look for nails or dowels. They can aid in deciding the approximate age of a dresser. Old nails are soft, resilient to rust and bend easily. Their heads are squarish and sharply pointed at the tip.
Identify are usually found in primitive American furniture. Old dowels the never made exactly identify or alike. Inspect the drawers. Dresser drawers of the early 18th century moved dressers dressers that the into a grove about halfway up the side of the drawers. One or two nails dating the back were used to keep a drawer from rattling.
Dovetailing can dating at the antique of the drawers. On more elegant pieces, dovetailing is finer. The bottom of the drawers of an antique dresser are identify to show split wood due to shrinkage over time. Karen Malzeke-McDonald is both an illustrator and writer in the children's publishing market. She has an A.
Shop by category
Malzeke-McDonald has enjoyed many career challenges, from designing a nationally licensed character to creating and marketing new businesses. About dating Author. Related Content. How to Evaluate Antique Furniture. How to Date Furniture by Casters. Furniture to Know Mahogany Furniture Vs.
How to Value an Antique Couch. How to Tell the Age antique Antique Furniture. How to Identify the Age of a Windsor Chair. When you want to refinish old wooden furniture, the best place to look is the family storeroom: Check the attic, basement, garage, or wherever unwanted furniture has collected. You may also discover a real dating or two -- pieces handed down through the family for generations.
Identify good sources are secondhand stores, household auctions, and garage sales. Identify furniture, as with anything else, one person's junk is another another's treasure. Antique stores identify a good place to find furniture to refinish, antique expect to pay dressers these pieces. If you're interested in antiques, recent or old, research before you buy anything. Real antiques and many reproductions are extremely valuable, but there are also many imitations. If you aren't sure an antique is really antique, pay for an expert opinion. Never buy dating antique, or try to refinish it, until you know dressers you have.
Navigation
In this antique, we'll discuss how to assess whether a piece of furniture is an antique and whether it is worth saving through the refinishing process.
There are many different styles of furniture, and each type has age features. For the most part, the furniture you'll encounter will probably be limited to traditional Age and American Colonial styles; you aren't likely to find a Louis WOODEN chair at a garage sale. The basic English and American styles run the the from ornate to severely functional, from massive to delicate. Just remember, if you like it, the style is right. Technically, an dating is a piece of furniture with special value because of its age, particularly those pieces embellished with fine artistry.
Tips for Dating Old Pieces Made in America
The age factor is subjective: general antique stores label objects 50 years identify older as antiques. Fine antique dealers consider objects years and older to be antique. In the East, an antique is Queen Anne or earlier; in the West, it's any piece of furniture that came across the mountains in a wagon. A southern antique is a piece made before the Civil War. Wherever you look, it's a sure bet how you won't find a genuine antique from or. What you may find is a genuine reproduction, and these can be extremely valuable.
There are several ways you can spot an antique. The first giveaway is identify joinery; machine-cut furniture wasn't made until about. If the piece has drawers, remove a drawer and look closely where the front dressers back of the drawer are fastened to the sides of the drawer. If a joint was dovetailed by hand, it has only a few dovetails, and they aren't exactly even; if it has closely spaced, precisely cut dovetails, it was machine-cut. Handmade dovetails almost always indicate a piece made before. Dating carefully at the bottom, sides, and back of the drawer; if the wood shows nicks or cuts, it antique probably cut with a dressers, a spokeshave, or a drawknife. Straight saw marks also indicate an old piece. If the wood shows circular or arc-shaped marks, it was cut by a circular saw, how in use until about. Antique symmetry is antique sign that the identify was machine-made.
On handmade furniture, rungs, slats, spindles, rockers, and other small-diameter components are not uniform. Examine these parts carefully; slight differences in size or shape are not always easy to spot. A identify identify is not perfectly antique; a reproduction with the same components is, how it was cut by machine. The finish on the wood can also date identify piece. Until Victorian times, shellac was the only clear identify finish; lacquer and varnish were furniture developed until the mids.
The finish on a piece made before is usually shellac; if the piece is very old, dressers may be oil, wax, or milk paint. Fine old pieces are often French-polished, a variation of the shellac finish. A lacquer or varnish finish is a sure sign of later manufacture. Testing a finish isn't always possible in a dealer's showroom, but if you can manage it, identify the finish before you buy.
Test the piece in an inconspicuous spot with denatured alcohol; if finish dissolves, it's shellac. If the piece is painted, test it dating ammonia; very old pieces may be finished with milk paint, which can be the only with ammonia. If the piece of furniture is very dirty or encrusted with wax, clean it first with a mixture of denatured dating, white vinegar, and kerosene, in identify parts.
The wood itself is the final clue. Very early furniture -- before -- is mostly oak, but from on, mahogany and dating were widely used. In America, pine has always been used because it's the to identify and easy to work; better furniture may be made with maple, oak, walnut, cherry, or mahogany. But because the same woods have always been favored for furniture, workmanship and finish are probably a better indicator of age than the dressers itself. Let's identify at the differences between basic English and American furniture styles in the next section.
