Help learning about cabinet

I doubt that's lead paint. I'd leave the original finish as found and put a coating over it. Even if it's lead, it's only a problem if you eat it. The food surface of the piece look like plain wood. As others said, the first line of offense against the smell is to take all the drawers out and put the whole shebang outside in the sun.

 

Partly why I suggested Minwax.
This can add or enhance the color as well.

 

Can't add too much to what has already been said. Probably last quarter of the 19th century for a date. It is possible that this could have lead paint. As noted above, unless someone is gnawing on the table, there is not much of a problem. An added measure would be to make sure any loose chipping paint is removed (outside with a mask) and then, clear-coat it with a varnish or lacquer. This would seal it, add an extra barrier, and help with the musty smell. Clear coating inside and out is the best way to remove odors for good. There are matte and satin finish varnishes that will retain an antique look. The other option is to strip and refinish back to a natural wood look.

 

Yeah, i go with this option or repaint after stripping. The idea that something used in food prep that still has toxic elements attached is not real appealing to me.
Lead test kits are readily available for 10 bucks or so at hardware store if you wanted to be sure.

 

If there's any paint on it that pre-dates 1978 then it's a virtual certainty that it contains lead. As James, Brad, and others mentioned either strip it completely and finish for the natural wood look or paint it. Either way you'll be good to go.

 

You know, not to say that lead is good, and you shouldn't test this and seal it anyway, but all of us 'at age' lived with all this.
We played in the gutter, didn't wash our hands all day, played with raw mercury and played on asbestos infused linoleum and we're fine.

 

I agree with Ghopper 100%. Fact is, over 90% of antique furniture forms the value is increased with a quality refinish. I realize it's not popular to say this but i'll say it anyway!

 

James, it has nothing to do with popularity. It has everything to do with your market. In New England, refinishing is a no-no. Maybe where you're from, it's not. I've run antique shows for Rotary and the local Historical Society. We only allow dealers with genuine antiques. No flea market junk. My parents were in the business so I've been doing this for 60 years and around here, any refinishing or replacement parts devalues an antique. Maybe it's different where you are.

 

Refinishing here is sometimes called "skinning" the object. It can devalue an old piece by 75%, so it really isn't recommended unless the old finish is already gone anyway. That isn't true for 20th century pieces and MCM pieces, or not to the same degree.

 

Thing is, if you collect 200-300 year old furniture, the idea that 90% or more of these pieces have their original surface is mostly a fantasy, it does happen but it's very rare. I would argue that "original" finish is mostly a marketing thing & has actually done more harm than good to old furniture.
I once researched where all this original finish fetish started in america and it's a rather long sad story which i won't bore you with but, the fact is

" Well-conceived and well executed refinishing and restoration usually enhances the value of just about any piece of old furniture. Exceptions are those rare (often museum-quality) pieces that have somehow survived in great `original' condition. If we say or imply the contrary, we should be called on it."

That quote above is from Peter Cook of the antiques road show who was challenged by Bob Flexner to defend one of their stars gibberish on "original finish", AR had to back track in a hurry.

 

I just dug out entire letter

June 2002
Commentary “Antiques Roadshow”
and Refinishers
By Peter Cook

Awhile ago, we at Antiques Roadshow received a letter from
Professional Refinishing editor Bob Flexner, pointing out that our
apparent obsession (my word, not his) with "original finish" has had the effect of misleading the public about what repairing and refinishing actually do to the value of furniture - most furniture, that is.

We're now in our sixth season of Antiques Roadshow on PBS, and many millions tune in every week. No other PBS program attracts such numbers week after week, year after year, and if our audience enjoys the entertainment value of the show, they seem to appreciate the information they glean at least as much. This means, of course, that there's a real premium on the accuracy, dependability and usefulness of the information we provide.


