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Thomas W Lawrence
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All American
Auction Service
A Business That Works For You!
Rebecca L Lawrence
( "Becky" Auctioneer )
Thomas W
Lawrence
( Business
Manager )
Michigan Contract Auctioneers
Estate Auctions / Liquidations / Contract Auctioneering / Benefit / Charity Auctions / Antique & Collectibles / Appraisals / Estate Sale Setup
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Articles of Interest To Read
Libraries Have Books Bound in Human Skin
Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Brown University's library boasts an anatomy book that combines form and function in macabre fashion. Its cover - tanned and polished to a smooth golden brown, like fine leather - is made of human skin.
In fact, a number of the nation's finest libraries, including Harvard's, have such books in their collections. The practice of binding books in human skin was not uncommon in centuries past, even if it was not always discussed in polite society.
At the time, the best libraries belonged to private collectors. Some were doctors who had access to skin from amputated parts and patients whose bodies had gone unclaimed. In other cases, wealthy bibliophiles acquired skin from executed criminals, medical school cadavers and people who died in the poor house.
Nowadays, libraries typically keep such volumes in their rare book collections and do not allow them to circulate. But scholars can examine them.
Brown's John Hay Library has three books bound in human skin - the 1568 anatomy text by the Belgian surgeon Andreas Vesalius, and two 19th-century editions of "The Dance of Death," a medieval morality tale.
One copy of "The Dance of Death" was rebound in 1893 by Joseph Zaehnsdorf, a master binder in London. A note to his client reports that he did not have enough skin and had to split it. The front cover, bound in the outer layer of skin, has a slightly bumpy texture, like soft sandpaper. The spine and back cover, made from the inner layer, feel like suede.
"The Dance of Death" is about how death prevails over all, rich or poor. As with many other skin-bound volumes, "there was some tie-in with the content of the book," said Sam Streit, director of the John Hay Library.
Similarly, many of the volumes are medical books. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia has some books bound by Dr. John Stockton Hough, who diagnosed the city's first case of trichinosis. He used that patient's skin to bind three of the volumes.
"The hypothesis that I was suggesting is that these physicians did this to honor the people who furthered medical research," said Laura Hartman, a rare-book cataloger at the National Library of Medicine in Maryland and author of a paper on the subject.
In most cases, universities and other libraries acquired the books as donations or as part of collections they purchased.
It is not clear whether some of the patients knew what would happen to their bodies. In most cases, the skin appears to have come from poor people who had no one to claim their remains. In any case, the practice took place well before the modern age of consent forms and organ donor cards.
While human leather may be repulsive to contemporary society, libraries can ethically have the books in their collections if they are used respectfully for academic research and not displayed as objects of curiosity, said Paul Wolpe of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
"There is a certain distancing that history gives us from certain kinds of artifacts," Wolpe said, noting that museums often have bones from archaeological sites. "If you had called me and said these are books from Nazi Germany, I would have a very different response."
The Boston Athenaeum, a private library, has an 1837 copy of George Walton's memoirs bound in his own skin. Walton was a highwayman - a robber who specialized in ambushing travelers - and left the volume to one of his victims.
The Cleveland Public Library has a Quran that may have been bound in the skin of its previous owner, an Arab tribal leader.
Decades ago, the Harvard Law School Library bought a 1605 manual for Spanish lawyers for $42.50 from an antiquarian books dealer in New Orleans. It sat on a shelf unnoticed until the early 1990s, when curator David Ferris was going through the library catalog and found a note saying it was bound in a man's skin.
DNA tests as to whether it is human skin were inconclusive - the genetic material having been destroyed by the tanning process - but the library had a box made to store the book and now keeps it on a special shelf.
"We felt we couldn't set it just next to someone else's law books," Ferris said.
When most people use the term "mirror," they are referring to what is known as a plane mirror. A plane mirror takes the light that hits it and reflects it back. Mirrors used for common consumer purposes are of this sort.
A mirror is essentially a highly reflective surface. The sorts of mirrors one sees on walls or in bathrooms are of a type known as back-silvered mirrors. This means that the reflective surface--in most modern mirrors this is aluminum--is viewed through a thin layer of glass. The glass protects the aluminum from scratching and bubbling, but also distorts the image somewhat.
Early mirrors were created by simply polishing a suitable substance until it became highly reflective. Neolithic mirrors have been discovered, made by grinding down obsidian rocks and polishing them to an incredible sheen. These mirrors have remarkable properties, allowing even subtle details to be clearly seen in their reflections.
To make a Neolithic mirror, one need first find the right stone--ideally, obsidian. A rougher stone is used to grind the base stone down to a flat surface on one side. After a flat surface is achieved, a finer grinding stone and clay slip can be used to polish the stone to a fully reflective sheen. Extremely fine abrasives, such as ash, can help further. After a substantial amount of time and effort, one will have created a very primitive form of mirror.
Modern mirrors, however, are made using an entirely different process. By taking liquid metals and allowing them to condense on a sheet of glass, one can get a surface far more reflective than anything achieved by polish. Making a mirror can be done at home with only a few supplies easily acquired at a local chemistry shop.
With pure silver nitrate, distilled water, and ammonia, one can make a mirror virtually indistinguishable from those purchased at a store. The process (in abbreviated form) involves dissolving a small amount of silver nitrate in distilled water, then adding diluted ammonia until the mixture goes through distinct chemical changes. A second mixture is made using silver nitrate and Rochelle salts. This mixture must be boiled and filtered. By pouring these mixtures on to a very clean piece of glass sufficiently heated to the proper temperature, the silver will precipitate and form an even coating on the glass. After drying, one can coat the back of the silver with a solid paint to help prevent degradation of the silver. The result is a fully functional mirror.
Commercial mirrors are manufactured in more or less the same manner as is described above, though materials such as aluminum might be used instead of silver. Mirrors produced for specialized purposes, such as lasers or telescopes, are manufactured using much more exacting techniques to acquire a much more precise mirror, but the general principles remain the same.
