Telling the Age of Glass

 QUESTION: I just started collecting antique glass. Unlike antique ceramics, most glass has no mark, so it’s really difficult to tell not only the maker but if it’s even old or not. How can I tell if a piece of older glass is, in fact, old? 

ANSWER: Identifying a piece of older glass is truly a challenge. Because most glass doesn’t have a maker’s mark, about the only way to tell anything about it is by studying its form and decoration. 

Of all the items for sale on the antique market, glass is probably the hardest to identify as being old. In fact, many of the old patterns have found new life in today's households, so much so that manufacturers scramble to fill department store shelves with reproductions. 

Pressed glass frequently is advertised as having been made recently from old– meaning 19th-century molds. However genuine the molds, the resulting glass cannot be compared with the original pieces. Both the glass and its color are somewhat different. The present-day manufacturer who uses 19th-century molds doesn't go to the trouble of mixing a batch of glass according to 19th-century formulas. As a result, his clear glass isn't an exact counterpart of last century's, and the red, green, blue, or other colored glass pieces rarely have the same tints and tones as the originals.

In addition to reproductions, many fakes are being made in pressed glass. One telltale sign of a fake is a slight difference in pattern. During the 1800's, variants of popular patterns became common, but a variant made by a glasshouse other than the one that introduced the pattern shows some alteration in the motifs or their arrangement. A fake, on the other hand, is an attempt to reproduce a pattern of the 1800's without bothering to copy every detail exactly.   

Twentieth-century imitations of the popular Wildflower pattern, for example, have fewer leaves and flowers in each motif. The band of pressed daisies also is narrower. Moon and Star, a pattern that probably wasn't made before the 1880's, can be confused with an inaccurate contemporary version in which the sawtooth-like cutting around the moon is smoother and flatter than in the originals. As a matter of fact, any colored Moon and Star pieces are definitely fakes, for the 19th-century pattern was offered only in clear or clear and frosted glass. Dimensions of pieces also differ, but this is impossible to judge unless you have access to an authenticated 19th-century piece.

Pattern glass was made after 1850 in large sets for the table. Reproductions of even the most popular patterns, however, seldom include the entire set. Goblets are the most widely reproduced pieces, with tumblers, mugs, salts, match-holders, and other small pieces likely in some patterns. Considerable lacy glass with its stippled background, first made by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company in the 1830's, also is being made now. Lacy glass never was made in a complete table set. Other specific clues for distinguishing between antique pressed glass and this century's copies are discussed in the chapter on pressed glass.

Cup plates, which were generally used until about 1850, and dolphin candlesticks, which were made from the 1830's to the early 1900's, have been so popular that fakes and imitations found a ready market. Dolphin candlesticks made between 1900 and 1910 can hardly be classed as antiques yet, but most of the late ones are much finer work than the more recent fakes and reproductions. Again, some dolphin candlesticks are said to be made from old molds, but the glass isn't the same quality or the color a duplicate of the original.

Dolphin candlesticks were made by many glasshouses, from the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company, which introduced them, to firms in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The earliest Sandwich glass ones had a single square base. Then came the double square or square stepped base, also made at Sandwich and widely reproduced before World War II in the United States and Europe. Other glasshouses during the 1800's produced candlesticks having the dolphin shaft but with bases and sockets differing from those made at Sandwich. A hexagonal base, for example, introduced by a Pittsburgh glass firm in the 1850's has been reproduced widely too. There is also the petticoat dolphin with a high round base first made in the 1850's or 1860's. All styles were made in clear, opalescent, and some colors, also opaque white and opaque blue. 

Anyone who looks carefully should be able to recognize copies of dolphin candlesticks. Those made within the last 30 years have sharper, clearer details--fins in particular are sharper to the touch. The sockets, whether ribbed or petaled, usually don't flare outward. The glass is of poorer quality and the colors more garish. The proportions aren't so good either, for the dolphin is likely to be larger, and many of the copies are shorter candlestick

In spite of the large number of patterns in which cup plates were made in the 1800's, comparatively few are being reproduced. Since the originals were early pressed glass, the quality of the glass was good enough to give a bell-like ring when the little plate was tapped lightly. Reproductions or 20th-century imitations sound dead or dull.

