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Furniture stories
There are great furniture stores around for both new and "used" items. Can you imagine a chest of drawers that sold for $14 million dollars? This was an 18th century chest made by a famous maker and in pristine condition with the original finish. Arecord price for used furniture. I remember growing up with old furniture my mother bought at used furniture stores. She brought these things back to Garfield, rented a room behind the Post Office and began refinishing them. These were 1930's items such as a buffet, server, table, chairs and a china cabinet. Though these pieces are not very valuable, they are filled with sentiment. My brother has and uses the old family dining table and chairs. My sister has the large buffet. There are stories connected with most pieces of furniture and this one is good. The buffet was used in an old house we rented in Garfield. When a new home was built in Twin City, it went to the basement. Later my sister needed it for a place in Charleston, but when she moved to a smaller place she had to sell it because there was no place to store it. Years later I lived with her in Charleston and worked as the manager of a business called Awful Antiques, an antique mall with 50 dealers. One day I was looking over the stock and I saw this buffet covered up with other items. I reached down and opened one of the doors and it made a special sound, one I had heard before. I looked more closely and realized that it really was mother's large buffet. I told my sister who hurried down and purchased and she used it back in Garfield today. My two sons grew up in a museum environment which I was sure to backfire on me. We had nothing new, all antiques from 1850 or before. So today my older son has a fine modern house with not much furniture. I suggested to him that there is lots of furniture in his mom's house and in mine if he would only ask. "Dad, it is like this, we like new things that look old." My grandfather did not like old things either. My grandmother's cousins in Pennsylvania had an old chest that had been in the family for generations shipped by rail to my grandmother in Garfield. My grandfather was furious and refused to pay the shipping fee. Somehow my grandmother scraped up the money and got her chest. She kept the family Bibles and pictures in one drawer of this chest and she let me pull these things out to study when I was a child. Alot can be learned from the Keno brothers (twins) on the Antiques Road Show: identifying fakes, how to preserve original finishes and knowing what you have. Even "modern" furniture from the 1950's is highly collectible. Allow me jut one more story. Years ago before my children were born I drove a hatchback Honda Civic. I visited my grandmother's cousin in western Pennsylvania. She lived in my great, great grandmother's house. We went antiquing one afternoon and I was about to buy an old crock. She said, don't buy that, my basement is full of those things and you can just pick you out one. Upon returning home I went to the basement and was crawling around looking at these old crocks when my arm lifted up an oil cloth over a little table. Wow…it was an early 1700's porringer top tea table with its original finish. I asked her about it and she said "oh, that's my pickling table you can have it if you can find me another table I can pickle on." I did and I enjoy using that table that has been in my family for hundreds of years. What about you? Throw out the old and bring in that modern, overstuffed furniture? It is good we have such varied tastes. Meanwhile, I am back in my "modern" recliner.--Jack Atkinson is our regular guest columnist and a resident of Garfield.
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