Professional Refinishing contributor Larry Sullivan wrote in a May
2000 Commentary that, while it was fair enough to point out that for very old, very valuable, museum-quality furniture, "a refinished piece has less value than a piece in pristine original condition ... But the Roadshow reaches millions of people who almost never see this type of furniture other than in museums."

The Roadshow further misleads people Larry contended, because when the appraisers talk about value lost because of refinishing, they don't make the point that they're only talking about certain rare pieces. And they usually don't make the point that anything repaired and or refinished was probably in pretty poor shape to begin with. The unfortunate result is that more and more people are afraid to have their dilapidated furniture touched. "They're even afraid to have minor damage repaired for fear of making a serious financial mistake."

After noting that most people shouldn't have to worry about market value and "should be allowed to feel comfortable in having their furniture refinished and restored in a manner that pleases them," Larry closes by urging experts on the Roadshow to "play a key role in properly educating the public. While emphasizing the value and beauty of an original finish in good condition, they should also advise the public that most furniture does not lose value when refinished, and that, in fact, this furniture should get a new finish when the old one loses its visual and protective qualities."

These are very good points. I'd hate to think that we've created a subset of American furniture owners living in dread of a fatal financial misstep (though Antiques Roadshow is, after all, all about value, including market value).

We do have many people on the show - probably the majority - who have no intention of selling their pieces, and they are routinely
encouraged to enjoy and use their antiques. On occasion, we also go into some detail on issues of restoration and conservation. Still, if I'm reading this thing correctly it sounds as if the Roadshow furniture experts are always saying, by and large, "leaving things alone is good, refinishing is bad.

"Understandably, our Americana experts on the Roadshow live for wonderful old pieces of furniture that have somehow survived in terrific condition - pieces not used too hard, left out in strong light for long periods of time or forced to survive a flooded cellar. Most old furniture, of course, doesn't come close to meeting those standards. On the contrary, most furniture has been well used (even abused), scratched, broken, and often repaired many times. How could such furniture not be improved by a good job of refinishing or restoring?

I talked with some of our furniture specialists, and it's fair to say that I found more agreement than I expected on this issue. Stephen Fletcher of Skinner, Inc., told me that more and more people are now "smart enough" to ask the question about a given piece: "Is this something I shouldn't touch, or does it matter?" Others in our cadre of furniture regulars said more or less the same thing.

As an example, a great old secretary (bookcase on chest) made in about 1820 by Christian Shively came into our Indianapolis event this year. It had come to the current owner covered with 80- to 00-year-old paint, and she'd had the piece completely refinished. John Hays, the Americana specialist from Christie's, said, "You had no choice," and went on to compliment the refinishing work and state the obvious: that the restoration had saved the piece and created substantial value where there had been virtually none.

To be sure, this is just one instance held up against many others on the show that glorify an original finish, and it's true that we don't include very much "ordinary" furniture. We're planning a segment in a future Roadshow, however, involving three pieces of furniture: one that shouldn't be touched, one where it wouldn't make any difference what was done to it, and one someplace in the middle.

The question of what to do when a piece isn't quite perfect arises just about everywhere we go. At the Antiques Roadshow stop in New York City, Leigh Keno came across a classic, circa- 1765 Philadelphia candle stand he said was in beautiful "original" condition - except for a "new" finish that someone had applied to the top about a century ago and that was badly alligatored. Even with this defect, let's call it, Leigh thought the table would bring something like $150,000 in today's market.

Leigh asked the table's owner whether or not she was disposed to fix the top. She replied that she'd rather leave it alone, and Leigh agreed: "That's probably what I would do." Well, having heard from Professional Refinishing last year, we wanted to press Leigh on that point, so we asked him why this table wasn't a perfect candidate for a good, professional attack aimed at restoring something close to the coveted original finish? Wouldn't that both improve the aesthetic qualities of the piece and enhance its value?


The answer, Leigh said, was that many high-end collectors - his
customers - wouldn't mind the addition of the second finish, and that the old look of the craque lure might even be appealing to some. Trying to remove the added finish to reveal the original underneath is easier suggested than done: The original finish might not even be there, and refinishing would likely make the piece look too new.