A classic example of a fake, imitation, or reproduction that can confuse all but the most knowing is the Butterfly pattern cup plate, first made by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company in clear and colored glass. The butterfly that gives the pattern its name stands out in the center against a stippled background. Flower sprigs encircle the rim and the edge is scalloped. During the 1930's, Butterfly cup plates were reproduced from a new mold that was not an exact duplicate of the original one. On antique Butterfly cup plates, the stems of the two leaves below each blossom are at least 1/s inch apart, but on this century's, the stems are almost opposite each other. One blossom on the old Butterfly plate has seven petals; all the blossoms on the recent plates have six. It's particularly easy to be fooled by a blue Butterfly cup plate, for this color as made in the 1930's  compares favorably with that of the 1830's.

Imitations of curtain tiebacks and furniture knobs also were made in quantity and sold cheaply  during the 1930's. Old patterns, including some of the Sandwich ones, were copied in both clear   and colored glass. Neither the quality of the glass nor the workmanship are any more comparable  than the colors to those made during the 1800's. The appearance of 19th-century milk glass are quite different. The slightest acquaintance with any piece of antique milk glass should enable a person to distinguish between the old and the contemporary.

Fakes aren't confined to pressed glass. Bottles and flasks, for example, frequently are made in imitation of typically American styles of the 19th Century. A "golden amber" bottle in the shape of a fish, made recently in Italy, "queen of the glass-making industry for generations," is not worth any more than its retail price. Only the amber fish bottles made in this country to hold Dr. Fisch's bitters are antiques. For holiday sale, 19th-century milk glass is still being manufactured in quantity, and many pieces copy or are reminiscent of the forms and decorations used during the late 1800's. However, the character and appearance are different.

To tell the difference between a 19th-century pressed glass goblet and a 20th-century reproduction or fake, a person must be alert to the patterns and pieces that are currently being manufactured. Equally important are a knowledge of the authentic motifs, as well as of their make-up, proportions, and placement to form the patterns, and the ability to judge the quality of stippling and frosting.

Cost prohibits the reproduction of cut glass as it was made throughout the 1800's. Its surface distinctions are the sharpness of the decorative motifs to the touch and the heaviness of the piece. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about art glass in the 2022 Summer Edition, with the theme "Splendor in the Glass," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

It's About Time

QUESTION: I have inherited a very plain tall clock made in Philadelphia. How can I tell how old it is?

ANSWER: To tell the age of a tall-case clock, or grandfather clock as it’s more commonly known, you need to first look at the dial. The early ones at first showed 24-30 hours. Owners wound them at the end of that time by pulling the driving cord down.

In the earliest clocks—those dating from the 17th to early 18th centuries—the hour circle appears in a silvered ring with a doubled circle appearing within the numeral circle.

Many old clocks have only an hour hand. Some have both an hour and a minute hand. Even though clockmakers had used minute hands since 1670, most clocks, except the most expensive ones, didn’t have them. Early tall-case clockmakers gave their hands a fine finish and often made them the most decorative part of the clock. The hour hand was often the most elaborate and the second hand, if the clock had one, was sometimes long and graceful. Later, when clockmakers introduced white dials, the hour and minute hands became even more ornate and some even had a smaller second hand.

Originally, tall-case clockmakers made their dials of metal with a matt center circle. By the mid-17th century, they added ornamentation around the edge of this matted center, engraving birds or leaves to form a border showing the days of the month. They brightly burnished this date ring as well as the rings surrounding the winding holes. Silvered dials, containing no separate circle for the hours and minutes, appeared in 1750. Instead of a matted center circle, these dials featured an engraved overall pattern in the center circle. Many early tall-case clocks also had a small separate dial showing the days of the week.

Dials remained square until the beginning of the 18th century, at which time clockmakers introduced the arched dial. Dutch clockmakers found good use for this extra space, filling it with decorative figures and animated devices such as a see-saw or a shipping rolling at sea. They also added a moon dial, thereafter common on many tall-case clocks, which displayed the phases of the moon under the dial’s arch. English clockmakers, mostly in Yorkshire, went one step further, creating a globular rotating moon dial.

Clockmakers usually only made the works of tall-case clocks. They subcontracted the making of the cases to coffin makers, who used this as supplemental income when business was slow. During the second half of the 17th century, casemakers employed walnut to build mostly plain cases. The Dutch introduced marquetry to the fronts of the clock cases, using woods of different colors and grains.  Mahogany didn’t come into general use for tall-case clocks until about 1716. At first, casemakers imported it from Spain, then after that supply ran out, from Brazil.

