Antique furniture online

By Ian Harvey

Owning and collecting antique furniture is the closest way to recreating a period atmosphere in your home, but that's not the only reason why buying and selling antiques online is such big business. Collectors like to own different antique furniture spanning different historical periods, this helps them draw comparisons and admire the progress and changes in style across time.

Antique Furniture - Getting Started

Antique furnitureNot everyone is lucky enough to be able to buy (or even have the space to store) every period piece of period furniture they want, so if you are interested in antique furniture the key is to research the period your interested in. The best plan is to buy specialist magazines, visit museums, visit your local antique shops, go to antique fairs or even to specialist auction houses. By doing so you will gain a deeper understanding of antique furniture and the changes that occurred through the ages that gave that period its own particular style.

Antiques and antique furniture can indeed help us to understand history in the way that styles and fashions changed to reflect the needs and general living conditions of the time. Style changes are never sudden but they are progressive never the less, and finding out how these changes occurred is an interesting journey. If you are interested in finding out more, there are lots of books that specialize on each different period and the style that characterized it.


Things to look out for when collecting Antique Furniture

The following are significant when determining the age, authenticity, quality and worth or price of antique furniture:

  1. Colour and Patina: Patina is the glow of the wood after years of accumulation of wax polish and dirt. A rich subtle color is also an important characteristic of antique furniture.

  2. Proportion: A disproportionate piece of furniture may well be a "marriage" of different parts from different furniture.

  3. Construction: Before the late 17th century, furniture was made using mortise and tendon joints and pegs were handmade.

  4. Condition: Do not ignore pieces with marks or blemishes as the wood has not been damaged. A good restorer can undo surface spots. antique furniture in it original pristine condition is worth the highest price.

  5. Alterations: Altered furniture is always less desirable than the original piece. Tell-tale alterations include large pieces reduced in size, freshly cut surfaces, plugged holes, repositioned handles etc.

Now that you know some of the things to look for, the question is where to look for antique furniture?

Well, apart from auctions and dealers, you can always check the classifieds section in the paper to see if anybody's selling furniture and go check it out. You might even find a good bargain this way. Also, you will find many sites that sell antique furniture on the internet or you could use the internet to find out where you could go to get good deals on antique furniture. Why not try The Antiques & Arts section at yoobos.com.

Collecting Antique Furniture for profit

Nowadays, pretty much everything that's old can be described as an antique and generally speaking that's quite true. A product is considered to be an antique if it is over a hundred years old or is rare enough to have some value. In other words, it's old and there's not a lot of it about. An antique is something collectible. It may be a piece of antique furniture that you want to collect to enhance the look of a room, or a piece of antique pottery to decorate a corner cupboard, or some antique books, antique photographs, antique jewellery, antique clocks, etc. The list is seemingly endless.

There is a common misconception about antiques: the older an object looks, the more valuable it must be. Appearance has nothing to do with it, just because something looks like you found it in your Nan's cellar does not necessarily mean that it's valuable. The value of an antique is based on demand due to suitability and limited supply.

The most common are antique pottery, antique furniture, antique books, antique clocks, antique jewellery and antique watches. It doesn't matter how people get started collecting, collectors generally want the same thing. They want to be sure that what they buy or inherit will escalate in value as time goes by. That is what collecting antiques for profit is all about.

There are two main principles that apply when collecting an antique: The first is to do your research on the antique that interests you, and second is to obtain it at the lowest possible price.

Some people only developed an interest in antiques because they inherited an item or a whole house full of stuff from a relative. But what most failed to consider is that much of what you inherit is probably just junk, unless the person you inherited in from was a seasoned collector. Having said that, it's true that people could have bought a piece to decorate their home a long time ago and that object, if it were of fine quality, would now be worth something.

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