Furniture: How old are you and where are you from?
Almost every home in the United States has at least one piece of furniture that has seen many years of use. Some may have just appeared after a good day at a rummage sale, or perhaps a relative purchased it at an antiques shop many years ago.
Even if you do not have an interest in antiques, you may have a desire to know about the pieces you have inherited or acquired. How old are they?
Where were they made, and by whom? Don’t you wish it could be as easy as asking a piece of furniture, “How old are you?” and “Where are you from?”
A good researcher always goes beyond to try and find out the unknown. Are there any stories connected with the persons who used or owned them?
Your location within the country sometimes can be a reliable guide to your research about a particular piece. But then there are other pieces furniture that travel with families as they travel from one destination to another.
With regard to fine furniture, some may come from Europe, Asias, South America and even the U.S.
While styles of furniture used to be a determining factor in trying to decipher the age of a particular item, it is not very reliable nowadays.
Styles of furniture change throughout the years, and many furniture styles of the past are being reproduced faithfully.
As with family anecdotes or ancestral research, the best way to pass down information about furniture in your possession is to write down notes and any facts about the item at hand — including family photographs where the item is in the picture, and/ or any purchase receipts — and attach them to drawers or the back of an item with adhesive tape. Although it sounds tedious, future generations will thank you for this.
Then there is the whole notion of whether a piece of furniture is an “antique” or simply “vintage.”
There is a popular notion of 100 years as the age when furniture becomes “antique,” the term connoisseurs refers to furniture that meets high standards of design and construction and that was made at the time the style was in fashion, otherwise it is considered a “reproduction.”
In recent time, the antique versus vintage arguments have blurred, with collectors and furniture dealers coveting more recent furnishings for stores and clients.
As many embrace more contemporary lifestyles and markets are more and more global, the important thing to remember is to buy an item first and foremost because you like it.
Secondly, buy furniture where the style is authentic to its time, and last but not least, buy items of quality that are built to last and endure the test of time.