There’s no denying it, the market for standard antique brown furniture is pretty depressed at the moment. But as one leading dealer was quoted as saying in the press recently “I think it is time for the canny collector to score again”.
A good scoring opportunity for some would be elegant Georgian storage furniture – chests of drawers and linen presses. After all, when buying a new home, the common call after location, location, location, is storage, storage, storage.
For not a great deal more than the price of a flat-packed kit you would pick up at your local Scandinavian superstore you could buy a perfectly good quality mahogany chest of drawers or linen press made in England during the late 18th century. You should be able to find a late Georgian chest of
drawers for £400. And no matter what happens to tastes and fashion over the next few decades I’ll bet my bottom dollar that a sound quality Georgian chest of drawers will increase in value a damn sight more than something you put together yourself with an Alan key!
And there appears to be no better time to buy. Get in now while our antique dealers mope around bemoaning the loss of the Americans who would come over to Britain and take chest of drawers after chest of drawers back across the pond. With no one to sell to the dealers are keeping their hands in their pockets. You wont have to fight too hard at your local saleroom to buy a few good bits of 18th or 19th century furniture.
But bare in mind a few points – the best will always command a seemingly disproportionate amount than the also-rans, and a dog will always be a dog. Look for the middle ground - good colour and surface, original handles and feet, attractive proportions and sound quality.
Original handles will always add value. As tastes changed throughout the centuries brass wear would go in and out of fashion. It would not have been uncommon to remove a set of original handles and replace them with a new set that were far more in keeping with the look of the day. The easiest way of telling whether the handles have been replaced or not is to look at the area around the existing handles on the front of the drawers. If there are small plug marks or shadows which don’t reflect the present handles then that is evidence of a previous set. Failing that pull out the drawers and have a look at where the handles are fixed on the inside of the drawer. If the handles are original then there should be no sign of any previous fixings on the inside. You can imagine the expressions I’ve been on the receiving end of when I’ve had to ask a lady if I could look inside her bedroom chest of drawers.
Check to see how the drawers run (open and close). It’s not the end of the world if a drawer is stiff, sits at a slight angle or does not close flush. Nine times out of ten these are minor problems that can be dealt with pretty easily. Runners might need replacing or blocks repositioning. Rather like tyres on a car, these parts on a piece of antique furniture will wear out and need replacing.
You should flip any piece of antique cabinet furniture on its back to check the feet. Over the years these feet will have been dragged across the floor, clobbered by the Hoover and attacked by the dog. Have a look at the surface on the underside of the piece and then compare that with the insides of the feet, the sense of age and colour should be consistent. Restoration to feet is common, but just check how good these previous restorations have been – was it Uncle Bob with his hammer and glue gun or a trained restorer you clearly knew what he was doing – in which case you probably wont be able to spot they’ve been restored at all!
Whatever you buy, be selective. Buying that one piece which has a lovely patina, original brass handles and original bracket feet will give you far more pleasure in the long run than buying a dozen poor quality pieces just because they were cheap.
