50 Shades of Veneer

QUESTION: At several antiques shows I’ve attended recently, I noticed some beautifully decorated veneered boxes from the 18th century. At one of them, I also saw a hall table with a top decorated with a floral marquetry bouquet.  I know nothing about how veneering is done, nor do I know how it originated. What can you tell me about this intricate work?

ANSWER: Today, the art of veneered marquetry and veneer decoration is almost non-existent. But back in the 17th,18th and early 19th centuries, it was all the rage.

Early furniture makers recognized and appreciated beautiful woods and wood grains for their beauty. Veneering, the process of gluing thinly cut layers of precious wood to surfaces of less exotic wood, goes back to ancient times and became popular during the Renaissance, when inlay designs were common forms of furniture decoration.

But there was a problem early on with cutting large enough slabs of wood to the desired thinness in order to cover entire surfaces with single sheets of the more precious wood. So cabinetmakers cut small pieces of wood and glued them to the carcass of a piece of furniture in patterns and designs that took advantage of the beauty of the wood grain and variations in color.

By the 17th century, veneering became an art, and the decorative use of thin sheets of wood could be found on many examples of European furniture. The French were the style-setters in marquetry inlay, and British and other European craftsmen soon followed suit.

There were two advantages to using veneers. The first reduced the cost of a piece of furniture or a box by applying an exotic and expensive wood to a less expensive domestic wood. The second advantage was that the tensile strength of the surface of a piece could be increased many times when the cabinetmaker laid a veneer cross grain to the under piece of wood. The layer of glue between the two surfaces also added to the strength of the finished piece.

The aesthetic advantages of the use of veneers in the decoration of cabinetry  increased, also. The cabinetmakers, using thinly cut sheets of the same piece of wood, could repeat the grainings and markings in order to form interesting patterns. This use of the natural design in wood required artistry as well as craftsmanship. By using veneers judiciously, cabinetmakers could inlay designs and decorations of different kinds and colors of wood, thus producing interesting motifs and styles.

Before the 19th century, specially trained veneer cutters, skilled in slicing the layers of expensive wood to uniform thickness, cut veneers by hand. They then sold these sheets to furniture makers and box makers who used them in decorating the many kinds and styles of decorative furniture and boxes that developed in the 17th and 18th centuries.

At the beginning of the19th century a steam-driven saw, registered in London, that made it cheaper, faster, and easier to cut large, thin, uniform slices of wood to be used for veneers. After the invention of the special saw, wood could be cut in many different ways to take advantage of the variations in grainings.



The different designs that could be obtained in veneered wood depended on the type of wood used and the way in which the log was cut. The earliest methods of cutting veneers by hand produced only vertically cut grains. This vertical slicing achieved a pattern which was circular and was known as "oystering." Other types of graining commonly used in the 19th century were "crotch," cut from the area of the tree where two limbs fork out, the "burl," a growth on the tree trunk and a particularly attractive gnarled design, and "bird's-eye," which was formed by the deep growth of buds most commonly found on the maple tree. Many other patterns could be obtained by the expert cutting of the wood in different cross sections and the employment of the saw in cutting circular sections around the log.

Woods often used in producing veneers were chestnut, poplar, walnut, elm, birch, rosewood, ebony, satinwood, sandalwood, sycamore, box, yew, olive, pear, teak, tulipwood, laurel, and many other similar exotic woods. Mahogany was and still is the most popular veneer wood. It was strong and hard and had figurations in the various cuts of its grain that were unmatchable for their beauty. Mahogany also takes a high polish extremely well.

A large variety of boxes were made of veneered wood in the 19th century. British box makers, especially, produced a great many veneered boxes. Often, they made elaborate boxes to protect valuables against damage, and more often, theft. Sometimes, they made elegant boxes simply as a means of displaying the contents to its best advantage.


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The Ancient Game of the Mandarins

QUESTION: My grandmother looked forward to getting together with her lady friends at the Jewish Community Center on Wednesday afternoons to play Mahjong. When I was little, she took me with her several times, but I couldn’t figure out what they were doing.  But I was fascinated by the colorful tiles they used to play the game.  Ever since then, I’ve always wanted to own a set, not of the inexpensive new ones, but a beautiful older set. I’d also like to learn to play the game. Can you help me?

