This seems to be the general state of the news, one thing i have to say though is that good antique restorers have never been busier as those that are in the know are investing in good quality antique furniture.

Antiques have never been so cheap as lots of people are selling their items simply to live.

This seems a sad scenario to take advantage of others I’m not suggesting that is what you do but i am suggesting to go along to your auction room and buy good quality antique clocks and furniture the best investment is in pre 1750s antique clocks and furniture .

If you wish to be really clever and can afford it the best thing to buy is early walnut furniture or early oak or if you’re really lucky and can afford it early Dutch marquetry furniture circa 1790.

The secret seems to be in buying items that have a special interest of age or generally items that are unusual even for their given period.

Sometimes if you go to your local provincial auction room perhaps on a day that is not one of their specials as on this day many experts will come as they will have received some form of advertising telling them that it is on, but on a general sale day in the week try and pick a day that raining if you need to be really clever.

A client of mine did exactly this and managed to buy a particularly fine 17th century wine table.

This wine table is made from walnut and burr oak circa 1680 this wine table being on a tripod base with feet that looked like little boots, on the knee of the legs there are acanthus leaves. This table was acquired for somewhere in the region of £650 I believe, which might be a lot of money for a table, if this was not a documented item and worth in the region of £8000.

Firstly the area is steamed profusely to remove the veneer then the crack is opened and glue poured in and clamped.

A butterfly made from timber of the same gender as the base wood, is inserted across the crack on both sides, the veneer is then re-layed.

On the left a photograph of the table showing the split in the veneer and the table, on the right a photograph of the veneer removed and the butterfly which is inserted to a depth of half the tables thickness. This kind of repair is necessary to stop the table splitting any more and invariably the butterfly as it is called,  can then be veneered over, in this particular case with walnut veneer.

A lot of Victorian tables that were veneered over have this problem mostly because the base wood was of an inferior standard to the surface structure veneer therefore any knots or curls would move and open up and cause a split in the surface veneer.

Here you can see the table after the repair and after being veneered and polished. The split In the table was at the bottom right.