Before 1730, the doors of most tall-case clocks were rectangular, but around that time casemakers included an arch in them to match the arched dials. The earliest clocks didn’t open with a door. Instead, the entire hood–the top part of the clock–slid backwards revealing the works.

For more information, read “Grandfather Time” and also visit the Web site for Bowers Watch and Clock Repair and read about the works of tall-case clocks in their clock section.


To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Unraveling Antique American Samplers

QUESTION: I love to do cross-stitch needlework. I’ve been admiring antique samplers and would love to start collecting them. But I’ve heard there are a lot of fakes out there. How can I be sure I’m buying the real thing?

ANSWER: That’s a reasonable question in light of today’s antique market. Samplers in particular fetch high prices, especially at Americana shows. There’s a good chance that the unsuspecting buyer discovering a single one in an antique shop will be taken, through no fault of the dealer. Most antique dealers can’t tell real samplers from fake ones. It’s only those who specialize in such things that can truly tell the difference.

According to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, the earliest known American sampler was made in Plymouth Colony around 1645. Over the next two centuries, women created samplers as a way to save different types of stitches or designs they might want to use sometime in the future.

An example of a 19th-century young girl's needlework could show the extent and quality of her education as well as her religious and moral convictions. Schoolgirls from wealthier families used more expensive threads and learned more complicated designs or stitches while those from poor families used samplers almost as resumes of their abilities in an effort to gain employment in doing sewing.

Today, collectors consider samplers works of art, as well as insights into the past.  Subject matter ranges from a simple alphabet to complex landscapes, Biblical scenes and passages, as well as birth/death/ marriage records offering valuable genealogical information. In the past, collectors overlooked samplers as ordinary exercises in needlework, but today, they’re highly collectible and can command extremely high prices. For example, a sampler, sewn by New Jersey schoolgirl Mary Antrim sold at Sotheby’s for a over $1 million in 2012, while another fetched over $611,000 in 2003. Some sampler makers used only thread and needlework to create them while others used watercolors and paper and added  embellishments like seed pearls or beads.

There are plenty of samplers being made today specifically intended to deceive unwary collectors in this lucrative tens-of-thousands to hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars market. The safest way to buy a sampler, of course, is through a reputable dealer who has a well-established reputation in sampler authentication. On the other hand, the riskiest way to purchase one is through an online auction site or an unknown online seller. Without being able to closely examine the fabric used and other details, there's no way to know for sure if a sampler is real or a fake.

So what are some ways to tell a fake or reproduction sampler from the real thing? One of the first thing to check is fabric discoloration. Old fabrics can darken in spots or brown to some degree in general, but much of this depends on what type of fabric the woman used and where it has been stored over time.

There are no hard-and-fast rules when it comes to sampler age. However, there are a couple of basic things to look for to make sure the browning is authentic. Many times, fakers will add browning to fabric by staining or darkening the fabric with tea or coffee. If a sampler browns, it tends to do so naturally around the edges near the frame, but blotchy browning should raise a cautionary flag. Also, if the fabric is wrinkled as if it were twisted or bunched up and the brown spots seem to follow that pattern, there's a good chance the browning has been added deliberately.

There have been a few cases where the actual date sewn onto a sampler has been altered to make the piece appear older—a "9" changed to an "8" or a "6" changed to a "0."  If there's no evidence of stitches having been removed from the fabric and the piece is important enough, a genealogical search can be done to determine the dates of the needleworker's' life. If the sampler includes her age, would she have been of the correct age during the year sewn into the sampler.

Collectors interested in samplers from a particular region or school will find it easier to use style and thread type to authenticate them. By studying designs and types of thread used in a particular region or school throughout the years, when they came into use and  when they stopped being used, it’s easy to date just about any sampler. Certain designs or stitching styles may also be more prevalent in a particular region, a certain school, or during a specific time period. On the other hand, some designs or stitch styles may not have been used at all by a particular school.

As with any antiques or collectibles in today’s market, it’s buyer beware. Being educated about samplers is the best defense to being taken.

The Many Faces of Victorian Whimsy

QUESTION: My great aunt left me a very unusual chair, probably because I admired it when I went to visit her. The chair has a grotesque face carved into its back. It’s legs are curved and there are groves carved into the ends of the arms. Can you tell me anything about my chair?