From Encyclopedia Britanica:
The typical mirror is a sheet of glass that is coated on its back with aluminum or silver that produces images by reflection. The mirrors used in Greco-Roman antiquity and throughout the European Middle Ages were simply slightly convex disks of metal, either bronze, tin, or silver, that reflected light off their highly polished surfaces. A method of backing a plate of flat glass with a thin sheet of reflecting metal came into widespread production in Venice during the 16th century; an amalgam of tin and mercury was the metal used. The chemical process of coating a glass surface with metallic silver was discovered by Justus von Liebig in 1835, and this advance inaugurated the modern techniques of mirror making. Present-day mirrors are made by sputtering a thin layer of molten aluminum or silver onto the back of a plate of glass in a vacuum. In mirrors used in telescopes and other optical instruments, the aluminum is evaporated onto the front surface of the glass rather than on the back, in order to eliminate faint reflections from the glass itself.
When light falls on a body some of the light may be reflected, some absorbed, and some transmitted through the body. In order for a smooth surface to act as a mirror, it must reflect as much of the light as possible and must transmit and absorb as little as possible. In order to reflect light rays without scattering or diffusing them, a mirror's surface must be perfectly smooth or its irregularities must be smaller than the wavelength of the light being reflected. (The wavelengths of visible light are on the order of 5 10-5 cm.) Mirrors may have plane or curved surfaces. A curved mirror is concave or convex depending on whether the reflecting surface faces toward the centre of curvature or away from it. Curved mirrors in ordinary usage have surfaces that are spherical, cylindrical, paraboloidal, ellipsoidal, and hyperboloidal. Spherical mirrors produce images that are magnified or reduced--exemplified, respectively, by mirrors for applying facial makeup and by rearview mirrors for automobiles. Cylindrical mirrors focus a parallel beam of light to a line focus. A paraboloidal mirror may be used to focus parallel rays to a real focus, as in a telescope mirror, or to produce a parallel beam from a source at its focus, as in a searchlight. An ellipsoidal mirror will reflect light from one of its two focal points to the other, and an object situated at the focus of a hyperboloidal mirror will have a virtual image.
Mirrors have a long history of use both as household objects and as objects of decoration. The earliest mirrors were hand mirrors; those large enough to reflect the whole body did not appear until the 1st century AD. Hand mirrors were adopted by the Celts from the Romans and by the end of the Middle Ages had become quite common throughout Europe, usually being made of silver, though sometimes of polished bronze. (See decorative art.)
The use of glass with a metallic backing commenced in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, and, by the time of the Renaissance, Nürnberg and Venice had established outstanding reputations as centres of mirror production. The mirrors produced in Venice were famous for their high quality. Despite the strictures of the doges, Venetian workmen succumbed to the temptation to carry the secrets of their craft to other cities, and, by the middle of the 17th century, mirror making was practiced extensively in London and Paris. Generally, mirrors were extremely expensive--especially the larger variety--and the wonderment created at the time by the royal palace at Versailles was due in part to the profusion of mirrors that adorned the state rooms.
From the late 17th century onward, mirrors--and their frames--played an increasingly important part in the decoration of rooms. The early frames were usually of ivory, silver, ebony, or tortoiseshell or were veneered with marquetry of walnut, olive, and laburnum. Needlework and bead frames were also to be found. Craftsmen such as Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721) often produced elaborately carved mirror frames to match a complete decorative ensemble. The tradition soon became established of incorporating a mirror into the space over the mantelpiece: many of the early versions of these mirrors, usually known as overmantels, were enclosed in glass frames. The architectural structure of which these mirrors formed a part became progressively more elaborate; designers such as the English brothers Robert and James Adam created fireplace units stretching from the hearth to the ceiling and depending largely for their effect on mirrors. On the whole, mirror frames reflected the general taste of the time and were often changed to accommodate alterations in taste, frames usually being cheaper and hence more easily replaced than the mirror itself. (See interior design, Adam, Robert.)
By the end of the 18th century, painted decoration largely supplanted carving on mirrors, the frames being decorated with floral patterns or classical ornaments. At the same time, the French started producing circular mirrors, usually surrounded by a Neoclassical gilt frame that sometimes supported candlesticks, which enjoyed great popularity well into the 19th century. Improved skill in mirror making also made possible the introduction of the cheval glass, a freestanding full-length mirror, supported on a frame with four feet. These were mainly used for dressing purposes, though occasionally they had a decorative function.
New, cheaper techniques of mirror production in the 19th century led to a great proliferation in their use. Not only were they incorporated into pieces of furniture, such as wardrobes and sideboards, but they were also used extensively in decorative schemes for public places.
The earliest marbles were rolled out of clay, and therefore did not offer any technological insight for glass marble makers. In fact, it was a man with a background in metal ball-bearings who was able to contrive a machine to shape marbles. Martin Christensen, in 1902, patented his invention of belts and rotating wheels as the first automatic marble maker. The globs of heated glass were individually melted off the end of cylindrical canes by hand, and placed in the machine, so only part of the process was automated. These marbles didn’t have pontils, the nubs left over from where the rod was severed from the glob, so they rolled straighter in the game of marbles.
The machine was an improvement upon shaping marbles entirely by hand over a heatsource. James Leighton's work provided an intermediary step in mechanization in 1891. He patented a tool resembling tongs with a spherical mold on its end, based on an earlier German toymaker's method. While not automated in any way, the process sped up production.
Increasing demand during the 1920s and 30s could be successfully met by mechanized marble companies. Children and adults alike were caught up in the marble craze, collecting fancy "shooters" and entering tournaments. The game of marbles relies on flicking marbles at other players' marbles, within a boundary, in order to take them out of play.
