ANTIQUE APPRAISAL: FURNITURE APPRAISAL

Furniture appraisal experts at EmailAppraisals.com are trained to know the age of a piece of furniture by recognizing how it is constructed. Starting with anything that is intended to be round; whether it is a tabletop or a table leg. A good guideline is if the round parts are truly round, the item may be a fake or reproduction. Wood shrinks slightly in only one direction, and a round tabletop should be oval after a hundred years.

Another method in determining if a piece of furniture is really an antique, is run a magnet over the alleged brass hardware, and if the magnet clings to the hardware it is iron or steel that has been plated, and not copper or brass.

A furniture appraisal should also mention that the raw wood on the back of the item, or behind the drawers, were either cut with an old hand saw which leaves straight saw marks on an antique, or a curved mark left by a post-1850 circular saw. Although a furniture piece made in the late-19th century can be considered an antique today, the pre-1850’s item, when that age information is verified usually can be valued higher in a furniture appraisal.

A professional furniture appraisal expert at EmailAppraisals.com has been trained to even examine the types of nails and screws used in an antique piece of furniture. This information will help to determine the age of a piece, with the understanding that some reproduction pieces today are being constructed using reconditioned antique nails.

The wood screw was made by hand in the United States by the early eighteenth century, and was used by furniture makers until about 1815, but because machine-made screws were less expensive and far superior, they replaced the handmade. Handmade screws can be recognized because they have an off-center slot in the head.
 
A furniture appraisal should include all the relevant descriptive information to make identifying simple and accurate.