What separates an old piece from a new one

The difference between a genuine Georgian chest and a well-made 1980s reproduction rarely announces itself from across the shop. It hides in the places the maker assumed nobody would look: the underside of a drawer, the back of a carcase, the cut end of a rail. Take a small torch and a pocket mirror to any viewing, and give yourself ten quiet minutes to look underneath things. What follows are the details dealers themselves check first.

Drawer runners: the giveaway you can feel

Until the twentieth century, drawers almost always ran on wood. A strip of hardwood — often oak, beech or mahogany — was fixed to the side of the drawer and slid along a corresponding runner built into the carcase. Pull the drawer right out and examine the bearing surfaces. A genuine period drawer will show a long, polished wear track, darker and glassier than the surrounding timber, and a matching track inside the carcase. Look for a slight taper where decades of use have thinned the runner, and for witness marks, small dents and scratches where grit and the drawer stop have rubbed over the years.

• Wood on wood: the expected arrangement on most furniture made before about 1900. Modern nylon strips or metal ball-bearing slides are almost always a later addition, and often a sign that the drawer itself is modern.
• Wear that matches: the drawer runner and the carcase track should be worn in sympathy. A beautifully polished drawer in a carcase with no wear track is a mismatch.
• Gaps and shrinkage: old drawer bottoms were usually nailed or grooved in, and the boards have shrunk across their width, leaving small gaps and a slightly loose fit. A perfectly tight, flat bottom with no movement is suspicious.
• The stops: look for the block or strip that halts the drawer at the right depth. It should be worn or dented where the drawer has struck it thousands of times.

Saw marks: reading the cut edges

Saw technology changed, and the marks it left changed with it. Many of these marks survive on the undersides of tops, the backs of carcases, the insides of drawer sides and the edges of boards — precisely where a reproduction maker is least likely to bother imitating them.

• Hand saws and pit saws: irregular, roughly parallel scratches, often set at a slight angle, with a distinctly human variation in spacing and depth. Common before the nineteenth century.
• Circular saws: shallow arcs curving across the board, sometimes described as overlapping crescents. In use in British workshops from the early nineteenth century onwards.
• Band saws and frame saws: straight, parallel lines, sometimes with a faint wave where the blade wandered. Later nineteenth century onwards.
• Planed surfaces: hand planing leaves a subtly undulating surface with occasional tear-out and slight variation in angle. Machine planing is flat and uniform, often with faint parallel ridges running across the grain.

If every surface on a supposedly eighteenth-century chest has been planed flat, sanded smooth and finished evenly, be sceptical. Genuine age means unevenness.

Screw heads and fixings

Screws are one of the most reliable dating tools in furniture, because they were made by hand until the middle of the nineteenth century. Hand-made screws have a slightly irregular, off-centre slot, a tapered shank and a blunt or poorly formed point; the thread itself varies in pitch. Machine-made screws became common from the 1840s and 1850s, and pointed gimlet screws later still.

• Phillips and cross-head screws: a twentieth-century invention and a near-certain sign of modern work. The same goes for electric screwdriver marks and chewed slots.
• Screw placement: original makers used fewer screws than modern restorers, and put them where they were needed rather than in neat, regular rows.
• Nails: hand-forged nails have irregular heads; cut nails appeared around 1800 with a rectangular head and a burred edge; wire nails arrived later in the nineteenth century. A scatter of different nail types usually means later repair, which is normal and not necessarily a problem.

Wear, patina and the hidden faces

Look at where hands and feet actually touch the piece. The front edge of a drawer, the top of a chair back, the toe of a foot and the tops of stretchers should all be worn smooth and slightly dished. Reproduction wear is often applied with wire wool or a sander and looks too even, too deliberate, as though the whole piece has been buffed rather than used.

Turn the piece around. Back boards on genuine old furniture are usually unfinished, made from boards of differing widths, nailed rather than screwed, and darkened unevenly by light and grime. Dust and grime should have settled in crevices, under mouldings and behind drawer bottoms. Worm holes, if present, should have dark edges and a little fine dust around them; drilled imitation holes have sharp rims, pale timber inside and no dust.

Joinery, timber and the final judgement

Hand-cut dovetails vary in width and spacing, and the saw marks inside the joint are visible and slightly wayward. Machine-cut dovetails are perfectly regular, tight and uniform, which is not automatically bad — plenty of good late Victorian and Edwardian furniture was machine-jointed — but it does rule out an earlier date.

Weigh the timber, too. An oak carcase with mahogany veneer and pine drawer linings is a normal period combination; every surface in the same expensive hardwood is not. And remember that "reproduction" is not the same as "worthless". A well-made 1920s revival piece can be a lovely buy at the right price. What matters is that you know what you are looking at, pay accordingly, and buy because you like the thing itself rather than the label the seller has given it.