In modern machines, lots of glass melts at once in a furnace around 1500 degrees Fahrenheit (815 degrees Celsius). Once the glass is freely flowing, it streams down a slide nicknamed the Gobfeeder, into the grooved mechanism. Swaths of colored glass can be added at this point. Each wheel's edge has a semicircular groove, and when matched up with another, the space between them is a sphere, just like Christenson's. The hot, bright orange gobs of glass are separated and rolled while they are malleable. When they have been rolled into perfect spheres and cooled sufficiently to maintain their shape, the machine pushes them out to a bin to be packaged and sold.
Marble-making is also alive among the fine arts community. Glass blowers and artisans still form marbles with tongs, a blow torch, a mold and a kiln, the way handmade glass beads are made. These talented people make stunning marbles with dragons or butterflies at their center in dazzling colors.
Wrought iron is a confusing term that refers to both a type of metal and a process of formation. More traditionally, wrought iron is a variety of iron, with additives that make it twistable with a low corrosion rate. However, manufacture of this type of iron has been limited to Europe since 1969, because it is very expensive to make and fell out of fashion. More likely, when someone says "wrought iron," they refer to a forged (not truly wrought) iron that resembles the former in appearance, but is made out of steel. This decorative iron creates reproductions for patio furniture, window screens, and custom fencing.
Authentic wrought iron differs from steel in that it is impregnated with tiny slivers of iron silicate known as "slag." When distributed as fibers, the slag changes the chemical properties of the iron enough to create a new and beneficial metal. We value wrought iron for strength under tensile pressure, resistance to corrosion, malleability, and how well it keeps a finish. Most metals, when corroding, exhibit ugly patches of discolored rust. But wrought iron distributes the rust into a beautiful dappled coppery or brownish finish that appeals to people's sense of age.
We still have many antique examples of wrought iron on window grates, balconies, doors, and other architectural elements from as far back as the Romans. This ancient, royal decor from before the 18th century was made out of wrought iron from a charcoal fire. Not until "puddled" iron was possible through mass production did wrought iron become popular among common people. In the 21st century, Britain's blacksmiths are experiencing a renaissance in wrought iron work with supplies from scrap metal.
In the design world, "wrought iron" increasingly refers to a style of metalwork that hearkens back to the heyday of scrolls and curlicues from the Iron Age through Medieval times and into the Protestant Reformation. These ornamental items are distinguished by their twists and turns that give them an attractive shape. Inexpensive accessories, such as candleholders, lamps, and plant stands decorate many contemporary homes. Most of this ironwork is actually cast iron, and can be identified by brittleness and perfect symmetry, since it is made out of a mold.
Individuals can test their own gold and silver items with a few basic tools and acid. Nitric acid can be obtained from most jewelry supply houses and used to determine whether an item is gold or gold-plated on steel or copper. A good strong magnet, available at any hardware store, is useful to test whether the item is just gold-plated over steel. Gold is not magnetic. Gold-filled items are not magnetic, because the gold is usually over copper. Gold-filled items can be tested by filing a deep notch in the surface and putting a drop of nitric acid over the filed notch. If it starts to bubble green color, it is the copper reacting to the acid and it is gold-filled. When nitric acid is applied to 10 KT. gold, it will turn a reddish brown in color. 14 KT. will not change color and the acid will just look like a drop of water on it. From 18 KT. to 24 KT will stay bright on a touch stone, but is hard to tell any difference between the karat value. There are numerous electronic testers on the market that will tell the karat value of gold items and some that can test for platinum. Electronic testers are not nearly as accurate as an actual fire assay, but can serve as a tool to get a basic idea of what an unknown piece of metal is, or is not. Electronic gold testers are available through jewelry supply companies. You can also determine whether a silver colored piece of flatware or jewelry is sterling silver or silver plated over base metal or copper by filing a deep notch in it and applying acid in the notch. If the item is sterling silver it will turn an ashy light gray in color, but if it starts to bubble green at the notch, it is silver plated over copper or other base metal.
The Electronic Gold Tester (or the so-called Gold Pen) is a cheap, although portable technique based on the capacitance decay principle. Accuracy is poor, being correct to only 1-2 carats (4-8%) and is compromised if the surface is gold-plated, for example. It is useful only as a sorting test.
The density of carat golds reduces as caratage is lowered and this gives rise to density measurement as a possible method of measuring gold content, using Archimedes principle. However, density is also influenced by the other alloying constituents and so the accuracy of the method is poor. Jewellery containing defects such as porosity would further reduce the accuracy of density measurement. It is not recommended.
What is marked?
The marking of jewellery with its gold content varies from country to country. Some mark with the caratage, typically 18 or 18 ct (or 18K in USA and some other countries) and others mark with the fineness, e.g. 750 (e.g. in the U.K.). At 14 carat, the mark 14KP is found in the USA, the P indicating ‘plumb’ to differentiate between the US standard and the international standard for 14 carat.
Comparison of Assaying Techniques
Technique |
Versatility |
Sample size |
Accuracy |
Limitations |
Equipment Cost |
Fire Assay |
Only gold |
~ 250 mg |
0.02% |
Modifications for |
Moderate $50,000 |
ICP |
Complete analysis |
~20 mg |
0.1% |
- |
High |
XRF |
Complete analysis |
Non-destructive |
0.1 - 0.5% |
Surface layer, flat samples |
Moderate $25,000+ |
Touchstone |
Only gold |
Almost non-destructive |
1-2% |
Unsuitable for |
Low |
Electronic Pen |
Only gold |
Non- destructive |
4-8% |
Not consistent |
Low |
Density |
Only gold |
Non-destructive |
Poor |
Only for binary alloys |
Low |
http://www.nationaljewelerssupplies.com/page/NJS/CTGY/gold-testing?referral=Adwords+Gold_Tester
http://www.antiquesupply.com/catalog/Gold_Electronic-116-1.html
http://www.antiquesupply.com/catalog/Gold_Acids-117-1.html
http://www.antiquesupply.com/catalog/Silver-119-1.html
http://www.delpozzo.com/tools/gTesterWc.htm
To decide whether or not a stone is genuine, dealers typically look for tiny ridges left from cutting and polishing.
