Ways to Sell: Timing, Convenience, Price

Ways to Sell: Timing, Convenience, Price

Have you moved recently? Have you had the responsibility of dispersing the estate of a close relative? How about just cleaning out to make more room and simplify your life? If you have faced any of these events you have also faced another problem - what to do with all the "stuff." Some of it you probably want to keep for sentimental attachment, moral obligations or other intangible reasons but for most of the rest of it you just wish it would disappear - for a price of course. Other than just passing an asset along to another relative or even a friend, most forms of dispersal have some sort of an economic benefit. Which one you choose depends on your priorities. Considerations include timing, convenience, economic expectations and family feelings and pressure.

The easiest thing to do of course is to load it all up and take it a local charity outlet store. It's quick, easy and painless. In some cases, if you itemize the load and get a receipt you can even use it as a tax deduction. Many charitable organizations will even pick up your load, including automobiles.

But what if you want to produce a more direct financial benefit? Then you have to pick a method to sell the inventory and that gets tricky because you almost have too many choices. Your options include selling to a private buyer, selling to a dealer, selling to an auctioneer, consigning to an auctioneer, consigning to a dealer or selling online.

SELLING OUTRIGHT

Before you start to sell you need to determine exactly what you have to sell because where you sell important items can be a crucial factor in the final payment you receive. If you have mostly late 20th century small items, a garage sale is fairly quick but you know how prices go at garage sales. If you have larger items like a bedroom set or a piano you may need to get some professional help from an appraiser, dealer or auctioneer to help you identify, date and place a value on the big stuff.

Then make an effort to find out where such things are regularly sold. You don't want to sell a high quality set of furniture, even if it is 20th century, at a smalls auction, a jewelry auction or in a local mini-mall that specializes in Depression glass. Take a look at a good furniture auction or consider putting it in a local estate sale run by an estate sale specialist. The estate sale may be the best way to take care of an entire household at one time. Another idea for a big inventory sale is to sell it outright to an auctioneer. Some auctioneers will buy the entire household, right down to the pots and pans. He will pay you a flat negotiated price and you are done. The auctioneer then takes the risk of what things sell for at auction. Of course you will probably receive a lot less than the proceeds of the auction this way but it is quick and you get paid immediately.

Of course you may just want to place an advertisement in the local paper and wait for buyers to knock down your door - if you write a good ad, adequately describe the article and price it reasonably. This will bring you the best price but may take the longest and is the most risky because you may have to let strangers walk through your house. Or you can wholesale it to a dealer who will pay you about fifty percent of the estimated retail value but then again - you are done.

CONSIGNMENT

By consigning something for sale you are asking someone else to store, advertise and sell your item or items for you and collect and account for the proceeds. This does not come cheap and usually doesn't happen quickly. The two primary avenues of consignment are to a dealer or to an auctioneer.

Many dealers will take consignments to place on their showroom floor but they must be priced in accordance with the rest of his inventory. And they often will place a time limit on the arrangement. If the item doesn't sell in "X" number of days you must pick it up and remove it from the store. For this service a retail dealer will charge you anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the final sale price.

You can also consign to an auction house. The auctioneer will require a commission based on a percentage of the final sale price, often 20 - 30 percent, but you can, if you and the auctioneer agree, place a minimum bid, the reserve, on any item to assure that it does not sell for a garage sale price. If bidding doesn't reach the reserve you take the piece back and probably will have to pay the auctioneer some reasonable expenses for the transportation, storage and handling of the item. Just make sure you have all aspects of the agreements in writing before embarking on the sale.

If you discover that you have what may be some very valuable articles such as 18th century furniture or art you may want to consult the appraisal services of major regional and national auction services.

No matter how you decide to dispose of some of the excess baggage of your life, be sure you know what you are disposing of and what the ramifications may be on family members who have or think they may have a claim or right to the merchandise. Be careful.

Read more »

OLD BRASS

OLD BRASS

   When you read the catalog for an auction that will be presenting some genuine antique furniture, it's always interesting to read the descriptions. Some of the most alluring will describe a piece of furniture as having "original finish" or "original brasses". That's a real selling point when looking at a chest of drawers that may be 200 years old and think that those brass pulls have been there undisturbed for that whole time. Can that be? Sure it can but sometimes that's not the case. And it doesn't have to be a 200 year old antique chest for the hardware to make a difference. It could be a pretty nice Colonial Revival chest or desk or dresser, in excellent condition, that catches your fancy. But is it all original? And does it matter? Whether it matters is a concern for another day. Today the discussion is just on determining the originality of hardware.

