Sizing Up a Chest of Drawers

Sizing Up a Chest of Drawers

When you’re trying to decide whether a chest has been repaired or altered, there are three things you automatically look for: top, feet, and hardware,” says antique expert George Read. “Ninety-five percent of the restorations on a chest of drawers will be in those places, so you can save a whole lot of time if you start there.”

    Watch how the light rakes across the top – if the surface is mirror-smooth, or if the top’s back edge doesn’t look as old as the rest of the back, it’s probably new.

    Remove the hardware to look at the fading. If the hardware is original, it will leave a sharp fade line.

    Look at the drawers. Do they look as though they’ve been altered? Do the dovetails look new or machine-made? Large, hard-to-sell pieces are sometimes reduced. One change often made to a chest is to reduce its depth by cutting off part of the back and reattaching it closer to the front.

    Tip the piece back to see whether the feet look as old as the rest of the chest, and notice if there are any spare marks or holes to indicate that something’s been replaced.

An antic door. Photo by Elena

Repairs: Minor or Major?

Although it’s impossible to put a general dollar value on the effect of given repair, George Read says some typical repairs are minor – maybe reducing the value of a piece by 10 percent – while major changes might cause a piece to lose as much as 75 percent of its value.

Minor

•     Any changes that are reversible
•     Replaced hardware, on European furniture
•     Hardware added for embellishment (usually is reversible)
•     New feet on a chest, or on any European furniture
•     Replaced mirror
•     New gliding
•     A damaged or stripped patina
•     Missing casters on chair legs of French furniture
•     Small alterations to the cornice of a book-shelf.

Major

•     Replaced hardware, on American furniture
•     New feet on a chest or on American furniture
•     A damaged or stripped patina, on American furniture
•     A new top on a chest
•     Marriage of pieces that don’t belong, such as a bookshelf on top of a slant-front desk
•     Reduction in the depth of a chest
•     Replaced chair rails
•     Spliced or repaired chair legs using all of the original parts
•     Even worse – legs with newly carved pieces.