Diamonds are so hard they cannot become shiny smooth like the fakes. Uncut diamonds defy imitation even better as they are solid crystals, and so a big challenge to the would-be fakers.
Most well known imitation varieties are Russian synthetics, zircon, topaz and quartz.
Sometimes the proof lies in the veins of hard crust, found in about one per cent of diamonds.
These are in fact the bane of the cutters as they resist proper cutting and can take up to five or six months before the stone finally gets into the traditional 57 facets.
A piece of wisdom from the world of diamonds is that people in the business believe that two years of experience as a cutter puts one in a better position to differentiate between real and fake gems than a dealer who has been in the trade for 5-6 years.
The weight of a diamond is usually gauged by how many of its size makes one carat; there are 100 points in a carat and 142 carats in an ounce.
Depending on the weights, 100, 60, 50 or 40 diamonds can make up one carat. Each point above one carat is more valuable than each point below one carat.
Without question the quickest and most reliable method for authenticity would be an independent appraisal. This can be accomplished easily enough by looking under "Appraisal (Jewelry)" in your yellow pages. When you call to enquire about their services you want to ask three questions:
1.) Can you schedule an appointment or is it first come first served.
2.) Ask the fee; $35.00-$75.00 is considered a fair price.
3.) Ask if the jewelry will always be in your presence. If the appraiser says they will not evaluate the jewelry in front of you, find another appraiser.
If spending 50 bucks seems a little too steep to uncover the identity of your rock, you can head to your local jewelry store and ask their in-house gemologist to take a peek and give you their opinion. Since opinions are like belly buttons (everyone’s got one) understand that in a lot of these quick 30-second evaluations mistakes can be made. Especially since most jewelers won’t charge you for 30 seconds of their time. (Just like with independent appraisals, don’t let the merchandise out of your site.)
There are some less reliable methods you can try but there are no guarantees with these:
1. The old “If it will scratch glass it has to be a diamond.” Well, it is true that diamonds do scratch glass but so do a lot of the other fakes on the market. To boot, it’s possible to injure your rock even if it’s real during your hardness test.
2. The transparency test. If you flip the diamond in question upside down and place it over some newsprint and can clearly read through the stone, it’s not a diamond. (The problem with this test is some diamonds are cut shallow and can be read through.)
3. The fog test. This test I like a lot. Put the rock in front of your mouth and fog it like you would try to fog a mirror. If it stays fogged for 2-4 seconds, it’s a fake. A real diamond disperses the heat instantaneously so by the time you look at it, it has already cleared up. (A down fall to this test is oil and dirt on the stone can effect its reliability and the test is not accurate at all on doublets where the top of the stone is diamond and the bottom is cubic zirconia epoxied together.)
4. The weight test. The most popular of diamond simulants (fake) is a cubic zirconia. C.Z.’s weigh approximately 55% more than diamonds for the same shape and dimension. So if you have a carat or gram scale at your disposal you can see if the imposter tips the scales too much.
5. The U.V. test. A high percentage of diamonds fluorescence blue when put under an ultra violet light (black light). Since 99% of all fakes don’t, a positive identification of medium to strong blue would indicate a diamond. The bad news is if this method proves you have a diamond, it also proves your diamond is worth less. Diamonds with blue fluorescence are as much as 20% less valuable. Remember, lack of blue fluorescence doesn’t mean it’s a fake; it could just be a better quality diamond.
6. Under the loop test. If you own some sort of magnifying lens, there are some things you can look for on the stone that might give away its identity:
A. Look at the rock from the top and see how well the facets (cuts on top of the diamond) are joined. They should be sharp not rolled.
B. Look at the girdle and see if it is faceted or frosty (a clear sign it’s a diamond) or waxy and slick (an indication it’s a fake).
C. While you’re looking at your stone under magnification, look into your stone to see if you detect any flaws (carbon, pinpoints, small cracks). These are typically clear indications it’s the real thing since it’s very hard to put inclusions in a fake.
D. After examining the stone, focus in on the stamps inside the setting. A stamp of "10K, 14K, 18K, 585, 750, 900, 950, PT, Plat" indicates the setting is real gold or platinum which gives a better chance that the stone in it is real as well. While you’re looking at the interior of the ring, also look for any "C.Z." stamps that would indicate the center stone is not a diamond.
The aim of polishing is to build a deep patina that you can really see down into. Only wax will do this. A deep wax polish is very different from a surface gloss, and is the only appropriate finish for formal antique furniture.
This article contains some general information about care of antique furniture as well as tips and solutions to common problems.
Wax not only looks good, but it protects against moisture and alcohol -- but not against heat. Never put a hot dish on a wax surface. Use coasters under glasses, and mats under flower vases.
Use a good paste wax -- Goddards, Keils or Antiquewax are all good, but there are many others on the market. In general we find English waxes are better than American -- this may be because the English have a much longer tradition of waxing furniture, or it may simply be because one of us was born there!
A liquid wax, such as Finish Feeder, is also useful.
Liquid wax is good for getting into carvings, and can give a good first coat on a new or dried surface, but we recommend finishing it with a paste wax.
If the color has bleached out a little, from exposure to light or the sun, use a dark brown wax. Don't expect instant results, the color will deepen slowly with repeated waxings.
Traditional wax polishes are based on beeswax and/or carnuba wax. They have been around for some 300 years and work very well. In the search for perfection, however, the conservation science department of the British Museum created a new wax in the 1950s. It is commercially available as Renaissance Micro-Crystalline Wax Polish.
