Category: Workshop Stories · Reading time: 6 minutes
A few months ago, a man came into the workshop with an "Elizabethan" chest of drawers.
He was proud.
He had bought it in a roadside antique shop, one of those with more dust than discernment, and wanted us to restore it "respecting its century and a half of history."
We asked for permission to take out a drawer.
We turned it over.
And there it was: a Phillips head screw. A type of screw that didn't exist until well into the 20th century.
His "Elizabethan" chest of drawers was, being generous, fifty years old. And very well stained with dark tint.
We didn't tell him out of malice. We told him as important things are said: slowly and looking him in the eye.
Because this happens more than you think.
The market is full of artificially aged furniture, honest reproductions that someone resells as period pieces, and sellers who use the word "antique" with the same enthusiasm that others say "handmade" or "gourmet."
The good news is that a truly antique piece of furniture doesn't know how to lie.
It carries the evidence. You just have to know where to look.
These are the seven signs we check in the workshop every time a piece crosses the door. The same ones you can check before buying.
1. Dovetail joints: the cabinetmaker's signature
Pull out a drawer and look at the joint where the sides meet the front.
If you see trapezoid-shaped pieces fitted together, like interlocking teeth, you're looking at a dovetail joint. It's the classic joinery in cabinetmaking.
But here comes the important nuance.
Handmade dovetail joints are irregular: some wider, some narrower, with small variations in angle. The cabinetmaker cut them with a saw and chisel, and their handiwork was etched there forever.
Machine-made ones, from the late 19th century onwards, are all identical. Perfect. Cloned.
Perfection, in antique furniture, is suspicious.
2. Tool marks: saws that no longer exist
Turn the furniture over. Look at the inside of the drawers, the back, the areas that no one polished because no one was going to see them.
Hand-sawn wood leaves straight, irregular marks. The circular saw, which became widespread in the mid-19th century, leaves curved and regular arcs, like waves.
And the hand plane leaves a surface with slight undulations that can be felt by running your fingers over it, very different from the absolute smoothness of an industrial planer.
In the workshop, we run our hand over the back of a piece of furniture before the front.
The front is made to please. The back, to tell the truth.
3. Oxidation of the hardware: rust cannot be faked
Old nails, screws, and handles were made of wrought iron or brass, and they have been reacting with the wood for over a century.
That reaction leaves an impossible-to-fake trace: a dark halo around the metal, wood stained bluish-black where the iron has "bled" with decades of moisture.
When someone ages hardware with acid, the rust stays on the metal. It doesn't penetrate the wood.
Remove a handle if you can. Beneath it, there should be a shadow, a lighter or darker silhouette than the rest. If the wood beneath the "antique" hardware is pristine, that handle arrived yesterday.
4. Screws and nails: small telltales
This is the quickest check of all, the one that exposed the "Elizabethan" chest of drawers in our story.
A hand-forged nail has an irregular, rose-shaped head and a square body. An old screw has an off-center slot and irregular thread pitch because it was filed by hand.
Perfectly cylindrical screws and Phillips head screws are from the 20th century.
Beware: a modern screw does not condemn a piece of furniture. Many legitimate pieces were repaired throughout their life. But if all the screws are modern, you know what story they are telling you.
5. Patina: the color that only time gives
Patina is the skin of the furniture.
Decades of light, hands, wax, air. A deep color, with nuances, that changes depending on the light. More worn where hands touch—edges, handles, arms—and more intense where the sun doesn't reach.
A stain applied yesterday is uniform. Flat. The same in the worn area as in the most hidden corner.
Patina is not painted. It accumulates.
And when you touch it, you feel it: it has texture, depth, character. It is the first thing we protect when we restore a piece, because a piece of furniture that loses its patina loses its birth certificate.
6. The wood and its construction: what you see inside
Antique furniture was made of solid wood: walnut, oak, chestnut, mahogany. And with a revealing detail: noble woods were reserved for the exterior, while interiors, backs, and drawer bottoms were made of secondary, humbler, untreated woods.
If you open a drawer and find plywood, fiberboard, or particleboard, there's nothing more to discuss: that's 20th century.
Another subtle clue: solid wood contracts over the years across the grain. That's why an old round tabletop is never perfectly round. If you measure it, it will be a few millimeters smaller in the direction opposite to the grain.
That small imperfection is a certificate of authenticity that no factory can print.
7. Consistent wear: the logic of use
This is the sign that summarizes all the others, and the most difficult to fake.
A piece of furniture that has lived for a hundred years has worn where life has touched it: legs scuffed by brooms, the edge of the table polished by thousands of meals, the handle area lighter from the rubbing of fingers, the crossbar of the chair worn by shoes.
Artificial aging is done with blows and chains, and it shows: wear distributed randomly, in places where no hand reaches, with the same intensity everywhere.
Always ask yourself: does this wear make sense? Is it where it would be after a hundred years of real use?
If the answer is no, the furniture is lying to you.
One last thing, from workshop to reader
None of these signs, by themselves, are a death sentence.
An antique piece of furniture may have a modern screw from a 1970s repair. And a careful fake can mimic one or two signs.
But all seven at once cannot be faked. Time is the only artisan who doesn't take commissions.
These seven checks work wherever you go to buy. If you're doing that, here's where to buy restored antique furniture in Madrid, option by option, with the good and bad of each.
That's why every piece that enters Antique goes through these checks before we even touch it. We date, document, and only then restore, respecting the patina, the hardware, and the scars that tell its story.
So when you see a piece of furniture on our website, it has already passed the test that the "Elizabethan" chest of drawers of that man did not pass.
If you're looking for a truly antique piece—one that carries the evidence—perhaps it's time to take a look at the workshop:
→ Discover our antique and restored furniture
Pilar.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the quickest way to tell if a piece of furniture is old?
Pull out a drawer and turn it over. In thirty seconds you can see three signs: the dovetail joints (irregular if handmade), the untreated secondary wood inside, and the type of screws or nails. A Phillips head screw indicates 20th-century manufacture or repair.
Does a modern screw mean the furniture is fake?
Not necessarily. Many legitimate antique pieces were repaired during their lifetime and retain some later screw or hardware. The alarm signal is that all the screws are modern, or that the wear and patina do not match the age attributed to the piece.
What is patina and why is it so important?
Patina is the surface layer created by decades of light, use, wax, and air on wood: a deep color, with nuances and consistent wear in worn areas. It cannot be replicated with stains and is therefore one of the most reliable proofs of authenticity. In a good restoration, the patina is protected, never removed.
