Interested in Antique Furnitures?

Today, I will be sharing about antique furniture in case that there are somebody out there who are interested to start a hobby in collecting antique furniture.

I have grew up in a house back in Ipoh full of antiques. My daddy's house was filled with hundreds of acquired pieces of antiques. Whatever you can think of, my daddy would have it in his house including antique furnitures.



Along the years, my daddy have shared the history of each antique furniture to me and also taught me many things to look out for especially when there are a lot of imitation antique furnitures outside. I will share it here for you.

1) What kind of wood was used to make the furniture? You can always determine the age of the furniture by looking at the type of wood used to create that piece. If it is a dressing table, look closely inside the drawers. Are the wood used inside the drawers different from the outside? There are
furniture that used cheap woods for the insides of the
drawers so do be careful on this.


2) Does the furniture still maintain it's original parts? Are
drawer pulls and knobs original? Look carefully at the types
of screws and nails attaching the body of the furniture. Do
they look newer than the drawer pulls themselves? Check
on the wood around the furniture. Sometimes, there might
be some grooves in the wood , meaning that the pulls might
have been replaced with another one.


3) Does the Furniture still have it's original paint? During those years, there were a lot of people who like to refinish their aging furniture. Honestly speaking, if you ever find an antique furniture with it's original coat of paint, do not ever try to modernize it. The old coat of paint is more valuable and desirable than the finish.



4) Look inside the drawers for any dovetails. By looking at the dovetails, you will be able to narrow down the age of the furniture. If the dovetails look very perfect with no defects, they were cut by machine. On the other hand, uneven dovetails means that that furniture is handmade. Some of the drawers will not even have any dovetails at all. This is a sign that you have got a rare piece of furniture.



5) If the antique furniture is a bench or chair, does it still maintain it's original legs? Most of the rare antique benches or chairs have legs that were shaped after a dragon or tiger. For antique benches, one of the rarest antique are the ones with mother of pearl. They look more solid and they are cooling to sleep during hot weathers. My 2nd photo on the left is an example of the rare bench. Trust me....if you come across one of this pieces, and if budget permits, grab it. I promise that you will never regret it for the rest of your life.



6) Look carefully at the saw cuts on the edges and the back of the antique furniture. For your information, circular saws were only invented after the mid 1800's. This will roughly give you a benchmark to start determining the age of the furniture. If the cuts are rough, chances are this is an old antique furniture.



Well......these are some advice I can share with all of those who are interested in collecting Antique Furniture. In fact, antique collecting is really fun to begin with. As I have mention previously, I do hope that through this blog, more and more younger generation will learn to appreciate this industry and hobby.



Let me tell you a secret. Collecting antiques are like solving a mystery or putting together a puzzle. There are so many interesting and exciting clues that tell the story of each beautiful piece of antiques. You will probably realise this when you solve the mystery. Good Luck!