It is a fossil-origin wax, and has become the standard polish in major museums and collections. It is easier to use than traditional waxes because it needs no drying time but can be buffed immediately, and it requires only light hand buffing. It gives a better shine, and provides a surface that is more impervious to moisture and to finger marks. It can be used on almost anything -- wood, metal, leather, photographs etc. It is more expensive, but the best usually is, and a little goes a long way! We recommend it.
 | Dust weekly with a soft, cotton cloth. |
| Never use oils, silicones or other synthetic muck. |
| Wax only when the dusting fails to restore the shine. |
| Using a soft cotton pad, apply a thin coat of wax - just enough to smear the surface. Many professionals prefer a pad of 0000 steel wool to one of cloth |
| Leave it for 60 minutes. |
| Buff with a clean soft cotton cloth, or a lambs wool bonnet on your electric drill. The softer the buffing material, the higher the gloss. |
| Wax once or twice a year. |
Remember:
| Use a little wax -- and a lot of elbow grease. |
| When waxing or buffing, use the most comfortable motion - circular, along or across the grain, it doesn't matter which. |
The two most common mistakes:
| Using too much wax. |
| Not waiting long enough before buffing. |
if the surface is new or completely dried out
Take a tip from the old English craftsmen:
Wax once a day for a week,
Once a week for a month,
Once a month for a year,
And once a year for life.
If the surface is really dry, a thin coat of Finish Feeder works well. Then apply paste wax.
if the surface has suffered a glossy refinish
Rub it lightly and patiently with 0000 steel wool to reduce the worst of the gloss. Denatured Alcohol on the wool can help. Work on a small area at a time, and wipe it with a paper towel as it dries. Any white residue in the grain can be cleaned with Finish Feeder.
Wax it once a day for a week...
Grunge may be good, but grime or dirt is not. Grunge is the accumulated dust and dirt of centuries on a piece that has never been polished after the finish applied by its maker. Grunge is very valuable, particularly on an American piece, and should never be cleaned. Grime is the accumulated dirt on a piece that has not been polished for a long time -- but should have been. On an English piece, it should always be cleaned off. On an American piece, grime may eventually come to resemble grunge, and you must use your judgment about cleaning it.
Consider:
1. "Grunge is Good" is the current opinion of contemporary experts and collectors -- it is not carved into stone, and may change.
2. Grunge is often called "original finish," but it is more accurately described as "untouched finish." The original finish would have looked like a polished one today.
3. Grunge is preferred on American pieces only. On English furniture the preferred finish is a deep, glowing patina resulting from two or more centuries of waxing.
to clean furniture without disturbing the old wax surface under the grime
| Make a good pad of paper towels. |
| Moisten it with a little warm water, not too much. |
| Rub a little facial soap onto the pad (dish washing soap is too harsh). You can also use mineral spirits instead of soap and water. |
| Carefully wipe the furniture, checking the pad to see the dirt that has come off. Continue until no more dirt appears on the pad. |
| Dry the wood with a soft cloth or paper towel. |
| Wax the cleaned surface. |
| The easy way is to use liquid wax. Alternatively, take a pure bristle paint brush, about 1 to 1-1/2 inches wide, and cut its bristles with scissors so that they are one inch long. Or use an old toothbrush (bristle, not nylon). |
| Cover the metal ring of the brush with tape to avoid any danger of scratching the wood. |
| Dip the brush into a good paste wax and work the wax into the carvings and crevices -- use only enough wax to cover all the surfaces. |
| Clean off excess wax with a soft cloth or paper towel. |
| Leave for an hour. |
| Buff with a clean shoe brush. |
Note: Bristles get into carvings and crevices where a cloth pad cannot, but always use natural bristle, never synthetic.
removing black or white stains or rings
These rings are usually caused by moisture, alcohol or oil penetrating a surface, such as French Polish, that has dried or cracked with age. Often they go no deeper than the polish.
If this is the case, and the stain has not penetrated the wood, rub it with a paste wax on 0000 steel wool. If this doesn't work, use Restor-A-Finish or a liquid metal polish on 0000 steel wool.
Rub lightly, but patiently, until the stain has gone, or has been greatly reduced.
Wax the whole surface once a day for a week.
If the stain has penetrated the wood, it will need bleaching and refinishing - a job best left to a professional. Or, better yet, live with the stain -- it's part of the history of the piece!
Quick fixes for light scratches:
| Rub the scratched area with Tibet Almond Stick or Howard's Restor-A-Finish. |
| Color the scratch, or larger blemish, with a felt-tipped pen containing a stain of the appropriate wood color. Wipe off excess stain immediately. These pens will color bare wood (like an edge chip); Almond Stick and Restor-A-Finish will not. |
A more professional, if time-consuming, method:
| Take acrylic paint (burnt umber is a useful base color) and a very fine artist's paint brush. |
| Wet the brush, and mix a small amount of paint to a medium consistency. |
| Paint it into the scratch, and wait for it to dry -- about 15 minutes. |
| Take a hard wax stick, and rub the wax into the scratch. |
| Buff it with a paper towel, and then wax polish the area. |
Note: All products mentioned here are available in good hardware stores.
Fairytales and Commercial Misinformation?
1. "Lemon" oil is good because it "feeds" the wood. Wrong. Wood does not need oil, wood does not need "feeding." These commercial oils give a quick, easy shine, but because they are kerosene based, in the long term they will damage an old finish. The "lemon" is merely an artificial scent masking the stink of kerosene.
2. Silicone (sprayed or wiped on) is good. Wrong. Another quick fix that damages. If you use silicone, and you ever need to refinish your furniture, you will have problems: even after stripping, its residue will prevent the new finish from adhering properly. Leave silicone for starlets' bosoms, where it does a fine job (apparently).
3. Wax "build-up" is bad. Wrong. Wax build up is precisely what you want: it is the only way to develop a true patina. Wax "builds up" clear and deep if you don't use too much, and don't use it too often.
Who's Opinion or is this fact?
