Plenty of things look old. Fewer actually are. Walk into almost any antique mall in America and you’ll find the two sitting side by side: a genuine nineteenth-century blanket chest and a factory-made “farmhouse” chest that was distressed with a chain and a can of stain sometime last spring. Both have chipped paint. Both have a rustic charm. Only one has a story worth telling.
Here are a few simple clues I use in every shop. I’m not a professional appraiser, and I’d never claim to be. I’m a retired history teacher who has spent thirty years poking around dusty corners, asking questions and occasionally getting fooled. What follows is what I’ve learned, mostly the hard way. If you’re thinking about spending real money on a piece, it’s always wise to ask a qualified appraiser or a reputable dealer for an opinion.
Start with a slow look
Before you touch anything, step back and look at the piece as a whole. Real age shows up as wear in the places people actually used. The edges of a tabletop where elbows rested, the area around a drawer pull where fingers reached a thousand times, the bottom rung of a chair where boots scuffed. That wear is uneven and logical. Fake distressing is often too even, or it shows up in places no one would ever touch.
Look at the color, too. Old wood darkens with exposure to light and air, a change collectors call patina. The surfaces that faced the room are usually darker and richer than the hidden surfaces inside. If a piece is the same color inside and out, be a little suspicious.
Check the joints
Hand-cut dovetails are uneven. Machine-cut ones are perfectly regular. This is the single most useful clue I know for wooden furniture, and it takes about ten seconds to check. Pull out a drawer and look at the corner where the front meets the side. Those interlocking wedge-shaped joints are dovetails.
Before the late 1800s, most dovetails were cut by hand with a saw and a chisel. The pins tend to be narrow, the spacing a little irregular and you can often see a faint scribe line where the craftsman marked his cut. After machines took over, dovetails became uniform, evenly spaced and often wider. Some later machines produced a rounded “pin and scallop” joint, which can help date a piece to the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.
Other joinery clues
- Pegs. Wooden pegs that are slightly irregular, not perfectly round, often point to hand work.
- Screws. Early screws had off-center slots and blunt tips. Modern screws are perfectly centered and pointed.
- Nails. Square-headed cut nails came before the round wire nails that became common around the turn of the twentieth century.
- Glue. Old hide glue tends to be brittle and amber. Modern glues are often white or yellow and rubbery.
None of these clues prove anything by themselves. Furniture was repaired over the years, and a genuine old chest may have new screws in its hinges. Look for several clues that agree with each other.
The back of a piece is where its real story is.
Walter
Look underneath
The bottom of a drawer or the back of a frame tells the truth the front hides. Makers spent their best wood and finest work on the parts people would see. The backs, bottoms and insides were made quickly and cheaply, and that’s exactly why they’re so revealing.
Turn a drawer over. On older pieces, the bottom is often a single wide board, sometimes beveled at the edges to fit into a groove. You may see the marks of the tools that shaped it. Straight, parallel saw marks usually mean a pit saw or an early mill saw. Curved, arcing marks point to a circular saw, which became common in American mills during the nineteenth century. A smooth sheet of plywood almost always means the drawer, or the whole piece, is more recent.
Check the back of a chest or cabinet as well. Old backs are often made of several boards of different widths, rough on the inside and darkened by time. If the back is a crisp sheet of hardboard, the piece is either newer or has been heavily repaired.
Use your other senses
I tell new collectors to trust their noses. Old wood stored in old houses has a particular smell, dry and dusty with a little hint of cedar, smoke or old varnish. A brand-new reproduction often smells of fresh stain or lacquer. It isn’t proof, but it’s a nudge.
Feel the weight, too. Solid old hardwood is heavy. Many reproductions use lighter woods or particleboard covered with veneer. Run your fingers along the underside of a tabletop. Hand-planed surfaces have a gentle ripple you can feel even when you can’t see it. Machine-planed surfaces are dead flat.
Beyond furniture
The same principle of looking at the hidden parts works for nearly everything:
- Pottery and china. Turn it over and check the base for wear, maker’s marks and the condition of the unglazed foot ring.
- Picture frames. Look at the back for old nails, aged paper backing and darkened wood.
- Glassware. Real age often shows as fine scratches on the bottom from years of sliding on shelves.
- Tools and metalwork. Check for hand-forged irregularities and wear where a hand held it.
- Textiles. Look at the stitches on the back of a quilt. Tiny, uneven hand stitches tell a different story than tight machine rows.
Ask questions, and listen
The best tool in any antique shop is a polite question. Ask the dealer where a piece came from, how old they think it is and why. A knowledgeable dealer will be happy to talk and may point out details you missed. A dealer who gets vague or defensive is telling you something too.
I learned a great deal from an old dealer named Mr. Floyd Benning, who ran a shop outside Chattanooga for nearly fifty years. He used to hand me a drawer and say, “Now tell me what it’s telling you.” Then he’d let me fumble through my answer before gently correcting me. He never once tried to sell me something I didn’t understand. That’s the kind of dealer worth finding.
Remember, too, that “old-looking” isn’t a crime. There’s nothing wrong with buying a reproduction you love at a fair price. Problems only come when something is sold as older or rarer than it really is. Knowing the difference simply helps you pay the right price for what you’re getting.
Key takeaway: Check the joints, look underneath and trust the hidden parts of a piece more than its pretty front.
Practice in every shop
Like any skill, this one grows with practice. Every time you visit an antique shop, pull out a few drawers, flip over a few plates and look at a few backs, even if you have no plans to buy anything. Compare what you find. Before long, your hands and eyes will start making judgments before your brain catches up.
And don’t be embarrassed when you get fooled. I’ve been fooled more times than I’d like to admit, including once by a “Civil War era” washstand that turned out to have been built in a high school shop class in 1978. I still have it. It’s a perfectly nice washstand, and it reminds me to keep looking underneath.
Thanks for explaining this so clearly.
Great reporting — please keep following this story.