News »  Guide to buying antique dining tables

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

At Elisabeth James Antiques we hold the largest stock of genuine antiques in the World but daily chats with clients sadly reveals often that the multitude of misleading internet advertisements have left most people unable to differentiate between the modern fakes, badly restored from the good genuine examples. This is largely due to the misleading descriptions but also that surprisingly the plywood reproductions and worthless fodder being priced the same, or more, than the genuine tables that we stock and carefully restore and finish.

So how will you be able to identify a genuine antique dining table from the reproductions/fakes all over the internet?

1. Any company that claims to have a large stock of ‘antique dining tables’ but doesn’t show you any in untouched original condition or details of their workshops, restoration team and finishing process (videos, before and after pictures, etc.) are likely selling fakes with words such as ‘style’, ‘vintage’, ‘bespoke’, etc. If all the stock shown looks very similar with a shiny sprayed finish then simply these are straight out of a shipping container from the Far East. Ask to see their workshops and unrestored dining tables or whether they can re finish to your chosen shade. If the answer is ‘no’ then you should be skeptical
2. Genuine antique English dining tables are made in solid timber and rarely have too much in the way of decorative inlays or exotic veneers (the animal glue used historically for veneer work would simply melt under heat so no practical for a dining table). Any company with a range of burr walnut, burr oak and decoratively inlaid tables are in fact specializing in plywood veneered reproductions from the Far East or simply taking old frame and adding plywood tops.
3. All Regency pedestal tables are made from mahogany. So any company offering Regency walnut, oak, marquetry inlaid, etc. are selling plywood fakes.
4. Any company offering ‘antique dining table and chair sets’ are not selling you antiques as actually from history just a handful of tables were made with chairs and have survived. So companies selling genuine antique dining tables will instead offer you a selection of suitable chairs sets and then finish them to match. Any company that don’t offer this or choices of finishing and upholstery simply do not have restoration team and hence are not selling antiques.
5. As per point 1., look for companies that do offer original untouched examples as easy to identify the aged look and finishes prior to restoration.  A table 100+ years old will be tired, uneven, discoloured and be marked to the top. It will be dusty, dirty and dry underneath, runners systems will show wear, casters be scratched and jointing not crisp. Perhaps that’s not what you want to see in your home as an end result but skilled restorers take these superb quality original tables and transform into masterpieces which are unrivaled today. Nobody could ever repeat the craftsmanship use of quality seasoned timbers again and this shows in the end result of restoring a great piece of history.
6. The restoration required to restore a genuine runner system extending table from the 19^th Century is extensive and costly (at least £1500) and given that these tables account for around 80% of all surviving tables from history, then easy enough to check a company claiming to specialise by the percentage of extending tables compared to pedestal type or solid top. In short, any company without a vast majority of their ‘antique tables’ being extending type will most likely mean they do not have a restoration team and are deploying reproductions as the easy more profitable option. At Elisabeth James Antiques we have a team of 11 in house cabinet makers, French polishers and upholsters and this is an expensive but necessary payroll that enables us to supply skillfully restored genuine antique dining tables.

We have quite a few videos and blogs on our website that show the restoration process, how we finish to match a set of dining chairs, upholster in your fabric. It may be a bold claim, but from our knowledge of this market,  Elisabeth James Antiques are the Worlds only experts specialising in genuine antique dining furniture and hold the largest stock to choose from with over 500 tables and 3000+ chairs in stock at any given time.