TIP! To Remove Some Alcohol Stains From Wood Try Brisk Rubbing With Olive Oil (all natural and true)
TIP! Try Using Turtle Wax (for automotive finishes) For Harder Surfaces and Protect From Scratches (I saw this done and it does work)
Wood Tools / Terms / Conditions
Acanthus - The leafy carving found on traditional furniture. It represents the acanthus bush of ancient Greece.
Aniline dye - A type of colorant accidentally invented in England in the mid 19th century. It was used to produce the vibrant fabric colors of the late Victorian period and was adapted to furniture manufacturing around the turn of the 20th century.
Antique - A genuine artifact of the initial period of introduction. Something valued specifically for its age.
Armoire - One of those French words we inherited. It refers to a large cabinet, primarily for clothes storage used in houses with little or no closet space.
Astragal- The piece of wood that overlaps the joint where two doors meet.
Awl - In woodworking a sharp piece of metal used to scribe lines for cutting or drilling.
Back saw - A saw with a stiff brass or steel spline to keep the blade from bending. Used to make delicate cuts such as those required for dovetailing.
Bail - The part of a drawer or cabinet pull that hangs down from the support posts on each side of the hardware.(See “post”).
Ball and claw - A type of foot popularized by Thomas Chippendale in the mid 18th century. It represents a dragon claw clutching a pearl, drawn from Oriental mythology.
Bandsaw - A saw with a continuous flexible blade that moves in only one direction. Developed in the 19th century.
Bed bolts - Bolts that intersect with implanted nuts to hold siderails securely to the headboards and footboards of a bed.
Bellflower - A decorative element of carving or inlay work found on traditional furniture, consisting of a connected string of three or five leafed flowers.
Block front - A technique of sawing solid wood to produce a three dimensional effect by dividing the frontal space of case goods into (usually) three vertical sections with the center section being concave and the end sections being convex.
Bow - The rounded outside back frame of a Windsor chair. Bent to shape from a single piece of wood.
Breadboard ends - Boards applied to the ends of a flat surface such as a slant front desk top or table top, at right angles to the direction of the grain of the main surface. This keeps
the flat surface from warping excessively.
Broken pediment - A pediment that is interrupted in the center.
Bun foot - A turned, slightly flattened round low foot or leg which gained prominence at the beginning of the William and Mary period in the late 17th century.
Burl - The random pattern seen in wood cut from a distur bance in a tree such as a knot or tumor.
Cabriole - The reverse S - shape of a leg which curves out at the knee and curves in toward the ankle.
Cambium - The soft layer of living cells just under the bark of a tree.
Cane - A seating material made from thin strips of the outer skin of cane that can be woven into a fabric-like surface. Older cane seating was installed by weaving individual strands into holes drilled in the seat frame. More recent cane seating is installed from pre-woven sheets and is held in place in a groove in the seat frame.
Caryatids - Female figures used as columns in ancient Greek architecture. They are seen in some classical furniture such as Empire works by Duncan Phyfe.
Case goods - Furniture such as chests, desks and armoires that consist essentially of a box with access to storage using drawers or doors.
Caster - A small wheel attached or implanted in the legs of furniture.
Caveat Emptor - Let the buyer beware.
Chamfer - The angling of an edge to reduce the total thickness of the material, such as on a drawer bottom.
Chinoiserie - A style of Oriental painting popular in the 18th and 19th centuries in the West.
Circular saw - A saw with a rigid round metal blade with teeth on the edge. First introduced in the late 18th century but put into general woodworking use in the second quarter of the 19th century.
Cleat - A piece of wood used to support the side and front rails of early 19th century chairs. Also the small, square or rectangular protrusions on iron bed hardware of the late 19th century.
Crest rail - The top rail of a chair. The top of the back.
Crotch cut - The cutting of wood just below the intersection of a branch with the trunk of a
tree. This method produces unusual and attractive grain patterns with a “feathery” look.
Crown glass - Glass produced by twirling a gather of molten glass on the end of an iron rod. The centrifugal force creates a more or less flat “table” of glass to be used in windows and furniture. The primary way of producing “flat” glass in the 18th century.
Cylinder glass - The 19th century method of producing flat glass by swinging a blown bubble of glass to create a cylinder which was then cut and reheated to produce a flat sheet of glass.
Dado - A long straight channel cut into the face of a piece of wood to receive the edge or end of another piece.
Deal - A type of pine usually found in Scotland used as a secondary wood in English furniture.
Dimension - To cut a piece of lumber to a useable size for furniture making.
Dovetail - An interlocking wood joint using roughly triangular shapes called pins and tails to create the joint.
Dowel - A small round, lathe turned wooden rod used to connect two pieces of wood. First used extensively in furniture production beginning in the mid 19th century.
Draw knife - A sharp blade with a handle on each end, mounted at a right angle to the blade. It is used to shape and smooth wood surfaces.
Draw table - A form of extension table developed in the 16th century from the refectory table. Additional surfaces are stored below the table top and withdrawn from each end to make the table longer. A popular style in the Colonial Revival era of the early 20th century.
Ebonize - To paint black.
Escutcheon - The decorative plate applied to the surface around a keyhole. Usually made of metal.
Face veneer - The veneer on a table top or drawer front. The top layer of any veneered surface.
Fake - Something made with the express purpose of deceiving.
Fastener - A device such as nail or screw used to secure two objects together.
Filled finish - The smooth, glass-like finish on a piece of wood produced when the open pores of the grain are filled. Results in the “formal” look of traditional mahogany and
walnut furniture.
Finger joint - A type of drawer joinery made by machinery that produced alternating layers of flat “fingers” which are glued together for strength. Developed in the late 19th century and used in light weight applications such as jewelry boxes.
Finial - The ornament that sits at the top of a post or on the crest of a pediment. Some types are flame, acorn, urn, twist and ball.
Flat cut - The method of cutting lumber from a log by successively cutting length wise without regard to ensuing grain pattern. It results in a single log producing small quantities of lumber that represents every kind of cutting technique including quarter cut and rift cut.