ANSWER: Mahjong has been played in China for over 3,000 years, originating in Canton  during the Qing Dynasty before the days of Confucius. Only Mandarins played it, and the early tiles were handmade from ivory.

In 1911, when China became a republic, the game became popular with all classes of people. Mahjong maers produced tiles of bone and bamboo, or just bamboo, which was cheaper and easier to obtain than ivory. The British brought the game from China to England, and eventually to the United States in the early 1920s.

As a game of skill, strategy, and calculation, Mahjong became the rage. Soon there were as many variations to the rules of the game as groups of people playing it. During the Roaring `20s its popularity soared, but that didn't last long because no one could agree on which rules to follow. The National Mahjong League standardized the rules in 1937, but by this time most players had gone back to playing bridge.

At first glance, the game of Mahjong may seem confusing, even chaotic, especially if the players are experts. They use strange terms, and the rapidity of calling and discarding tiles appears maddening. The goal of Mahjong is to complete as many levels as possible until at least one player has no more moves left. At that point the game ends.

Players use a set of 144 tiles based on Chinese characters and symbols. Some variations may omit some tiles and/or add unique ones. In most variations, each player starts out with 13 tiles. In turn, player each draw and discard tiles until they complete a hand using the 14th drawn tile to form four melds, or sets, and a pair, or eye. Players follow standard rules when drawing tiles and robbing pieces from other players. Standard rules also apply to the use of “simples,” or numbered tiles, and honors, winds and dragons, the kinds of melds allowed, how to deal the tiles, and the order of play.



Mahjong tiles are divided into five groups—suits, dragons, winds, flowers and jokers. There are four winds—north, east, west, and south, and four pieces of each. Three dragons are green, white and red, and there are four of each color. There are three suits—dots, craks and bams, and each suit is numbered from one to nine, with four tiles of each number. Each set also includes eight flower tiles and, depending on the manufacturer of the set, these may depict flowers, mandarins, or seasons of the year. Eight jokers complete the pieces.

Players follow procedures. Each builds a wall 19 tiles face down, two tiers high, in front of each other seated around a table in positions set as points of a compass—North, East, West, and South. The player designated as East starts the game by dealing out the tiles to the others. Players pass the tiles between them In a specified sequence before the game begins, as each player gets rid of unwanted tiles, and hopes to receive pieces which fit a combination in his hand. The game proceeds with drawing and discarding tiles until one player completes a hand which contains 14 tiles in a specific combination, then that player calls "mahjong." Combinations include hands similar to a game of rummy—three of a kind, four of a kind, consecutive runs, etc. Each combination has a listed value for scoring. Sometimes, players draw all the tiles before anyone gets mahjong. It ‘s important for participants to play defensively so that other players don’t complete a hand. Only one player can mahjong.

Finding a complete antique set of tiles requires some perseverance. The completeness of a set depends on the variation of the game being played. As with a deck of cards, it’s essential that all tiles match. Early sets contained 144 tiles, a pair of dice, betting sticks which were used much like poker chips to represent money for wagers, markers portraying the seated players, a counter reflecting the four winds which the “bettor,” a fifth player, used to indicate his or her choice of the winner, and some kind of suitable box in which to store all the pieces. Craftsmen made these boxes of fine, carved woods, inlaid with mother of pearl or fitted with silver or brass handles. Sets made after 1923 often came with a small instruction book.

"Old Hong Kong Mahjong" uses the same basic features and rules as the majority of the different variations of the game. This form of Mahjong uses all of the tiles of the commonly available sets, includes no exotic complex rules, and has a relatively small set of scoring sets/hands with a simple scoring system.

By the early 1900s, Mahjong had become a craze in the United States. The first Mahjong sets came to America from China. Some came in handsome rosewood boxes with separate drawers for the stones, wind, flowers, and other Mahjong tiles. The best of these had fine joinery and ornate brass hardware and dice, but many sets came packed in handpainted cardboard boxes. While tiles in less expensive sets were wooden, those in deluxe sets could be ivory or jade.

Mahjong’s popularity continued into the 1950s, then waned in the second half of the 20th century, but surged again in the 1990s after the publication and film version of Amy Tan’s "The Joy Luck Club."




NOTE: There won’t be an antiques blog next week. Please look for the next one the week of Oct. 15.

