How to Buy or Sell — Furniture

The largest antiques you will have to sell are probably pieces of furniture. They are also among the most valuable, though the size creates special problems and limits your methods of sale. “Antique” furniture, which includes anything 100 years old or more, has a market value that can be determined online, from price books, auctions, […]

Wedding Dresses

Until the late nineteenth century, the average woman was married in her best dress. The dress of choice was not white because it was to be worn to church or for visiting. White wedding dresses came into fashion for wealthy women after Queen Victoria’s wedding in 1840. By the 1870s, middle-class women wanted white wedding […]

Accessories—Collars, Handbags, Fans, and Gloves

Small articles of antique clothing are easy to collect. Odds and ends like fancy collars, beaded gloves, and lace fans were too good for everyday use and did not suffer the wear and tear other garments did. The best examples have lace, beading, or embroidery. Machine-made pieces, like celluloid collars or printed fans, are interesting, […]

Shawls

Great-Grandmother may have owned several types of shawls. Embroidered Spanish silk, French Chantilly lace, woven Kashmir, and paisley shawls were popular during the nineteenth century. Shawls were fashionable in Europe and America from about 1790- 1870. The history of the shawl dates back to the eleventh century in Kashmir. Very wealthy men wore the expensive […]

Stevengraphs

In Coventry, England, about 1860, weaver Thomas Stevens adapted his loom to produce woven bookmarks, fancy ribbons, and other novelties. He developed Stevengraphs, woven silk pictures that were mounted on cardboard and sold to be hung in homes. These silk pictures showed the Crystal Palace, the Houses of Parliament, and other famous buildings; horse racing, […]

Rugs, Carpets, Oriental Rugs, and Other Floor Coverings

The first true carpet was produced in Babylonia about 700 B.C. Carpets might have been made at an even earlier date. A type of Oriental rug was used in ancient Greece and Rome, but wear plus time has destroyed them. The earliest existing rugs date from the 1400s. Sand and rush matting were the earliest […]

Needlepoint

“Needlepoint” describes counted-thread needlework that covers the entire canvas. It includes petit point, gros point, and flame stitch (bargello). The canvas may be silk, cotton, or linen. The average collector today thinks only gros point is needlepoint. It is often used to upholster furniture. Early needlepoint patterns were marked in black and white on graph […]

Samplers

A sampler is exactly what the name suggests: a sample of the skills of the maker. Samplers have been made for hundreds of years. They reached the height of their popularity during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe, but the best American samplers date from 1790 to 1840. One of the earliest samplers that […]

Coverlets

Woven coverlets of blue and white, or brown, red, green, yellow, or other colors, were made during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the early years the housewife furnished her own materials for a coverlet. The wool of black sheep was used for the black wool. For other colors, white wool was dyed outside in […]

Crewel

Crewelwork is an embroidered fabric. Colored yarn was sewn in designs on a piece of natural-colored linen. The designs usually showed an Asian influence and pictured imaginary flowers and birds. Most crewel was made in India and sent to all parts of the world. It was used for draperies, to cover chairs, or as bed […]