Today's Little Challenge

The short version of the question, what is this veneer? Is this supposed to be some variation of Tiger Oak?
The rest of the story (with pics to follow), in the long ago and far away, a famous Texas author had a decent writing table at which he typed. The top is a pretty Tiger Oak veneer, the legs are like this. I imagine the table is 1920s, as he used it at least in the early 1930s, maybe a bit earlier. There are no records of when he purchased it or who from. He lived in Cross Plains, TX, a tiny town in the middle of Texas. It WAS an oil boom town for a while, and it has had a general store (Higginbotham's) since at least then. And it would hardly be surprising if that is where he purchased this table. I have crawled over it, no manufacturer's information anywhere.
Upon his untimely death in 1936, his table became his father's property. In the early 40's, he decided to move, and thus sold and/or gave away most of his furnishings. This writing table was given to the next door neighbor. Interviewed in the early 1970s, she told about the table, and showed it off for a photo. She had a number of other furnishings she'd gotten from the father. One little detail . . .

 

It is more correctly called quartersawn oak.

 

She decided she didn't need a writing table. She needed a coffee table.



So she had someone unbolt the legs, and cut them down. Note the pretty
tiger oak veneer on top.
When the neighbor (Birdy) got old, she gave this table to her favorite neice, Irma. Irma, who collected antiques, liked it, put a glass top on it, and kept it. She tossed the old typewriter, which is a shame.
I got to interview Irma and see the table in the mid-2000s. Took some photos, chatted about it, tried to get her to contribute it back to the author's house, which is now a museum and on the national Registry of Historical Places. The house is mostly restored to its look of the 20s and 30s, and a lot of the original furnishings and artwork have made its way back. This is the big buck we been hunting. I suggested at that time that Irma go ahead and donate it, but she said she really liked it and wanted to keep it. But she'd told her daughter to give it to the museum when she died.
Irma passed a few years ago, and her daughter, Carolyn, couldn't bring herself to empty out Mom's house. As dumb luck would have it, I happened to move last year to the same town that Carolyn was in, though I didn't know it at the time. I took some time to track her down, and worked through her son. Finally, I have it in hand.
What I'm thinking would be good is to put the legs back to full length, so that it can be displayed in its appropriate place of honor.
The vertical portion of the legs easily attach to the bottom cross-member, and there is a removable 1" cross member up under the top that the legs bolt to. So, just a straight 4X4, with 1/8" veneers, up to whatever is the proper length. Even someone as amateur as I can do this one. But I need to ID the veneer on the legs.
And, if anyone knows off the top of their head, how tall should the writing table be?
Thanks very much for any assistance.

 

Are you referring to the top, the legs, or both, as quartersawn?

 

All the striped veneer is quartersawn (top and columns). The style is basically mission, though the pedistal feet (Where it curves) are transitional. Pure mission styling would be all straight lines. As a transitional piece, this probably dates to the 20s. The edge-banding and skirt are straight-sawn in the one photo. Looks like the pedistal base is largely straight-sawn as well but hard to tell from this one photo.

 

It should be about desk height; your legs have to go under it otherwise it's no good for writing. Too bad the other lady pitched the typewriter; it would have been cool to have the original machine the writer used. These days it might be more monetarily valuable than the table, weird as that seems to us oldsters.

 

What Verybrad said. This is quarter sawn oak. The striations are usually referred to as "flakes." Usually the greater the quantity of flakes, the greater the quality in general. This is very high quality oak.

So unfortunate that the legs were cut down as that takes away the vast majority of the piece's value. Restoring long legs would help, if you can find compatible pieces. That's a big "if.". Even Conan the Barbarian would have a tough time finding high quality quarter sawn oak these days! Anyway, of course the piece still has associative value.

Victorian-era tables, which is my area of interest, are typically 29 1/2 inches tall. I would think this one would be of a similar height, although I've seen mission tables a bit shorter. But that would be the neighborhood.

 

Thanks to everyone for the great information! Yes, everything else is straight sawn. I have a wood shop I work with in Houston that carries quartersawn oak veneer, I REALLY hope they can match the widths I will need. And the quality!
Good hunting!

 

Couple other photos.