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Victorian All-In-One PC

May 16, 2008

Many of you enjoyed the Victorian monitor and keyboard so much I thought I’d alert you to this “Victorian All-In-One” that was produced by the same shop.  The theme behind it’s design is a Victorian performance stage, complete with curtains.
Whereas the previous creation was just a monitor and keyboard, the above device includes the computer [...]

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Unattractive and Undesirable Sofa at Neal Auction

April 20, 2008

Pay no mind to this Grecian (scroll back) sofa in the next Neal Auction coming up in the May 3rd and 4th sale. The carved Cornucopias, incised crestrail, and seat rail gadrooning speak nothing of Anthony Quervelle and his designs. A friend who inspected this sofa for me indicated that the carved legs [...]

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Tips for Buying Antiques Online

March 31, 2008

Not everyone has dipped their toes into the murky pool of buying antiques online. I wrote the following list of tips in the forum and thought I’d clean it up and post it on the main blog for a wider audience. Hopefully, some of these tips will aid the journey.
Tips for buying on [...]

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1874 Ornamental Wood Company Catalog

March 24, 2008

Well, I’ve been looking for something like this for quite some time. These are excepts from a 43 page catalog exclusively detailing ornamental wood pieces that furniture makers could purchase to incorporate into their furniture. This catalog is from 1874 for Ornamental Wood Company of Bridgeport, Conn. They are certainly [...]

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Proof That Credenza Depot Stores Existed

February 22, 2008

I’m retiring from trying to figure out what cabinet maker made a particular credenza as it is just a mind-bending exercise to do. Cabinet makers didn’t need to make furniture from scratch; they could import components from Europe or purchase them locally and integrate these elements into their pieces. The inlay panels were [...]

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Pricing Your Antiques For Sale

February 18, 2008

My antique Victorian pricing research over the years has been a mishmash of looking at pricing on Ebay auctions for sale (current and closed) and Googling keywords appropriate to the piece I’m looking to sell. I might go to Ruby Lane or TIAS or Trocadero or GoAntiques and do searches there, but it is [...]

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Indestructible Belter Furniture

February 8, 2008

Some of you have probably read something about John Henry Belter’s secretive lamination process which comprised 7-9 layers of wood, usually Rosewood. Belter steamed and soaked the thinly (< 1.6mm) sawed layers of wood and pressed it in molds (cauls) with powerful clamps.
Belter was so confident in the strength of the resulting product that [...]

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