  Since changing or altering hardware is one of the quickest and cheapest ways of improving the look of an otherwise bland piece, the pulls are always suspect, especially if they look REALLY good.

  Early 18th century hardware was cast from molten brass using molds made of sand. This type of hardware is easy to recognize because it often has "inclusions" from the sand itself in the brass, either grains of sand or odd colors from impurities. The backs of this type of hardware were often left with the impression of the sand while the faces were polished. Around the middle of the 18th century the customary blend of copper and zinc was changed to include more copper, giving the alloy more of a reddish cast than the pale yellow brass used for hardware earlier in the century. And by 1780 rolled brass sheets were available so that each piece of hardware could be cut or stamped rather than having to be cast. This greatly reduced the cost and increased the availability and uniformity of late 18th century drawer pulls and escutcheons.

   The use of high pressure rollers during the Federal period increased output even more. No longer did decorative pulls have to be engraved or chased individually. The designs were rolled right into the brass itself. An excellent example of this kind of work is the ornate oval backplate of Hepplewhite pulls of the early 1800s with flags, acorns and leaves embossed on them. Another innovation of the Federal period was the reversing of the bail, the handle. In the Queen Anne period the bail was inserted into the round heads of posts implanted in the backplate. The ends of the bail entered the posts from the inside and the bail hung between the two posts. In the Federal era the bails entered the post from the outside so that the bail surrounded the posts. But much of that became moot as time rolled on. The Empire period certainly had decorative hardware but that was the end of it for nearly half a century. The Late Classicism style of the 1830s and 1840s used almost no brass hardware and Rococo Revival and Renaissance Revival used very little. It was only in the Eastlake period in the 1880s that brass hardware became important again.

   So, if the hardware is the right style, looks appropriate for the piece and could very well be as old as the piece, how can you tell? The easiest and least intrusive way is simple observation. Over the years you can bet that not every time that hardware was cleaned some industrious soul removed it from the drawer. The same is true each time the piece got waxed. If the finish was waxed or the brass cleaned while the pull was in place, there will be some residue around the edge of the brass. The build up of wax or the overflow of brass cleaner will be evident. But that clue is only valid in its presence. Its absence could mean the piece was meticulously maintained or that it has just been deeply cleaned or even refinished.

A quick peek inside the drawer might show the presence of holes that once accommodated the fasteners for hardware other than the current resident. The fasteners themselves can be a clue. The hardware of a 17th century piece would have been held in place by clinched cotter pins on the inside. If there is evidence of that but the current fasteners have threaded posts and nuts, something has been altered. And the threaded posts of an 18th century piece would have been hand cut and the nuts were usually round. If machine made threads and octagonal machine made nuts are visible, something's up.

   As a last resort, if possible, remove the existing hardware from the drawer front. Carefully examine the wood and the finish revealed when the brass is gone. Is there a shadow of another size or differently shaped piece of hardware. Is there an imprint in the finish caused by the sharp edge of another piece?

   You best tool is knowledge of what the correct hardware looked like for each style and period in which you have an interest. I have yet to find a book or source that deals with this narrow subject so as you read related antiques materials you just have to mentally catalog what hardware looks like for a given style of period.

Read more »

DEPRESSION SURVIVAL NOVELTY FURNITURE

DEPRESSION SURVIVAL NOVELTY FURNITURE

  Have you ever picked up a book about American 20th century furniture and marveled at the number of seemingly "non-furniture" items included in the pages? If you look around homes and estates originally furnished in the 1920s and 1930s you might see many of the same items stashed away in nooks and crannies. The same holds true for old movies. The next time you see a flick from the 1930s look at the backdrop. While it may the stylish streamline Art Deco of the period, more than likely it is filled with small, non-essential items like wall racks and magazine stands, smoking stands and sewing tables. Where did all of that stuff come from?

