Featured Found something interesting in an inherited piece of furniture (late 1700s?)

Will do.

 

I saw that also when I was holding it. It looks like a ridge where the metal was hammered, but I don't know. I'll go check it out again!

 

Ack! I don't know why there are duplicates of the images. I'll try to fix them. I feel silly. I work in tech. lol

 

It's so strange to me that it's on the underside of the surface and backwards. I wonder if the wood was repurposed from baby furniture? The chip that fell off the decal is sharp like a piece of old lead paint. I don't know about antique decals at all.

 

no worries !!!

 

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Trust us,its not a painting. Maybe a previous owner had cut it out because it looked like one of their children and for some reason felt compelled to hide it . That is a lovely stand .

 

I believe you. I looked at it again, and it is definitely not a painting. I wish I knew the story! I am also wondering who "SK" or "KS" is. I found other members of my family tree with the same initials in that time period. Do you have thoughts on the style of the letters? They almost look like joker hats on the ends.

 

around 1900......a little earlier ...maybe.

 

You were right! I just polished it off a bit and now this is clearly visible. I did a brief search, and the closest I came up with is London around 1700 but this looks more like a candelabra. I don't have a clue of what I'm doing. My brain hurts lol.

 

@Debora
@Roaring20s
@Bev aka thelmasstuff
@Bakersgma
&
@silvermakersmarks

 

That mark is American and 20th century. Mark is by J Avery of Kerrville Texas

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Now that's interesting! (Been in business 70 years.)

Debora

 

Not saying you're wrong, but that would present an even bigger mystery. My Dad was very ill in the final decade of his life. The dressing stand was packed away many years ago. I know for a fact that I'm the first one to touch it since. The odds of a 20th-century pendant having been in there during the last 80 years would be astronomically low (Dad shunned organized religion as a rule. He didn't even want to take insurance on it a few days before he died. In fact, it's the last joke we shared.) Dad got in as a boy in the late 1930s, and it was kept at his grandmother's home in PA before then. Maybe my Dad was hiding a secret devotion to Christianity AND an illegitimate baby! (Thus hiding the kid's picture under his shaving stand.)

Edited to say that I re-read your post (correctly this time). There may be a chance that a cross would have made it into the stand without it bursting into flames after 1900... Still, that would be wild. Thanks for hunting that down!

 

It is remarkable that you were able to recognize this! Thank you! Now that I am mulling this over in my head, there may be an obvious reason for it being in the stand. My Dad took his Boy Scout Jamboree scarf with him everywhere he went. Since he was a kid. Never went on a trip without it. Dad worked with humanitarian medical teams as a responder to disasters worldwide. He went to Ethiopia in the 80s to help during the famine, to New Orleans after Katrina, and to Haiti after the terrible earthquake, just to name a few. Many people insisted on expressing gratitude to the teams, even though it was volunteer work. Dad always accepted these gifts gracefully and treasured them. He might have tucked the pendant away in his scarf, and it could have fallen out and behind the drawer after his last trip.

The other, less-palatable answer that would also make sense is it could have belonged to the woman he had an affair with for many years. If that were the case, he would have hidden it from my mother.

But what about the BABY?

 

My mother and aunt went through a phase of sticking decals on everything. That was just before the phase of spray painting everything copper. Victorian 'scrap' ornaments were made with decals. They're just called scrap.

 

Bakersgma is remarkable.

The baby is puzzling to you, but to antiquers it is just another example of scrap decoration of furniture. That was fashionable during several periods.

So nothing to worry about, no hint of an illegitimate child, it just ended up in an unusual spot. Even that could have a very simple explanation. Maybe someone kept scraps for furniture decorating in the drawer, one of the scraps (already glued?) stuck to the inside, and she couldn't be bothered to try and cut it loose.

 

there may be stories about your Dad that u are unaware of...........

 

I'm certain there are many. We all are entitled to our secrets. I had fun finding these two secrets in the stand, even if they don't whisper all the juicy parts. I researched the cross, and the company didn't start the business until 1954, well into the time my dad had it in our home. The baby... there is no way Dad wouldn't have found that hilarious. I'm 99.9% sure he never knew it was there. Thanks to all of you for helping me decipher even just a bit of this stand's story.

 

@Julie Gibson Thanks for starting this very interesting discussion. I just read it for the first time. There's nothing useful that I could add, but appreciate your membership in this forum site!