New users register here. Or, need help?
Already registered? Login.

WARNING: This site uses some JavaScript, so you will need to enable JavaScript in your browser to use all of its capabilites.
Posted by Chris under Furniture Commentary on July 03, 2009.

Tomorrow is the 233rd anniversary of our independence here in the U.S. I find it a great irony that I am writing about it here, since, after all, our furniture is English. Every now and then, we get a piece from around the time of the American Revolution, and I can't help but wonder what the original owner must have thought about the events on our side of the pond.

18th Century Oak Coffer Bach

How would the owner of this 18th century coffer bach have felt about our independence?

I suppose these kinds of thoughts are part of what make antiques so charming to us. After all, owning a piece of furniture from the late 18th century does have a certain appeal for some of us Yankees; the idea of it exerts a nameless pull over the psyche, as if we have opened a back door somewhere to let the other side in. History that has passed long ago allows us to think this kind of thing without any of the animosity that now seems alien and unimaginable to us, absurd even, given our close ties to Great Britain. Still, having a piece of the past in the same room with you has a way of reviving history, of bringing it closer to you in a way that enriches meaning.

And so we arrive in the present. What would yesterday's ghosts think of our world? Or tomorrow's? I sometimes fear that the disposable nature of our furniture and other belongings will render our zeitgeist so ephemeral and abstract that all we will leave behind is some sort of vague, cyberspatial imprint that will seem irrelevant to the worldview of the future. Either way, barring some disaster of extraordinary scale, antiques that were there to see the first Independence Day will still be around, like visitors from the past, waving perpetually.



Posted by Chris under Furniture Commentary on July 01, 2009.

Anybody who knows antiques and the reproductions that follow them knows that familiarizing yourself with various furniture periods can be a big help. That's why we decided to offer our readers a few useful summaries of the major furniture periods of England, starting with one of the first. This post is the 4th in a series of 7, continued from a discussion of Queen Anne furniture.

Such was the rich, compelling character of Georgian period art and design that most English reproduction office furniture today is modeled directly after Georgian style examples. In fact, our office furniture collection owes virtually all of its designs and many of its construction techniques to the efforts of the master craftsmen of the Georgian and Victorian periods.

Continue reading...



Posted by Chris under Industry News on June 25, 2009.

Ebay Logo
Some blame eBay for paring down the retail market.


With the current economic recession, it's no surprise that most of us are feeling the effects of depressed consumer spending. The antique market, which owes its very existence to value that defies age and somehow survives each generational recession, shows its own signs of a serious slowdown. Every month that passes by, mom-and-pop operations and even established dealers and antique shows are either closing shop or teetering on the verge. Some blame eBay, while others point to the poor taste of today's young consumers, but everyone agrees that the antique industry is in trouble. The trick lies in knowing what to do about it.

Continue reading...



Posted by Chris under Furniture Commentary on June 23, 2009.

Anybody who knows antiques and the reproductions that follow them knows that familiarizing yourself with various furniture periods can be a big help. That's why we decided to offer our readers a few useful summaries of the major furniture periods of England, starting with one of the first. This post is the 3rd in a series of 7, continued from a discussion of Jacobean furniture.

Remembered most for its recurrence near the end of the 19th century in the Queen Anne Revival (c1870-c1900), Queen Anne period furniture marks an important turn in English furniture history. Like many other aspects of English culture, Queen Anne style furniture grew quite popular in America, particularly during the Revival period just after the American Federal style tapered off. Although usually characterized by stylistic developments, this time also saw the introduction of mahogany into English furniture-making, which would become quite popular later in the 18th century.

Continue reading...



Posted by Chris under Furniture Commentary on June 19, 2009.

Many people ask us how to tell the difference between dovetails that are cut by hand and those that are cut by machine. Once you know, it's fairly easy to tell. Just have a look at these pictures:


Click on the above pictures to view them in larger sizes

The picture on the left is an example of machine-cut dovetails. Note how square they are, and how many. The dovetails on the right, however, have been cut by hand, and are narrower, tapered, and fewer. Whether or not dovetails are hand-cut is one of many indicators of age when dating an antique, since machine-cut dovetails entered into prominence after the Edwardian Period.