Chest of drawers find. Wondering age.

Hi all. Havent posted in a while. No longer have my store so I just kind of do finds on the side so not had a lot of stuff lately. Hope all are well.

I was at a little honey hole thrift store near me in the south east US. Found this chest of drawers for $85. Just glanced at it before buying, but when I got it home, I noticed that it might be a little older than I thought. Dove tails look hand done to me. The back doesnt look factory. I even feel like some of the smaller nails dont look factory, although it looks like the back has been redone with newer nails at some point.

Heres the pics. I can get exact dimensions tomorrow but its about 50ish inches high and 30ish wide.

I bought it thinking it was like early 20th century and planed to drop white paint on the base and refinish the top (yeah yeah, but it sells here). But if this is old and hand done I will do like I've done on a few others and just find a space for it if its not worth anything in the current market and just hold it.

I can't bring my self to slap paint on something that's a real antique with real history to it.

 

More pics

 

I may do some better pics tomorrow when the suns up. Lighting is bad there and it was night time.

Also, this is empire right?

 

Ok now looking inside at how the runners are done, I dont think its that old and maybe done in a factory. Ill show a pic tomorrow, but Im sure others can already tell it may not be very old. 1850-1900 maybe? Thanks again.

 

Yes, typical panel construction of mid 19th century, 1850s-1860s, late Classical style, looks like Cherry, very nice for $85 I'd say.
The drawer boxes are made by hand, everything else by machine. This dresser was well used as it looks like repairs to bottom of drawer runners but this doesn't hurt value.
No, I wouldn't paint Cherry, too nice a cabinet wood to paint and this one has some nice figure on drawer fronts.

 

Thanks for the response James. My intent when I started posting on this forum was to try and learn from you guys so glad to see I am picking up a thing or two finally