Flat glass - The term used for glass in mirrors, windows and furniture. Also called “broad” glass.
Float glass - Essentially flawless glass made by a method developed in 1959. Molten glass is floated on a still bed of molten tin creating glass with a surface smoothness of 1/25,000 of an inch without further grinding or polishing.
Flush - A surface that is exactly even or level with another surface with no underlapping or overlapping.
Fluting - Deep concave channels cut parallel to each other in the legs and columns of classical furniture. Quality fluting is deeply cut with smooth curves at the end of each cut. The narrow ridges between flutes are called fillets.
Froe - A long handle tool used to separate wood bolts in the riving process.
Gash saw - A rough toothed reciprocal saw, steam or water powered used in saw mills to cut lumber from trees. Used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries before the general use of the circular saw.
Gimlet screw - A screw with a pointed end. Developed in the 1840’s as the successor to the flat tipped screw.
Golden oak - Not really a kind of oak itself. Merely the color of white oak when stained light or finished naturally. Also used to denote the period at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century when the production of oak furniture was at its peak.
Gondole - The rounded twisting shape of the arms and back of late Empire/Classicism chairs, especially those made by Francois Seignouret of New Orleans and Joseph Meeks and Sons of New York in the mid 1800’s.
Gluede up - Describes large surfaces made of gluing many smaller boards together. Used
to produce seats of modern Windsor chairs. Original Windsors had a single board seat.
Hardwood - A deciduous tree. Does not refer to the strength or hardness of the wood.
Jack plane - A plane with a convex blade used to dimension flat surfaces such as drawer bottoms and back panels.
Joint - The intersection of two pieces of wood.
Klismos- A light, classical form of chair developed in ancient Greece with curved, saber legs and a curved, shaped back and crest. Very popular in Empire form in the 19th century.
Knapp joint - A type of joint invented by Charles Knapp just after the Civil War. One of the first useful machine made drawer joints. It used a “scallop and dowel” approach to joinery instead of dovetails.
Lathe - A machine for making round wooden parts powered by foot, water, steam or electricity.
Lumber core plywood - A product developed in the early 20th century to produce flat furniture surfaces. It starts with a core of thick solid wood. Layers of decreasing thickness of veneer are added with alternating grain directions. Has unusual structural strength and resistance to warping.
Marlborough leg - A square leg with no foot or with a larger square foot sometimes employed by Thomas Chippendale.
Marking gauge - A precision wooden and brass instrument used in woodworking to mark areas for cutting.
MDF - Medium density fiber board. A late 20th century invention made essentially of heavily compressed paper and used as an underlayment for veneered surfaces in furniture production.
Medullary ray - The horizontal veins in a tree trunk that carry nourishment from the core, (the pith) to the cambium. When properly cut these rays exhibit a remarkable pattern called “tiger eye” in oak and other hardwoods.
Melon turning - The large bulbous turns on Jacobean and Elizabethan furniture. Also called “bulb” turnings.
Mill saw - The rough saw in a saw mill used to convert timber to lumber. A mill saw may be a gash saw, a band saw or a circular saw.
Miter joint - The intersection of two pieces of wood where each piece has been cut at a 45
degree angle so as to form a right angle when joined.
Mortise - A hole cut into a piece of wood to match and receive its counterpart the tenon. Mortises may be round, square or rectangular.
Muntin - Originally the individual pieces of wood that held panes of glass in the doors of case goods. In the 20th century it denotes the thin piece of decorative plywood installed over the glass to simulate the look of individual panes of glass.
Ogee - An S shaped curve also called a cyma curve.
Overcut - A cut by a saw that goes beyond the indicated mark.
Oxidation - The process of wood reacting with the atmosphere. The longer unprotected wood is exposed, the darker it gets.
Pad foot - A type of Queen Anne foot that has a small built up area, the pad, below the foot itself.
Panel construction - A method of creating a surface by inserting free floating panels of wood into a supporting frame to allow room for expansion and contraction of the wood.
Panel saw - What we think of today as the regular hand saw. Developed by the Dutch in the 17th century.
Particle board - A man-made material composed of wood fiber and saw dust in a mixture of glue, used in place of solid wood sides and top. Came into general use in furniture construction in the late 1950’s.
Patera - An oval or round inlay pattern frequently found in early 19th century Federal furniture.
Patina - The look of an old, undisturbed surface acquired through years of use, care and abuse. Very difficult to simulate and highly desirable in most cases.
Pediment - The top portion of tall case goods, often triangular shaped, that simulates an architectural element from classical Greece. Pediments usually reach across the width of a piece rising to a peak or an arch in the center.
Phillips screw - A 20th century variation of a machine made screw that has an incised cross instead of a slot to engage a driver.
Pit saw - An early method of converting timber to lumber. A log is extended over a deep pit. One sawyer stands atop the log and another in the pit. Each man operates one end of a large hand powered saw.
Plane - A block of wood with a flat metal blade extending through the bottom used to
smooth or dress lumber and also to create shaped edges.
Plywood - The layering of thin sheets of wood with the grain patterns at right angles to each previous layer creating a strong solid sheet of material. Came into use in furniture production around the beginning of the 20th century.
Pod auger - A type of 18th century bit with a rounded end used with a hand operated brace. Also called a spoon auger.
Post - The part of a drawer pull that goes into or through the face of the drawer and holds one end of the bail. (See “bail”).
Premium - The amount over and above the winning bid price one may pay at auction. Usually a flat percentage of the bid price.
Primary wood - The main wood seen in a piece of furniture. It may be solid or veneer and comprise only a small part of the piece but it is the wood most visible.
Prospect door - The small door found in the interior cubby hole section of drop front desks.
Quarter cut - A method of cutting lumber and veneer so that the majority of the end grain pattern is 60 to 90 degrees to the face of the board. This minimizes warping and exposes the maximum number of medullary rays. Quarter cutting accounts for the dramatic figuring called “cat’s eye” or “tiger eye” often seen in early 20th century oak furniture.
