How old is my antique rocking chair

Tools that were sharpened by hand did not have as straight an edge as tools produced today. This would mean that when a length of wood was planed by hand, there would often be either a slightly uneven surface or a drag mark could have been left behind following the planing of the wood. Other tools that required elbow grease and skill to produce finely crafted furniture such as a hand chisel or a file, may have also left their mark in the form of nicks and cuts.

Mirrored or matching elements such as arm rests, spindles or rocking feet, may have slight differences in their shape or size. Hand crafted parts that were made prior to were prone to having slight differences from one another.

This could have been due to different craftsmen of varying skill, making the same part. Or human error as trying to make the exact same part over and over by hand, will inevitably result in some slight variations.

Hand Saws — Hand saws where used before the circular saw was invented. These saws would leave jagged marks, imperfections and straight line cuts were harder to make over long distances. Joints were once, though arguably still are, the most important deciding factor for quality built furniture. Using the correct joint is what gives furniture its strength and allows them it to take the shapes and sizes that we see today.

True antique furniture was made using nothing more then glue, force and occasionally pegs to hold the parts together. Carefully designed joints such as the humble Dovetail, and the Mortise and Tenon joints, were among some of the first forms of joints to be made using hand tools. There is a notable visual difference between a clean cut machine made joint and a rougher looking hand made joint. One joint to be wary of is the cheaply made Doweled Butt Joint.

It is advised that if a dowel joint is suspected to have been used, to either avoid acquiring the piece or to negotiate the price down to factor in the cost of a correct restoration. Dowel joints are a weak and vastly inferior joint that should be avoided. Do some research into the types of joints that were used for the time period and style that you are seeking to acquire.

If the correct joints are present but look too clean cut and precise for the time period. Then there may be a change that piece is not an original. Some older antique furniture can be found with nails or screws holding some if not all of its pieces together.

Wood was much cheaper and easier for a carpenter to use then metal nails, so most furniture had wooden pegs of varying shapes and sizes square, round, triangular in lieu of metal nails and screws. First Hand Made Nails — Produced by blacksmiths these were squared in shape, not round like modern day nails. They were blunt at the tip, and each one had a unique misshaped head. Some of these nails may have been made without heads in order to drive them beneath the wood.

Grooves or barbs would be added along its surface. No two screws were the same and their shapes were so crude, that their use was limited. Think about the overall design of your antique rocking chair. Consider if the overall shape is heavy or light. Decide if the decoration on your antique chair is floral or geometric and if the decoration is low relief or high relief. Early Neoclassical chairs, made in America from about to , were lightweight, mostly straight lines, with low relief and inlaid decoration.

In contrast, a Victorian chair from the s is heavy, curvilinear, with high-relief carving. Gather together all of your notes and begin searching for antique rocking chairs similar to yours. Begin with antique furniture history books. After that, use other furniture identification resources such as antique shops and online antique malls. Antique exhibits, often held as fundraisers for various nonprofits, also are filled with learning opportunities.

Furniture from many time periods is displayed and exhibitors often are pleased to share their knowledge with another antique enthusiast. Susan Ward, M. Both are in excellent condition. Please contact me with phone info if you are interested. I have an old glider chair with a matching table. On bottom it says Pat. I assume Nothing is broken or cracked. It is missing one bar for across the bottom. What is this worth? I have a rocking chair that is to believed to be from Amirus Darrow from Kinsman, Ohio.

How would I find out if it is? I have a coil rocking chair that has little wheels in front the fabric is red but there is another type of fabric under that.