  It was the result of one of the most trying periods of American history - the American Depression of the late 1920s which lasted until after the Second World War. The great stock market crash of October 1929 was just the beginning. After that the country was plunged into a deep depression that brought poverty to many middle class working families and threatened the existence of much of American industry, including the furniture manufacturing and retailing industries.

  It became harder and harder, then virtually impossible, to sell a new dining room suite or a new living room ensemble to a newly impoverished family that could barely pay the rent and buy food. But there is always that small ember of burning desire to make small additions and improvements to the nest so the furniture industry came up with a new product line - the "novelty" furniture. Companies that could no longer sell the entire houseful of furniture found that they could help the housewife spruce up the dining room, not with a new suite but with a new novelty called the "teacart" or "tea trolley". True the form had been around since the early 1920s but it became popular after the crash. Not that American households served traditional hot tea in the English manner but the name gave the wheeled buggy a nice little touch of much needed class. And if a little class was good, many choices in the class were better. Major players like Stickley Brothers of Grand Rapids entered the novelty market offering as many as eighteen different finishes and decorative schemes for it line of "hostess wagons.' And they came with tray tops, extra shelves, folding handles and a variety of wheel arrangements as well as a number of names.

  The major center of the novelty industry was found in Chicago with its wide variety of manufacturers. One of the more innovative of the novelty makers was the United Table-Bed Company. They made their famous "Ta-Bed", a bed that folded up to look like a small breakfast room table. It was marketed as a multiple use product that "saves space, saves rent, perfectly combines in one piece of furniture the functions ordinarily performed by two." The Storkline Corporation turned out a line of inexpensive baby cribs and juvenile furniture while even the powerhouses of Chicago joined in the niche market. Tonk Manufacturing, finding the need for piano stools waning, turned to high chairs and music cabinets. Parlor frame maker Zangerle & Peterson turned to small tables and commodes and Kruissink & Brothers turned from oak bookcases to wall shelves.

  The great survivor of the novelty makers was Butler Specialty Company, formed in 1927. Butler specialized in magazine racks and wall shelves to survive the Depression, turning later to full size, high end furniture. Butler is still in business today offering a medium to high quality line of furniture.

Another product of the novelty phase was perhaps the best known sewing stand of the 20th century. No, not the Martha Washington. It was the priscilla, the small stand with the peaked top that opened on both sides below the handle. This little stand first appeared early in the century and gained prominence during the dark days.

  But the prize of all the novelties was the smoking stand. This multi-purpose stand came into use just after World War I and was popular until after WWII even though it slipped a little in the 1930s. The stand focused initially on the pipe smoker, providing an enclosed humidor space, complete with moisture pad, in the interior. Many of the "humidors" appeared to be made of copper or brass but were in reality just sheet metal that had been painted or coated. Brass and copper were much too expensive for smoking stands. The smoker or smoking stand became the object of decorative fancy, utilizing the most outrageous woods possible. Zebra striped "zebrano" veneer was a common material as was Oriental walnut, the striped Australian wood. Applied decals and exotic paint schemes decorated many of the affordable stands.

  One well known novelty maker outside of Chicago was the H. T. Cushman Company of Bennington, VT. Founded in 1864 making corks Cushman diversified into "novelties" that led to such items as the pencil with an eraser on it, the first ink eraser and some of the earliest roller skates. Cushman introduced its first smoking stand in 1913 and it was the cause for factory additions in 1919, 1922 and 1926. In the early 1930s Cushman expanded the line to include articles that fell in with the Colonial Revival movement of the day and became a major manufacturer of "Colonial" furniture. Over the years it updated its lines and eventually was acquired by General Interiors Corporation. The factory facility was used by Green Mountain Furniture to construct inventory for Ethan Allen from 1972 to 1978.

  Many modern furniture manufacturers today owe their existence to the survival mode adopted during the Depression and a large part of that mode was the design, construction and sale of "novelty" furniture to the American public.

Read more »

CHEAP TRICKS FAKE FINISHES

CHEAP TRICKS FAKE FINISHES

  Throughout most of the history of wooden furniture some attempts have been made to disguise the true nature of the wood used. Most attempts are efforts to make a lesser wood appear to be a more expensive, more beautiful or more exotic species. It may be that the desired wood is too expensive for the maker to use or it might be that it is just not available at any price - or it could be that the maker just thought he could do it cheaper and get away with it. Some of the cosmetic charades have been quite artful and ingenious while some have been heavy handed, clumsy and obvious.

