September 2026
Antique furniture: how to date a piece yourself
Sawing, hardware, glue, patina: four clues that give you a century, sometimes a decade.
Dating an antique does not require expertise: it requires looking at four things in the right order, starting with the parts nobody ever tried to make pretty.
Sawing first. Before roughly 1830, boards were cut with a handsaw: the marks are straight, irregular, slightly oblique. The circular saw, common from the 19th century, leaves regular arcs. Arcs on a drawer bottom are enough to rule out an 18th-century date.
Hardware next. Forged nails with uneven heads, slotted screws with irregular threads and a flat tip: early work. Crosshead screws, staples, standardised metal brackets: 20th century, or a recent repair.
Glue and joints. Hand-cut dovetails are uneven, wider on one side; machine-cut ones are identical to the millimetre. Brown, glassy glue that flakes is animal glue; a soft white bead is modern.
Patina last, which is a logic before it is a colour. It is darker where hands pass, lighter where light has worked, absent under mouldings. An even tone across the whole surface almost always means stripping followed by re-staining.
No single clue is enough. Three out of four agreeing give a solid bracket, and that is more than enough to buy with confidence.
