Tips to Help Determine The Age of Antique Furniture

When considering the purchase of antique furniture, it is important to be able to determine the age of the wood in order to help age the piece of furniture.

Saw Marks or Kerf Marks

    Pit Saw

The marks left by this saw were irregular, uneven cuts made from strokes of this large saw used by two men. One man stood in a pit and the other man stood on top of the log above the pit sawing the log between them. The men changing hand and body positions caused the irregular cuts.

    Gash Saw

This saw, which dates back to the Pilgrim days – mid-1600’s, was water powered with multiple up and down movements, leaving marks that are regular and parallel.  It was large, cumbersome and often far away from the house lot, therefore it was easier to use the pit saw rather than haul the logs to the mill and then haul the sawn lumber home.

    Circular Saw

This saw, invented by a Shaker woman named Sister Tabitha Babbit in 1813, but was not in general use until 1840 when steam engines came along.  The marks were circular, so it is a pretty sure bet that if you see circular saw marks, you know the board was sawn some time after 1860.

    Nails

Hand Forged Nails before 1800 were tapered on four sides and pointed.  The head of the nail was pined with 4 to 5 hammer blows into a flower petal shape, hence the name “rose head nail”.

1791 Cut Nails were sheared or cut from thin plates of metal.  Twenty-five cut nails could be made in the same amount of time as one hand forged nail.

1900 Nails were made of wire like they are today.

    Wood Screws

1720 was the earliest that wood screws were used.  They were rarely greater than ½” long and had hand-cut threads and an off-centered slot cut on the face.  The end of the screw was flat.  Due to the shortness of these screws, they usually only appear as hinge screws on drop leaf tables.  These handmade screws are individual in the pitch and size of the threads.  If they ever must be removed, be sure to replace them back into the hole whence they came, each having their own unique screw hole.

In 1869 screws go from square end to pointed with a mechanically cut slot in the center.

OVERALL QUALITY OF THE WOOD - How to Determine the Quality When Buying a Piece of Old “Antique” Furniture

    Quality

Look for dry-rot. Dry rot is wood that is soft and punky from getting wet and drying too many times.  Insects are an issue; quite often Powder Post Beetles leave piles of sawdust called frass.  They can be exterminated by putting the piece in an oven until the wood reaches a core temperature of 135 degrees for 30 minutes or the boards can be chemically treated.

    Room to Move

Wood must be allowed to move so check to make sure the panels of furniture can still move and tops are secured in a way that they can expand and contract with the seasons or they will crack. Very often, during deconstruction, mishandling a board can cause it to split so much that it doesn’t warrant gluing.  

    Learn about Patinas

 As wood ages, it will turn various shades of brown to black depending on how much the wood was exposed to air and light. When a piece of furniture is sanded and refinished, often times that patina is taken away which then diminishes the value of that piece.   

    Different Types of Woods

Specific woods were used for their strength and durability.  Below is a listing of common types of wood used in furniture making, their characteristics, and typical uses:

Maple  - Commonly used in furniture making because of its hardness, but not often found in old buildings except perhaps for flooring in mill buildings and stair treads in early homes

Poplar - A medium hardwood that is often found in furniture and sometimes used as wainscoting in homes.  Very often poplar wood will have a natural dark green color.

Cherry - A hardwood that was revered as a furniture wood and was too expensive for use in buildings.  

White pine - A soft wood and very prolific in New England, therefore, it was widely used.  

Longleaf Yellow Pine   - Also known as heart pine, is a very dense, hard pine often used for factory beams.  These beams are now re-sawn for furniture and flooring.

American Sweet Chestnut  - A strong, beautiful wood that grew to huge proportions in the eastern forests.  It was used to build much of colonial America and can be found today in old barns that were framed in chestnut.  Unfortunately, in 1904, a Japanese freighter brought in a blight that wiped out every chestnut tree within a few years.  After the trees died, they were inhabited by wood borers leaving holes, hence the name “wormy chestnut”.  Trees sawn into lumber after the blight will have the worm holes cut on a cross section which is a giveaway that the trees were dead when cut.  This is another clue to establish the age of a building or furniture.   American Sweet Chestnut is considered an extinct wood.