ANSWER: What you’ve been admiring and now own is a bit of Victorian whimsy. The Victorians loved decoration, the more fantastic the better. This love of whimsy can be traced to the English Romantic Age.

Bored with the classicism and artistic restrictions of the Age of Reason, Romantic artists found their inspiration in the Medieval Age, albeit an idealized one. Crumbling castles, enchanted realms, and magical beasts filled their art. The Victorians loved this and when English draftsman Augustus Charles Pugin published his Specimens of Gothic Architecture in 1821, the Gothic revival was born. Wealthy English families built Gothic-style houses and filled them with furnishings reminiscent of castles and medieval cathedrals. As time went on, carved plants, animals, and mythical creatures began to appear on the furniture they used to decorate their homes.

A wave of whimsical furniture soon appeared in England and swept across the Atlantic where it flooded houses from Boston to San Francisco. By the end of the 19th century, parlors and bedrooms overflowed with fabulously carved furniture. Griffins supported sideboards, lions roared from the pedestals of dining room tables, and North Wind faces whispered from the backs of chairs.

The most curious item produced in America toward the end of the 19th century was the Roman-style,or cross-frame, "face chair." In design, the chair resembled the folding 14th-century Italian Savonarola chair. 

This odd little chair became a must-have item for American parlors. A backrest onto which grotesque faces or carved fruit had been carved, stood upon simply fashioned legs, gracefully curved arms, and a curved seat. The most common face was a stylized North Wind blowing wooden tendrils of” "wind" from its mouth.

Other faces included grinning ogres, laughing gremlins, and satyrs with wickedly out-thrust tongues. Neptune and the Green Man, or foliate head of Celtic mythology, were also popular subjects. It isn’t surprising that the stone ancestors of these faces stare down from the tops of medieval cathedrals and guildhalls across Europe.

The origin of the faces is fairly easy to trace. Woodcarvers arriving in America from Germany in the mid-18th century found work in Midwest furniture factories. They brought their traditions and mythologies with them. In a way, their carvings were like fairy tales and folk tales fashioned in wood to delight and entertain.

Heywood Wakefield of Wakefield, Massachusetts, and Chicago and Stomps Burkhardt of Canton, Ohio, were just two of the many furniture manufacturers to produce face chairs. Workman would roughly carve the faces using machines, then finish them off by hand. They fashioned the backrests from oak or mahogany while they used less expensive wood, stained to match the backrest, for the rest of the chair. While they lavishly carved the faces, they kept the rest of the chair’s design relatively simple. Sometimes, they carved grooves into the ends of the arms to suggest fingers, and sometimes they turned the chair’s stretcher bars.

By the early 20th century, face chairs had all but died. As time progressed, the design pendulum swept from sumptuous Victorian ornamentation through the more restrained carving of the Eastlake period to the even cleaner lines of Mission-style and Art Deco furniture. Unfortunately, even paint couldn’t modernize these chairs, so most of them ended up in attics and basements. Many people simple destroyed them.

Determing Value

This is the 200th post of this blog. And being so, I thought I’d break away from my usual question and answer format and discuss a topic for which I receive lots of questions—value. I routinely tell everyone that I don’t do valuations. I do that because value is one of the hardest things to determine without lots of expert information. That’s why certified appraisers are in such high demand. But they’re expensive, so most people seek free value advice.

Value of any kind is subjective. It depends on several things—age, rarity, authenticity, trendiness, and historical association. Just because an item is old doesn’t make it valuable. Take glass from ancient Rome. At over two 2,000 years old, you’d think it would be worth a fortune. But the truth is there’s so much of it around that it isn’t worth as much as you’d think.

Throughout history, people had as much junk as we have today. But they didn’t value things in quite the same way as we do today. For ordinary people, old furniture was just old furniture. Old dishes were often mismatched. Let’s face it, they didn’t have “Antiques Roadshow” to make them think that just about everything was valuable.

To determine an item’s value, you first have to determine its age. The type of wood used in furniture, particularly the secondary woods used for the inside of drawers, is an important clue of age. If you see a  circular saw pattern in the wood on a piece of furniture, you know it was made after 1840.

Not everything rare is valuable either. An old book by an unknown author might be extremely rare. But to be valuable, someone must want to buy it. Nevertheless, rarity is a key determinant of value. Start by considering how rare an item was when it first appeared on the market.

