Featured Sideboard

We believe this antique sideboard came from Boston - Our friend's grandfather was an antique dealer in the Boston area in the 50's, and he thinks that's how it was acquired. We can't find any markings but wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on its age and possible value. Any information or thoughts would be so helpful! Thank you!

 

it's lovely.....
for a fair market value....you'll have to find similar items that have recently sold.

 

What a pretty piece ! I cant recall seeing one with so many locks before. Wait for our furniture experts to comment .

 

Are those Federal style pulls ???

 

Does the distance between the screws holding the oval pulls match the distance between the round wood replacements on the drawers?

 

I saw an action house dating the same style pulls as circa 1840. I also saw the same on a replica Federal sideboard.

I wonder are those circle elements on the drawer fronts are another clue.

 

Do the locks provide any clues? Are any of them stamped with the manufacturer name?

 

Any writing or notations on any of the drawers? look on all sides and the bottoms.

What does the back of the sideboard look like?

 

Very handsome sideboard.

 

BEAUTIFUL Sideboard and LOVING the Eagle drawer pulls....which look to be replacements.....

 

Another observation is that both the far left and far right doors are both hinged on the right.

 

I think you've referred to the circle decorations as having been "wood replacements". The decorations also appear on the section below.

 

Oh, I see. The same decorations are peeking out from behind the oval pulls. That is odd. Time to see inside of the drawers, and to take off a pull to see what's under it!

 

Hepplewhite sideboard with string & barber pole inlay, looks like tulip poplar secondary so American. It's 19th century but is it Federal period (1790-1830)? I dunno but I kind of doubt it, a look at the back would help as well.
The circles on the wine doors & small drawers above are odd, can't imagine what those are.
Generally speaking, values are down for antique brown furniture. Formal dining room furniture is way down at the moment as it tends to be large & dining rooms are disappearing into kitchen remodels.

 

I figured that the circles could be plugs to mask the screw holes from previous pull hardware.

 

That's possible but, awfully large circles to plug a screw hole, aren't they? Usually, you don't see repairs "celebrated" that way.

 

Yes, very popular with eagle & 13 stars representing the 13 original colonies.

Yes, that is odd as well, still puzzled over those dark circles, decorations perhaps?

 

It's a very handsome cabinet indeed. It appears to have been completely refinished more than once. The pulls appear to be obvious replacements to me, the circles decoratively mask where the old hardware was. No idea what the old original hardware would have looked like on this one.

I'm sure these repairs were celebrated that way. Maybe large was the only size dowel the repairer had on hand during the first refinish.

 

No, on the contrary these circles are not decoration. Every drawer on this piece has them and has them at the same spacing, including the drawers where they are mostly covered up with the replacement brass pulls. When wood, in this case veneer, is replaced it almost always ages differently than the original wood. A match is made for how it looks when the replacement is done, but it will age differently. In this case the veneer patch to replace original pulls was probably done quite some time ago, probably early 20th century.

There are no patches needed on the doors because there were never any pulls on those - those were kept locked and opened with a key - common on these 19th century sideboards.

So why were pulls replaced? Almost certainly because this mid-19th century piece had pressed glass pulls. Being made of glass they are relatively fragile. Once one pull is broken it is easiest to replace all of them because there were so many different styles being made by different pressed glass manufacturers. In addition, at the turn of the 20th century when the original antique craze happened glass pulls were considered too recent so not popular, and many original pieces had their glass pulls replaced with what were assumed to be more "correct" brass pulls.

So finally, why were such large patches used rather than small ones? If you have done any veneer work, you know that matching an irregular shape is very difficult, so round plugs are often used because they are easy to cut. And indeed the large size points to what type of glass pulls were used. If you have studied the history of pressed glass pulls you know that there were many different styles being produced by different manufacturers. Some of them required quite large holes (either round or square) to be cut in the drawer. Here is an example from the met museum of one requiring a large round hole, produced 1810 to 1860. Clearly if you had to replace a pull like this you would need to use a large veneer plug.