Antiquing

The book I read to research this post was Antiquing for Dummies by Ron Zoglin et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. There are 3 types of things people collect, there are collectibles which are less than 100 years old but are maybe rare, there are antiques which are over 100 years old & there are antiquities which are produced by another civilisation like the romans & are extremely old. An items age doesn't necessarily make it valuable & sometimes collectibles are worth more than antiques. When buying antiques you should primarily buy things you like. There are a lot of fakes circulating in the antique world & sometimes even the experts are fooled. One big giveaway is the workmanship if something is wood & it was cut with a handsaw it won't be a perfectly clean cut, tiny bits of wood will have broken off. Handsaws weren't made to the standards they are made nowadays. If something was cut in a sawmill the saw will have vibrated back & forth & there will be signs of this. The holes won't be cut as cleanly as on a modern item either. There will be dirt & maybe woodworm. Look at the nails they should be rusted & the hole should have dirt & rust. One trick for identifying an antique mirror is put a pen point up to it & there should be a slight gap between the 2 pen points. Mirrors weren't made to modern standards & often the metallic coating will be faded around the edges. If you are buying silver or gold 1 dodgy trick is to attach a piece with a hallmark from something, look for slight lumps where it was attached, also if the metal is faded it can cost a lot of money getting it recoated.