Think in terms of different levels of production. At the bottom are mass-produced items made of ordinary and usually cheaper materials. At the top are unique items made of the finest materials. Generally, if an item was rare and valuable when it was made, it'll be even more rare and valuable today. Previously expensive objects will still be expensive today.

When an antique or collectible is in demand by collectors, it’s price can skyrocket. And when prices climb, fakes and forgeries abound. Some forgers use as much skill producing fakes as if they were making an original. Fraudulent antiques lie in wait for the uninformed. A good example is the myriad of fake Chippendale furniture coming out of Indonesia.

Perfectly round wood in a piece of furniture, for example, is a tell-tale sign of a forgery, because wood becomes distorted with age. Look carefully at ceramics to see if someone painted the decoration on top of the glaze after the firing.

When it comes to collecting antiques, condition is prime. Did you know that the patina on fine furniture----produced before 1830—is one of its most important features, and too much cleaning and restoration can ruin it? Did you know, for example, that the value of a rare book can drop by more than 100 percent if it doesn't have its dust jacket?

Another thing that influences value is how typical an item is. Collectors are always looking for representative examples of a given period, craft or style. When an item sparks a collecting trend, prices always go up.

Finally, an object’s association with someone famous automatically increases its value. That’s because more collectors want to own it. And that’s the bottom line with value. The more people who want to own an object, the more its worth. And an item is only worth what the last person paid for it.

I hope you find this post as useful as the previous 199. I’ve enjoyed writing this blog and plan to continue bringing you insightful information about antiques and collectibles. For more in-depth articles, please visit The Antique Almanac, my new monthly E-zine on antiques and collectibles. You’ll never know what you’ll learn next.

9 Ways to Help Identify Antique Furniture

QUESTION: Some friends of my mom’s gave me what looks like a Chippendale desk. They didn’t know anything about it, so I’ve had to do some research on my own. The only problem is that I can’t seem to find out much about it. Can you please help me out?

ANSWER: Not only will I try to tell you something about your desk, I’d like to give you and others some tips on what to look for when trying to identify antique furniture.

First and foremost, you need to determine if the piece you have is really an authentic antique or whether it’s a reproduction, a revival piece, a fake, or just a piece of junk. The key to the history of valuable antiques is whether they have a provenance—a history of ownership. This document lists the maker, all the owners to the present, and whether any repairs have been done to it. If you were spending five or six figures for a piece of furniture, you certainly would want to know everything you can about it.

But what about everyday pieces that don’t come with a provenance. Identifying them is a bit more difficult. Follow these steps and you should be able to determine quite a bit about any older piece of furniture that you have.

1. Determine the style. Using photographs in antiques books and photos online, try to determine the style of your piece. Certain styles, such as Chippendale, have telltale features, such as ball-and-claw feet, that help to identify them.

2. If it’s not authentic, determine if your piece is a revival or a reproduction. The difference between a revival and a reproduction is quite simple. The first is stylized version of the original style. So Colonial Revival furniture represents stylized versions of true 18th-century American Colonial pieces. A reproduction, on the other hand, is an exact replica of the original, often made of the same type of wood, using the same woodworking techniques.

3. Determine its age. Check to see if it has any nails or screws. An original Chippendale desk would have been assembled with pegs and mortar and tenon joints. Does it have any manufacturers labels anywhere? If so, then it’s definitely a Colonial Revival piece or even a fine reproduction from the mid-20th century.

4. Check any drawers for dovetailing. You can usually tell if the dovetails are handmade or done by machine. Those done by machine are very regular and even and can usually be found on pieces after about 1870.

5. Look inside the drawers or pullouts and see if the maker used the same wood—for example, mahogany. Later versions will have used some sort of fruitwood---pear, apple, or even poplar---for the drawer backs and sides. If its an older piece, the drawer bottoms will be made of a thinner version of the same wood.

6. Does the piece have decoration that isn’t in keeping with its style? Look at the detailing on your piece of furniture. Does it have added knobs or edging that doesn’t seem to go with the style of the piece. Often one of the owners of the piece may have added these to make it more up to date. The opposite also applies. Can you tell if any details have been removed for the sake of updating?.

7. Have any repairs been made to the piece? Look for signs of glue, nails, or screws that seem newer than the piece, itself. Also look for replaced wood panels, veneer, or detailing, such as finials.