So where does that leave us? Let the record show that Antiques Roadshow generally agrees with this notion: Well-conceived and well executed refinishing and restoration usually enhances the value of just about any piece of old furniture. Exceptions are those rare (often museum-quality) pieces that have somehow survived in great `original' condition. If we say or imply the contrary, we should be called on it.

I thank Professional Refinishing for the chance to address the issue here, and I hope many professionals in the refinishing business will let us know from time to time what they think.

Peter B. Cook, executive producer of Antiques Roadshow, has been a writer and producer at WGBH Boston for 32 years. His award-winning credits include The Advocates (1970-74), Arabs and Israelis (1975), and Concealed Enemies, winner of the national Emmy for Best
Limited Series in 1984. He also made a few trestle tables back when 5/4 by 18 clear pine was $1.25 afoot.

Reprinted from Professional Refinishing Magazine, June 2002

 

You can quote anyone you want, but when the rubber hits the road, it's the buyer who counts, not ARS guys or any other "experts". Humans are fickle creatures.

 

Yes agreed and, when buyers are fed a bunch of nonsense about "original finish" and sold objects that turned out to be not what were told it was supposed to be, bla bla bla, buyer's tend to drift off & say the hell with it all! Which is kind of where old furniture sales are these days.
Don't get me wrong, surface is important but not in the way it's been portrayed on TV much of the time. As a collector that rarely sells any pieces, the depression in old furniture prices have been a blessing for me, i've been able to acquire pieces i could only dream of 25 years ago.

 

This in my view is incorrect. Skinning to me is when you remove the patina or surface of the wood by sanding (a big NO NO) or dunking it in a vat of chemicals. Patina on wood is really just the oxidation of the surface & it really is skin deep so care must be taken not to remove this on any restore/refinish project. Dirt is dirt & not patina!
The real problem with all this? Fashions change and whenever a piece of old furniture is removed from the living space to the attic, basement, garage or barn, it's chances of survival are dramatically reduced. I would rather see a period queen anne or chippendale piece painted "shabby chic" if it stays in the house than demoted out of the house. Paint can be removed.
The bottom line? If one can restore the ceiling painting of the Sistine Chapel, probably the most important work of art in the western world, one can restore ANYTHING and certainly old furniture.

 

Now that i have completely blown this thread apart, i may as well post my findings on where all this "original finish" fetish started. John T Kirk (professor emeritus of art history at Boston University and a noted scholar of American furniture) is most likely the founding father of this movement.

The "original surface" fetish started in america during the 1970s when a relatively obscure art history professor, John T. Kirk, wrote a book with a chapter titled "Buy It Ratty And Leave It Alone". Mr Kirk was trying to stop the then disgraceful practice of some who were stripping PAINTED furniture in an attempt to sell it as something else. Naturally, some dealers/collectors took what was a good thing and turned it into a bad thing. In 2000, Kirk published an article in The Magazine Antiques commenting on the movement he inadvertently started 30 years before. Below are some excerpts from that article.

"In this article I wish to explore in detail the evolving understanding of what is today near the top of the list of questions most scholars, dealers, and collectors ask themselves when looking at an early piece: Is the surface original, and if so, how should it be treated?

In 1975 I wrote in The Impecunious Collector's Guide to American Antiques a chapter entitled "Buy It Ratty and Leave It Alone," addressing the then-current practice of removing original paint and its patina from furniture."

"Many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century painted pieces were made of two or more woods because each had a special structural quality needed in the design. A windsor chair, for example, might employ maple for the turned stretchers, legs, and supports under the fronts of the arms because its closed-grain character turned beautifully; pine, yellow poplar, or another soft wood made the shaping of the saddle seat easy; and springy ash or hickory might be used for the back spokes and top rail. A unifying coat of paint gave the chair a strong silhouette while covering the varying colors and grain patterns of the woods. The late nineteenth-and twentieth-century collectors who stripped the old paint, and the reproducers of early forms, reveled in the contrasts the different woods produced."

