Featured Lane Waterfall Chest? But different?

I'm debating on whether I'm refinishing this piece and selling it, or just fixing the veneer and selling it . To me it looks like your standard blanket chest, waterfall design from Art Deco period. Maybe from Lane, I'm unsure, there wasn't any type of tag, serial, or label. Made of cedar and walnut burl veneer, has some nice inlay. The tongue and groove joinery is nice, I love the details. Either way, I see these going for around $100-200 in my area - I paid $10 for it. Pretty obvious why it was so cheap!

It's missing it's left sliding hinge, unfortunately . Sorry I couldn't take better photos, I was in a rush before the rain. I'll make sure to get some of the hardware and inside tomorrow.

What do you guys think? Did I identify it right?

 

I think you're correct about 1930s
I wouldn't call it Waterfall, I always thought those were rounded.
I believe Lane marked their furniture.
I could be wrong, wait for someone to confirm or deny.

 

Hi, Dan -

Well, I'm no furniture guru, and I'm sure someone else will have more & better info for you, but here are my thoughts:

1) I don't see the waterfall top that would make this a waterfall chest;
2) It doesn't have any Lane markings, so it's very likely not Lane.

Lane used stamped markings inside the top, and numbers (style number & serial/date) either inside or under their chests. Here are some examples:



style & serial/date numbers:

The style number is pretty straight forward.
The serial number indicates the production date. You have to read the serial number backwards.
On the one above, the serial number: 831070, indicates that it was made on 07/01/38.

The thing is, cedar chests were very popular for a long time, and LOTS of manufacturers made them. Lane is the one many people think of first, but there were many, many other manufacturers.

 

Ditto all of the above

 

Those hinges aren't a problem as most hardware stores will have them.

 

There was a thread where someone mention using a hot iron to iron the veneer down.

You might want to investigate YouTube and see if they show something like that.

 

The poor thing looks like it survived Maria. I'd have a go at ironing down that veneer too; at ten bucks you can't get badly hurt if it goes wrong, and the chest is already almost a goner.

 

My previous job before selling antiques was as a furniture builder for a custom shop. Some would say, "Oh that makes it easy!" but seeing what I've seen.... It's not gonna be fun with this water damage and buckling. There seems to be some shoddy repairs already done to it, too. Almost feel like they should have given ME $10 to haul it off their property!


I heat gunned, rolled and hide glue'd a few sections.... But it looks like I'm not the first one to repair this veneer. I'm thinking I'll take out the hardware and sell that, rip off the veneer, and use this piece as a slave to my other projects.

This nice burl veneer will really come in handy in the near future. It's THICK too!


I can't see myself selling something with this shoddy worksmanship to a customer and I don't think the time it'd take is worth it. Oh well! Now onto the secretary desk I scored for free!

 

The hardware alone ought to be worth the ten bucks. And a free desk... any day, all day. Hmmm - what would happen if you took off all the veneer and sanded it down and painted it?

 

Yeah, i am goin with evelyb on this one.

 

That's so sad to see all that veneer gone to pot!! In this case, removing it, sanding and painting, as stated above, might be a GOOD thing!!!!!