8. Has the hardware been replaced or is it original? You can usually tell if hardware has been replaced. For instance, you’ll often see chests of drawers sporting glass or brass knobs. Originally, these chests usually had wooden knobs, but antique dealers, in an effort to make them more attractive to decorators, replace the original knobs with glass or brass ones. It’s actually better to replace missing original knob with a reproduction rather than replace the entire set with hardware that wouldn’t have been originally on the piece.

9. Were you told anything it about it? Did the seller or the person who gave you the piece tell you anything about its past? Did you ask them?

By studying the closeup photos that accompany this blog, you’ll notice the following about this desk.

First, your desk is definitely from the late 19th century---I’d say probably the 1880s, based on the 1886 mark you found. Second, the dovetails are definitely 19th century. But the real signs are the nails or screws that appear in one of the photos and the rather poor craftsmanship of the carving and joining. In an authentic Chippendale, the wood would be perfectly matched---the top of the leg where it joins the desk is a good example. Also, the stain would be even. I believe this piece had been refinished at some point, and not very well. I can tell that from the molding closeup from the front rim of the desk. And the last sign is the carving, itself. The little stars were stamped in. No 18th-century craftsman would have ever done that.

When asking someone to help you identify a piece, it helps if you take closeup photos of certain parts of the piece—hardware, dovetails, inside of drawers, carving, repairs, even the back.

Old, New, or Repro

QUESTION: How can you tell how old a piece of furniture is?

ANSWER: Believe it or not, that’s a relatively simple question, but one that seems to baffle many people. Too often they either buy or inherit a piece of furniture and believe it’s an antique when it’s not. This happens all too often when someone inherits a fine table, sideboard, sofa, or whatever and assumes it’s an antique because it belonged to their grandmother and she said it was old when she bought it. In another instance, a piece may have become surrounded by family legend which tells how one of their ancestors brought this thing over on the Mayflower. There was barely room for the passengers on the Mayflower–and their were several–let alone lots of furniture. Sure, there was the odd chair or small table, but not many pieces larger than that.

So how can you tell if you have an antique? A piece’s construction will give you clues to its age. Construction techniques improved as technology improved. Cabinetmakers discovered easier ways to make their furniture. Begin by looking over the piece to see how the maker joined the various parts. Cabinetmakers were also known as joiners. Did the maker use wooden pegs, square nails, or perhaps even screws. If a nail has a square head, it’s possible the piece dates prior to 1820. You probably won’t find many screws in old furniture, but if you do, look to see if the slot is off center, a sure sign the screw was handmade, dating to now later than 1815.

Look on the underside and backs of pieces for circular saw marks, only used after 1850. Before that cabinetmakers cut their wood using a hand saw. During the second half of the 19th century, furniture makers often constructed their pieces of quartersawn wood, giving it a distinctive wavy pattern.

Check the rungs on side chairs. If the chair is old, you’ll see wear marks on the rungs where people rested their feet. Look at the top of the back of the chair. Are there marks caused by being knocked against the wall?

Is the edge of a table worn? Are the bottoms of the legs worn from being dragged? Check to see if the legs are joined using wooden pegs. Also, a long dropleaf on a table usually indicates that it dates from the mid-18th to early 19th century.

Wood shrinks over time. If the piece has severe cracks, especially in paneled doors, then it’s probably at least 100 years old. The tops of round tables made of softer woods like pine eventually become slightly oval. Measure its diameter. If the diameter of the table varies, this shows that the tabletop has shrunk, a sure sign of age. Also, look for rings on the top which might indicate moisture damage. While this in itself isn’t a sign of age, deeper discoloration due to spills may be.

Another sign of the time are the dovetails used to join the front to the sides of drawers. Those from 18th-century chests were usually uneven since the cabinetmaker had to cut them by hand. As technology progressed, he had power tools to help with this, so by the first quarter of the 19th century, makers produced several smaller dovetails. Ones from the 20th century are exactly the same size in a sort of keystone shape.

Finally, look for wear caused by fingernails around knobs and handles, even if the hardware appears newer.

It’s especially important to check for age on Colonial Revival-type reproductions. A piece of furniture may have Chippendale style details, such as ball-and-claw feet, but may be no older than the 1950s. And if you see a paper label on the bottom of a chair or the back of a chest, you know right away that it’s no older than the first or second decade of the 20th century.