Quatrefoil - A Rounded, four lobed design often seen in Gothic Revival furniture of the 19th century.
Rabbet joint - Also called a rebate joint. One piece of wood partially overlaps another and fits into a section that has been cut out to receive it.
Race - A channel or grove for something to fit into such as the channel for a roll top desk tambour or the cut out portion of a Victorian era side rail to accommodate the iron hardware, the “horseshoe.
Rail - A horizontal structural member of furniture such as the board between drawers in a chest or the pieces of wood that compose the frame of a chair to receive a slip seat.
Reeding - The opposite of fluting. Deeply incised convex parallel cuts in the legs or columns of classical furniture.
Refinish - To completely remove all finish from the surface of a piece of furniture and apply a completely new surface.
Reproduction - A more or less faithful copy of an original design but not necessarily made
with the intent to deceive.
Resurface - To apply a new surface or finish over an existing one without completely removing the old one.
Revival - A reintroduction of an earlier theme or fashion but includes some elements of the contemporary period.
Rift cut - A method of cutting lumber and veneer that produces the maximum straight line grain pattern with as little variation as possible. The opposite effect of that achieved by quarter cutting.
Rive or riven - The process of obtaining lumber from timber by splitting the wood into successively smaller pieces, called bolts, without actually cutting the wood. The process was used in most furniture production prior to the beginning of 18th century.
Roller glass - Glass produced in the early 20th century by pulling nearly molten glass through a series of cooled iron rollers to flatten into sheets. Produces a readily identifiable distortion pattern of parallel lines in the glass.
Rosehead - The effect on the head of a hand wrought nail by the impact of the hammer used to create the head. A head of the nail usually was made with only three or four blows, each of which creates a flat spot on one side of the head.
Rotary saw - See “circular saw”.
Rush - A material used in seating originally made by twisting wet cattail leaves into a tight cord and weaving the cord around the frame of the seat of a chair into a suspension platform. Newer rush, called “fiber rush” is made of what amounts to twisted, sometimes variegated craft paper.
Secondary wood - The wood that comprises the structural and unseen portions of a piece of furniture. Secondary wood is almost always less expensive and more available than primary wood.
Seeds - The small imperfections caused by the trapped pockets of gas common in older glass production methods.
Side rail - The part of a bed that connects the headboard to the footboard and normally supports the main bedding material.
Slip seat - A seat that is easily removed from a chair. The seat itself may or may not be screwed or nailed to the chair and the upholstery is not attached to the chair.
Slipper foot - A minor variation of a Queen Anne foot which is rounded at the back but tapered toward the front.
Softwood - An evergreen tree. Does not refer to the hardness or softness of the wood itself.
Spanish foot - An under turned scrolled foot with vertical ribs often seen on William and Mary and Queen Anne pieces.
Splashboard - The piece of material that rises above the level of the top surface in the rear of a piece to keep objects from sliding off and in the case of serving pieces to keep food and drink away from the wall.
Splat - The center section of a chair that connects the seat rail to the crest rail.
Spoon bit - See “pod auger”.
Steeple - The pattern created in the grain of a piece of wood by flat cutting it. The pattern resembles a succession of rounded church steeples or soft Gothic arches.
Stile - The vertical structural component of a piece of furniture. In a chair it is the upright post on each side of the splat that connects the seat to the crest. In case goods the stiles form the corners of the cabinet.
Stretcher - The piece of wood that connects the legs of a chair to each other.
Structural members - Those pieces of wood in furniture that carry the weight of the piece and maintain the overall integrity of the work. A frame or other load bearing arrangement.
Stump cut - Veneer cut from the lowest section of a tree stump which produces an unusual, sometimes random pattern.
Tenon - The protruding end of a piece of wood that fits into a mortise to comprise a joint.
Tiger eye - See “quarter cut”.
Tracery - The intricate pierced carvings seen in the splats of Gothic Revival chairs.
Trefoil - The rounded three lobed design in Gothic Revival themes.
Triffid foot - A foot divided into three sections.
Trumpet turning - The turnings on William and Mary style pieces that resemble the down turned horn of a trumpet.
Trunnel - The peg inserted through a mortise and tenon joint to add additional stability. Originally called a “true nail”, the pronunciation evolved into trunnel.
Turnip foot - See “bun foot”
Underlayment - The substrate to which veneer is attached.
Valenced - Balanced scroll work on the lower edges of a skirt or rail. Very prominent in Queen Anne and William and Mary case goods. Meant to represent the folds in fabric draped over beds and windows.
Veneer - Very thin sheets of wood applied to the surface of furniture. Originally used as a decorative item it became an increasingly important part of conservation efforts world wide.
Vetted - An antiques or art show is said to be “vetted” when a panel of experts in the fields certifies that each item in the show is appropriate to the period, quality and style of the show.
Warping - A type of shrinkage that distorts the shape of a piece of wood. Caused by uneven exposure to the elements or a cutting process that is not properly aligned with the direction of the grain in the wood.
Wicker - The stems of small rattan palms or willow shoots which are interwoven and wrapped around a structural frame to produce a semi solid fabric for covering furniture. In the late 19th century a loom was invented that could wrap paper around a wire core and produce simulated wicker, thus accounting for the proliferation of factory made wicker furniture at the end of the century.
Workmanlike manner - The concept employed when all work was done by hand. It states that if something is not seen it does not need to excessively smoothed or finished. Unseen parts of older furniture still bear the tool marks and traces of this labor saving concept.
TIP! By Placing Items in a Plastic Bag and Placing In a Freezer For a Day or Two Will Kill Mites, Lice, Worms, Even Their Eggs. This Works Really Well And Will Not Damage The Items. After Removing The Items Let Set Till At Room Temperature Before Handling.
Tip! Never Handle Pottery When Very Cold It May Crack Or Shatter When Touched.
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