  In the 18th and 19th centuries some furniture made of lesser quality wood was just painted to conceal the actual construction. But another school of makers used graining as a method of disguising the true material. In the late 18th century the graining of cabinets was in full swing. Many of these examples are works of art such as the chest on chest made by the Dunlap family of cabinetmakers in New Hampshire that sold at auction in North Carolina in 2005 for $276,000. The cabinet looked like real wood even to the trained eye. A more common application was the use of black ink over a reddish background to simulate the look of rosewood. This became especially popular in the mid 19th century when rosewood Empire pieces were at a premium. Walnut Victorian chairs were often given a red wash and grained with black to look like the much more expensive rosewood. Even crotch cut mahogany was widely synthesized since it has such an erratic pattern and almost any graining technique will work. Many mid century crotch mahogany cupboards are actually painted pine or poplar. Most of this kind of work was done by individual cabinetmakers or artists.

  However, by the end of the 19th century the deception became commercial rather than individual. In 1885 an inventor in Grand Rapids named Harry Sherwood came up with a system to mechanically grain just about any wood to look like the most popular wood of the time, quarter cut golden oak. Quarter cutting oak to produce the prominent "tiger eye" design is an expensive process both in material and in labor time and this new system allowed Sherwood to open a new business based exclusively on his deceptive graining practices. Flat surfaces were stained and then grained with large inked drum rollers that produced the distinctive pattern. Curved pieces were grained by hand using small specially carved rollers. Many furniture manufacturers of the time quickly adopted the technique and it was in widespread use by 1910. The furniture looked "right" to the uneducated customer's eye but it was made of significantly less expensive material like softwood pine instead of quarter cut white oak. The surprise would come many years later when one of these pieces needed to be refinished. What had looked like a solid oak chest turned out to be a plain softwood chest after it was stripped. Many refinishers had a lot of explaining to do.

  That problem continued with a vengeance into the Depression era. Hard times result in innovative solutions and some manufacturers took Mr. Sherwood's approach to new heights. During the 1920s and 1930s a line of furniture was mass produced that closely imitated Sherwood's concept except in scale. In the 1920s the deception was much more widespread. The furniture was quickly constructed of inexpensive wood using every shortcut known to the industry including the absence of dust covers inside cabinets, the use of quick machine cut rabbet joints or nailed joints in drawer construction instead of dovetails and the use of printed or rolled grained finishes made to resemble real wood. Then areas of the flat surfaces were outlined with thin router lines and the included areas received another layer of color. The effect was that of an expensively and artistically veneered piece of furniture. This type of furniture was referred to as "Borax" furniture because a cleaning product containing borax gave away coupons to redeem for cheap furniture like this. During the Depression the word borax came to mean cheap when used in reference to furniture.

Another great deception in furniture was reserved for the Art Moderne (Art Deco) period. Part of the allure of many pieces of the period was the wide variety of woods and veneers used to create the outstanding veneer patterns. One wood widely used was called Oriental or Australian walnut, a uniformly striped wood often used on drawer fronts in diamond patterns. Another popular wood used in banding was the closely striped zebra wood or zebrano. But zebrano was costly for the time and in less expensive pieces it was often successfully simulated with "veneerite", fake paper veneer with the grain pattern printed on it.

  After the Depression era, the need for deception seemed to diminish for a while. It was virtually gone in the 1950s, 60s and 70s but it showed back up with a vengeance in the 1980s sporting a new name and a new game. This time the trickery was touted as the "engraved" finish. What appeared to be virtually identical dining tables could be seen on furniture show room floors but the prices were significantly different, often by more than $1,000 for a single table. Why? Because one table was made with mahogany veneer, the expensive one, while the cheaper model had an engraved mahogany finish. What's that? It was back to the old borax trick. It was a printed finish. And not only was it a printed finish, it was not even printed directly on the wood as the borax finish was. The new engraved finish was printed directly on the new substrate known as "MDF." That stands for "medium density fiberboard". It is called heavy duty cardboard by the rest of us. Learn to detect fake finishes.

Read more »