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 Colonial America in the Spring 2018 Edition, "Early Americana," online now.

Music From the Past That Captures Your Heart

QUESTION: I’m now the proud owner of a beautiful 19th-century music box that has been handed down for generations ever since my great-grandfather owned it. It’s a real beauty and still plays. I can tell it needs service, but I have no idea where to take it. The type of box I have has a metal cylinder inside with little pins stuck into it. As it turns, the mechanism plucks the pins to produce the music. I also have several different cylinders for it. On the inside of the lid is a label that says “Made by Nicole Freres of Geneva, Switzerland.” What can you tell me about my music box? Also, can you tell me where I should take it to be serviced?

ANSWER: You have a unique cylinder music box made by the prestigious Geneva company of Nicole Freres in 1862. This particular music box reproduces the sound of a piano forte using a two-comb movement, combined with a two-per-turn format on its larger cylinder that enables it to play a dozen operatic tunes with elegant sound. The musical mechanism sits in a beautiful rosewood case with intricate inlays.

When people think of mechanical music, most think of music boxes. The early ones like the one you have appeared at the beginning of the 19th century and lasted until about the time of World War I. However, people tend to lump all types of mechanical music devices into the general music box category. What you have is far beyond the type used in jewelry boxes and other novelties. It’s the forerunner of the phonograph and of all the other music players on the market today.

Mechanical music is a live performance of music, played by a machine, without any human intervention, except for winding it up, plugging it in, or turning it off. The invention of mechanical music devices allowed people to enjoy music before electricity, when the only option was to attend a live performance or to create their own music.

Mechanical music goes back to the 14th century, with the invention of the carillon, which automatically played music on tuned bells actuated by hammers on levers by way of a pinned drum. Primarily used in churches to play hymns, the drum could be programmed to play different song selections by moving the pins from one location to another.

The mechanical pipe organ appeared in the 15th century. This instrument, through valves actuated by pins on the drum, allowed selected pipes to play organ music mechanically. During the 16th century, the mechanical pipe organ gained widespread popularity in Europe, and soon expanded beyond churches and public buildings. It became a must-have novelty for aristocratic society. Eventually, cabinetmakers built   desks and cabinets to encase carillons or pipe organs. These mechanical devices became so trendy for the well-to-do that heeled that famous musicians of the day, including Beethoven, Handel and Mozart, actually wrote pieces specifically for them.

It wasn’t until the late 18th century that mechanical music experienced any change. In 1796, Antoine Favre, a Geneva clockmaker, patented a device to make carillons play without bells or hammers. His invention paved the way for cylinder boxes, which had a comb of hard steel with a series of teeth or tiny  tuning forks, which graduated from long and thick to short and thin. Pins placed on a rotating cylinder, which when moved laterally, plucked these teeth and produced different tunes.

Clockmakers began constructing cylinder boxes in the late 18th century and continued making them well into the late 19th century. Over time, the mechanical music industry saw many advances in technology. Eventually, they developed over 20 different musical effects by changing the size, placement, tuning, and arrangement of the pins on the cylinder. Most cylinder boxes reproduce music of either a mandolin or a piano forte. The first produces a softer more folksy sound while the second produces a louder bolder sound simulating an early piano. Most mandolin cylinder music boxes played only 4 to 6 tunes while the piano forte version played 12.

And although the cylinder music box revolutionized the mechanical music industry, it had its limitations.  While interchangeable cylinders allowed for the playing of different tunes, it was a cumbersome process to change them. In the late 1880s, all that changed with the introduction in Germany of the disc musical box. This revolutionized the industry because instead of the slow and delicate process of inserting pins in cylinders, the discs could be stamped out by machine. Also, it was easy for people to change the discs on the machines, making it possible for them to hear the latest tunes.

While the 19th century also saw the development of many other forms of mechanical music, none could hold their own against the evolution of the phonographic record player and by the 1920s, interest in music boxes had subsided.

What makes mechanical music devices unique is their blend of art, history, music, and mechanics. Although they can’t be compared to other collectibles, condition, rarity and market demand still affect the price. They also take a good deal of maintenance to keep them running well and, thus, enabling them to hold their value. Only a professional music box restoration expert can make sure that a box is kept in good condition. However, finding one may be a challenge but worth it since a cylinder box in excellent condition can sell for four figures.