Basics for Buying Antique Furniture
John R. Tompkins
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Many of us who have collected or dealt in antiques a long time fondly remember the days when buying a piece of antique furniture meant taking a trip in the family station wagon down to a local antique shop or auction house. And the things we bought were, for the most part, modestly priced objects which we used to furnish our homes. Some of the pieces were interesting, from a collector’s standpoint, and some were more pedestrian.
But a number of factors have created a change in the price levels. Americans have more wealth than ever, and are willing to spend it on great objects, and the advent of the internet means that great little inlaid one drawer stand coming up on Saturday at Eddie’s Auction Barn may be included in online catalogue’s viewed by many thousands of people around the world, so the competition is much fiercer and prices are steeper.
All of which means it’s a tough world out there, and buyer’s willing to step up to the plate better know there Ps and Qs before getting out their checkbooks.
And while scholars of antique furniture can endlessly study the minutiae of detail that help us sort the true history of the beautiful objects we all want, its really the basics you have to keep in mind before making a purchase.
1: Know your furniture periods. It helps immensely to know that n inlaid hepplewhite chest would have never had Chippendale ball and claw feet, and any hepplewhite chest that has them isn’t worth using your valuable time to examine it.
2. Get a trusty, portable light and use it. A bright light can illuminate a world of bad repairs and restorations.
3. Look at lots of things, until you understand the oxidations of woods in antique furniture. Woods, especially unfinished secondary woods, such as the back on a chest of drawers or a drawer bottom, turns nut brown with age, The more it is exposed, the darker it turns. A chest is the easiest place to see this. The bottom drawer, which is generally exposed, will have a much darker bottom then the other drawers. Faker attempt to mimic oxidation with stain, but it never looks the same. It nearly always has a grayish cast, and stain seeps deeper int the wood than oxidation. A simple scratch of the thumb naïf will leave a white spot on a genuine piece of patinated wood, but not on a piece faked with stain.
4. Develop you r eye for form and proportion. Consider for instance, our friend the hepplewhite chest. The smaller chests have much more eye appeal and are worth much more on the ,market place. If you consider two chest—one 36 inches wide and one 44 inches wide—which are other wise of equal quality, the 36 inch chest could be worth double the price of the 42 inch chest on today’s market..
5. Assume the worst. Savvy buyers consider a piece wrong until it prices itself right, through period, condition, oxidation and form. And through personal experience I can say that the majority of pieces I find interesting in auction catalogues, turn out to be dud in person. All of which really makes the really good things all that much more satisfying.
6. Look for the signs of great age in any piece of furniture that is 19th century or earlier. There wee many, many fine copies of great furniture made, some moer than 100 years ago. Those pieces are now old enough to have patina and oxidation, so you much look for square, hand cut nails, handmade screws, and inlay and veneer that shows the subtle signs of shrinkage. Round tops and legs will always be slightly oval when measured, because wood shrinks with age.
7. Study the differences in woods, and learn which woods to expect. For instance, if you open the drawers of our hepplewhite chest and see oak sides, you know it is either British, because Americans didn’t use oak drawer sides, or simply not first period, because later copies sometimes had oak drawer sides.
8. Two sets of eyes are always better than one. Take a knowledgeable friend, or enlist the aid of a trustworthy dealer.
9. Repairs are acceptable, replacements are not. Replaced feet and tops are the most typical culprits. However, a single replaced rear foot, for example is acceptable.
10. Look for any kinds of unexplained joints or screw holes, which usually signal a replacement made from a piece off an old piece of furniture. Remember that when many of these repairs were made, there were lots of parts available, so repairs woucld be made using old pieces. You have to also be vigilant for pieces totally constructed from old parts. For instance, there is a group of corner cupboards that were all made out of empire sideboards in Baltimore in the early 20th century.
While all of this may sound overwhelming to the beginning collector, it will ultimately lead to grater enjoyment of your collection. Really understanding these objects, and their history, gives us a greater appreciation for their history, the the artistry used to craft them.
In my opinion, even the lowliest pieces are of greater quality in their construction and craftsmanship than the most expensive things being produced today.
John R. Tompkins is a private consultant in American decorative arts living in New Orleans, LA. He is an Alabama native who has collected and dealt in American antiques for more than 30 years, selling to private collectors and institutions.. Before moving to New Orleans, he lived in Somerset County, Maryland, where he was curator of the Teackle Mansion.
