Featured Old Hybrid - Wood Table. Age, Style and Wood Kind help please.

Hello to everyone.
My spontaneous purchase. Couple weeks ago I was picking up my girlfriend for Saturday Lady’s breakfast and found this table, her next-door neighbors were putting outside for their Garage sale. They didn’t even finish to move it, but I already bought it and they move this table direct in my car. I even didn’t’ take attention to details. I just loved it so much!!! Yes, it looked old, but I even didn’t think how old. I didn’t care. Only later, after I came back home I started check the details and I found that probably this table made from two different parts. The style and kind of wood of the top with chessboard is different from the style and kind of wood of bottom. There is even visible the line / wear from the previous original top. (I am sending picture too.)
All of this only my thoughts and maybe I am wrong.
The top of table is signed at the bottom (it is pricked on the wood):
Made By G. W. Wallace
Hugo, Okla.
1936
I would like to find what kind of wood of top and bottom; How old the “bottom” part and what style it is.

Measurements: Top 27” x 27” & 30” H and it is VERY heavy.

I would be grateful to everyone for their help.

Thank you,
Inessa

 

Score! I don’t know if a new table top was added to an existing base and/or if there used to be something there to store game pieces, but either way it’s cool. Where are you? Now I’m curious and I want to log into Ancestry and see if I can find your carpenter

 

lovely table...... by a fine woodworker !

 

The Art Nouveau floral panels & the top may have both been added by the skilled G. W. Wallace-either way it's a nice creation.
Here's someone who knows way more than me, our furniture expert-
@verybrad

 

I am from Texas.

 

Thank you very much!!!

 

@verybrad Hello Sir, I am back with one more "piece of wood".

 

Nice piece of wood! Whoever the woodworker was, he knew his stuff.

 

Looks made by two different people. I wonder if the top is older (antique?).

 

Does look like a marriage. A craftperson's game board put atop a commercial table.

Debora

 

Agree with Debora. Bottom is a walnut (possibly English) lamp table base, circa 1900. Top was probably made by Wallace and also walnut. Looks to be inlaid with burl walnut, chestnut, and maple. Not 100% sure about the top woods. A better pic shooting straight down at the top would be helpful.

 

@Any Jewelry @Debora
It is exactly what I was thinking about. And it is why I called this table "Hybrid" - I was taking pictures of table in the garage next to my Lincoln Aviator Hybrid and was thinkin: Well, my table looks like a Hybrid too.

 

Hi Brad! Thank you! I will go take another picture. I will be back.

 

@verybrad Here you are.
There are some burr walnut squares remind me Karelian Birch

 

lovely woodworking..

 

I went so far down that rabbit hole! I definitely can’t say I found the maker for sure. However, I found a G.W. Wallace born in Oklahoma who died in Texas, AND an older G.W. Wallace who was born in Texas and died in Ada, Oklahoma, but was in Hugo in at least part of 1936. The son of the latter spent at least a year in Texas starting in 1941. There are a *large* number of Wallaces who started in one of the states and ended in the other, so it isn’t too hard to imagine how it got there. Anyhoo:

I’m pretty sure he’s not the maker, but he might have had possession. My favorite candidate for maker is this fellow:

who moved from Hugo to Ada in 1936 to be closer to his kids.
From the July 1939 Obituary:
“G. W. Wallace Dies In Hospital At Ada

HUGO, July 18--G. W. Wallace, retired building contractor who erected many of the brick buildings In Hugo, died in the Valley View hospital at Ada, at 5:30 a. m., Saturday following an illness of several years. He was 74 years old.

The body was brought overland to Hugo early Sunday and funeral services were conducted from the First Presbyterian church at 3 p. m. by the Rev. Mitchell Epperson, pastor of the First Presbyterian church at Ada. Burial was in Mount Olivet cemetery

Surviving in addition to his wife are a son and a daughter, Arch Wallace, Instructor in the East Central State college, Ada; and Mrs. Rose Fooshee, also of Ada.

Mr. and Mrs. Wallace moved to Ada in 1936 to be near their child-ren. Both have been in poor health for several years.

They came to Hugo in 1908 where Mr. Wallace engaged in the construction business until his retirement in 1925. Until they moved to Ada in 1936, they resided on East Duke street where they still own a home…”

Of course, I could also be completely wrong ‍♀️

 

@Born2it THANK YOU!!!!! I was checking too, and found father and son with same name, but I was checking and checking, but I didn't find so "deep" information and anything related to Hugo. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!! I love history!!!! And it is part of history.
I checked again the year on the top, I have asked my neighbors to check: yes, it is 1936 and it means George W. Wallace you found is the right person!!! So interesting.

