Help- Mahogany Antique Dental Cabinet

Hi Everybody! Hoping y'all can help me out with some direction on a piece I recently inherited. My father recently gifted me a mahogany dental (maybe medical) cabinet. He found it at an antique shop in Franklin, TN about 20 years ago. It was painted white and she sold it for $200 but when they removed the paint they realized it was mahogany. The piece needs some TLC but I am also curious as to if it actually is a dental/medical cabinet. I don't really know how to go about getting it touched up...or refinished....or even if I should. I also don't even know where to look to determine who the maker was/is of the piece. The forum won't allow me to post pics. It seems to be having technical difficulty.

 

Mahogany Dental Cabinet by Alix posted Dec 10, 2016 at 11:02 AM

 

I would say medical cabinet, not dental. A dental cabinet usually has a lot more drawers.

 

Welcome!

 

Hello Alix:
Please take this in the spirit it's offered.

This forum is mostly open to the public, including guests and robots, & is not like facebook where only those you choose can see your photo's.
For that reason I recommend you alter your very sweet avatar to not show small children.
It's a pet peeve of mine, but in todays online world, I find posting pics of one's young kids on an open public forum .....is a practice , that could come back to bite you in the ass...hard !

 

I find posting pics of one's young kids on an open public forum .....is a practice , that could come back to bite you in the ass...hard

This is madness. Not only must there be a billion pictures of kids out there already, it is really not possible to see what could be an undesirable consequence of such a harmless (and tiny) picture.

 

Agree medical cabinet circa 1900 or so. Doesn't look like it needs too much based on what I can see in the enlarged pic. You might find that all it needs is some Scott's liquid gold unless there is something I am not seeing. These are popular and a purchase 20 years ago at $200.00 was a very good deal even painted. Values are not as high these days but I still see this as being worth easily $500.00 or quite a bit more in the right venue.

 

Yeah....I mentioned that to my dad (who was a dentist). It was missing all the drawers. Only two drawers for tools under the top part. There are glass shelves that I haven't installed in the big glass cabinets. Thanks for your input. My parents are big antiques collectors and they retired recently and started offloading a lot of the stuff to us kids. This was in my dad'S office for years and always my favorite piece.

 

Like I said, it's a pet peeve of mine.....I only made a recommendation....& it was offered up as a friendly precaution ....

Now ...as to madness.....that's thinking that nothing bad will ever happen to you , regardless of choices you've made when it comes to how you present yourself on the internet.
Travelling by airplane is the safest mode of present day transportation.....until you find yourself on the NOT ALLOWED plane that goes down with no survivors.

Gift cards are a multi billion dollar industry, & most are bought and sold with no problems whatsoever. The gift card I got as a present was hacked into at the store , copied, and used in the next Province over , leaving the card I had in my hand emptied of all monies....before I even had a chance to use it.

Now, you almost never hear of that happening because the card companies and stores that sell them do not want you to know this....as for them it's just the cost of doing business, & they fear it would affect sales .

What goes on , on the internet that you don't hear or know about would fill terabytes of storage......& the bad stuff ...that could never happen to you.....would curl your toes !!

" tiny picture"........????
We blow up tiny pictures here all the time !!!!!!!!!!

Photo's of unknown children are one thing.......current photo's of young kids with their parents...that's another matter completely.

AF...I respect your right to question my thoughts on the matter at hand, but my folks taught me.." better safe, than sorry.." ....and with what I find to be today's almost total lack of personal responsibility at posting personal photo's on the world wide web , if you don't mind, I'll continue to advise caution when I see it being done here !

KOMO

PS. sorry Alix for highjacking your thread . It a lovely piece of furniture !

 

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Ya Think !!!!

 

Just an update for the followers and contributors. This actually is a Dental Cabinet. It was manufactured around 1923 by the American Cabinet Company. It was marketed to dentists as “state of the art” technology at the time....and obviously before there was a robust understanding of microbiology (lol). Depending on condition these go for anywhere from $1500-$3500. I received an offer of $2000 but decided to keep it because it reminds me of my dad (who was a dentist)

 

Wow!

 

And I have a Dentist friend who would LOVE that!!!!! What's going on with the feet???

 

There are brass toned metal covers that go on the feet. We removed them prior to this picture being taken. They were extremely loose and I was concerned the movers would drop one.

 

I also have an entire cache of antique dental products and tools my dad collected over 25+ years...included a false teeth repair kit. Those items aren’t pictured but I’ve since put them out.

 

OK, that explains that!!!!! BEST way NOT to lose them!!!!! I think it's GREAT that you want to keep it because of your Dad!!!

 

Cool story! Nice that you are hanging on to it too because of Dad!

 

Yeah. It will always remind me of him so I couldn’t bear to let it go. I hope to keep it in our family.