"After I wrote "Buy It Ratty and Leave It Alone," many collectors, and therefore dealers, took the ideas it expressed seriously, and, for a time, an untouched, grungy surface became more in demand, and even came to be known as a "Kirk surface."

"During the late 1970s and early 1980s the love and monetary worth of the ratty and dirty expanded from painted furniture to pieces that were highly styled and made to show off expensive woods, such as walnut, cherry, and mahogany. By the late 1990s the acceptance of the grungy was so widespread that on December 10, 1999, the Wall Street Journal ran an article entitled "Collecting, Today's Art Lesson: Grime Pays," with a subheading announcing "A Status Symbol: Filthy Furniture."

"The presence of dirty varnish on an object made to exhibit grain color and pattern as well as carving and pattern can help determine if parts have been changed, but it may unnecessarily reduce our ability to appreciate the maker's original vision."

"Dirt on a painted piece almost always means leaving it alone, for any cleaning normally diminishes the quality of the surface, but what about high-style pieces? Should they ever be cleaned of dirty varnish so that one can more dearly see the intention of the maker?"

"Thus, what to clean is really a two-part question. Painted pieces usually should not be touched because their surfaces are like those of early bronzes, where the original finish has become pitted, encrusted, and discolored, and we generally accept that it cannot be altered. In most cases it is even inadvisable to remove the finishing coat of varnish given to many painted pieces to make them brighter and easier to clean: in most cases the paint, varnish, and dirt cannot be separated from one another and leave a surface worth looking at. On the other hand, objects that were originally covered with a clear varnish to enhance and give a gloss to beautiful wood can be cleaned and revarnished without diminishing the maker's final aesthetic statement. (Undoubtedly, one of the reasons the cleaning of varnished pieces became unfashionable is that in the past many objects were ruined by drastic overcleaning.) Museums will probably take the lead in such cleaning, and there will undoubtedly be an outcry against it, as happened when restorers began to remove much of the famous golden light from Rembrandt's paintings by cleaning away yellowed varnish."

" The present high value of a dirty varnish on beautiful wood will diminish when connoisseurs begin to want to see clearly the maker's original choice of materials and design features and the glowing patina the wood has achieved."

 

Very erudite and informative, but the average buyer doesn't come along armed with encyclopedic facts. If you are buying something for your own use, do what you will. I polish my antique brass because I prefer it. However, when I buy an item to resell, I never, ever refinish it. It's up to the buyer to decide what's right for them. If I can get twice as much for an item with 'original' patina or finish, I'd be stupid to try and convince the buyer that it was a better idea to buy it the way I like it and maybe lose a sale. Why bother to do all that work for someone else?

 

Now that the subject has come back around to paint, I might point out that the OP's piece was probably not originally painted. Also, while quite old, it is not a fine antique worthy of advanced conservation. Consequently, whether or not the paint is retained on this piece is largely a matter of taste or consequence of usage.

 

Yep, i would agree 100% with what Brad said. I didn't mean to go on a rant about restore/refinish old furniture but it's a pet peeve of mine (among others). Thanks to the misinformation by some on ARS which was a smash hit on TV, you now have millions of people who think that to restore/refinish old furniture you will destroy it's value. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

I don't disagree. I've watched British shows where people don't want something UNLESS it's refinished.

 

Well, a good finish is vital to furniture if it has any plans to hang around, particularly if centuries of time are involved. Sunlight for instance will degrade a finish in no time at all. After all, how many of us have mansions where rooms are not used and furniture stored in the dark untouched for hundreds of years? It happens but, it's very rare.
It PAINS me to say it but the brits tend to be a bit more sophisticated than americans when it comes to this sort of thing. They should be, they have furniture dating to the middle ages.