 

I just got information from people who sold me table... and it is not helpful. My girlfriend I had breakfast with at the day I bought the table from her neighbors, left in couple day after that day with family to Europe for two weeks vacation. I didn't want to bother her with question during her vacation, but they came back home yesterday and today she asked her neighbors about the table. Well these people bought this table from Goodwill just couple days before they sold it to me. They wanted to refinish it, but than they decided it is too much work for them (they are elderly couple) and decided to sale it. They sold it to me for $50.00 and they told my friend they paid just $19.99.+ Tax. The $25 they added for "moving from store to the house".

 

Thanks for the new pics. What I thought was chestnut, apears to be more walnut. Sticking with the maple or, possibly, birch for the lightest color wood. The burl still looks like walnut to me but hard to tell from such small pieces. Once this gets a better finish on it, the woods may be more distinctive.

Profit is the name of the game for many of us seniors who haunt the thrift stores. Their quick flip made them some decent profit and provided you with the opportunity to acquire a table you might not have seen otherwise, at a price you are happy with. You and I both know this would be quite a bit higher in a retail environment. Given that you bought as it was brought out, you probably did not get a chance to dicker with the sellers. Later in the day, you might have gotten a better bargain but you might have just as well missed out to someone like you who didn't wait.

True story: A friend of mine posted her garage sale the night before opening. I spied a small chip-carved table for $15.00 and messaged her to hold it for me. She replied that she would. Her house was withing walking distance from mine (about a mile or so) so I took the opportunity for a morning stroll. I arrived at her sale about 15 minutes past her opening time.

As I was walking up, a young couple had the table in their hands and was getting ready to purchase it. I piped up that this was the table I asked to be held for me. I don't know if it was because of my greater age, my look of desperation, or the beads of sweat from having walked a mile, but the couple agreed to let me have the table. My friend had thought I meant a different table when I messaged her Obviously, I paid her full asking price, having asked her to hold it. I don't know if the young couple had tried to bargain or not.

Later in the day, I bumped in to a mutual friend and told him about my purchase. He said he had seen our friend's post and knew what table I was talking about. Turns out, he had sold it to her earlier in the year for $7.00. Though she bought it just as he was putting it out to sell, he did give her a price reduction due to friendship. Knowing him, I am sure he probably bought the table for just a few dollars at another garage sale and made some profit on it.

Now, the question becomes, what is the value of the table? Is it the few dollars the first person paid, the $7.00 my friend paid, or the $15.00 that I paid? I am not selling the table any time soon but know I could probably double my money or more in a retail environment. The truth is that the table is worth what someone is willing to pay given certain time and circumstances. In each sales opportunity above, there was an impetus to buy within limited time constraints. Each buyer knew that the table would likely not be available for purchase later (or that they would not be there later to purchase).

An impetus to buy is probably the most important aspect of any given sales situation. How many pieces have foundered in antique stores waiting for someone to come along and buy? There is always the attitude that the piece will be there later if one decides they really want it. Take that same piece and put it in a one or two day sale, price it right, and it will fly out the door. While I believe I could double my money on said table in a retail setting, it is just as likely to sit for ages as it is to sell quickly.

There is a price threshold and I don't know what the threshold is for this piece. Obviously, at $15.00 or less it sells quickly. How quickly will it sell at $30.00? Is it worth $50.00 in a different store setting? Maybe if talked up as folk art and sold in New York is it worth a $100.00 or more? While I doubt it, stranger things have happened.

 

@verybrad
Awww.... So interesting story. The reason I decided to buy this table, because I finally decided to learn the restoring process for wood furniture (of course as dilettante ). I like to do something new and learn new. I like to buy interesting old items, learn about them. I am buying a lot old stuff not only for me, for house, but most of them for presents for our big family (from my hubby's side). Everybody knows our presents for Christmas or BD, will be the best. But sometimes if will be found that the purchased items not needed, I will sale it and use profit for buying more. Plus I am learning so much new! But I always was enjoying watching the restoration process of antique / vintage wood furniture. Videos with this process are like relaxing therapy for me and finally I decided if I will find the piece of old furniture I will like it, I will try to do my first project. And though I don't have a place for new furniture in our house, I have a big family who will be so happy to get it after restoration.
Actually when I was buying this table, I even didn't have a clue, that it is so old. I just like it. Now I am in learning process for furniture restoration. I was going to take some classes, but we don't have any in our town. I found some classes in Austin, but this two days classes, only about kinds of finish: different kind finish for different kind of wood. Then I found online full package classes with CDs and other stuff (I think this company from England) and another online classes from guy from another state. I am thinking which one to pick, but for now I am watching videos about restoration of furniture on youtube. I am watching them everyday hours and hours. Love it!
Brad, thank you very much for help. I am very grateful.
P.S. By the way, I bought another small side ( or phone) table on Sunday and it is Danish style. This "baby" needs some treatment and I couldn't leave him in the store. I will send a post with this table next time. There is the metal Copper tag with name of the company:
Fine Furniture Gordon’s Inc Johnson City, Tenn , but the period is from 1947 to 1998.