Vintage View: Pitfalls in buying genuine antique furniture

IF you watch the Antiques Road Show on BBC1, you will be familiar with that suspense-soaked pause before the expert examining a piece breathily declares it to be — genuine.

Genuine as described in most dictionaries means something ‘actually possesses the alleged or apparent attribute or character’. For vintage goods, being genuine can mark the difference between something with real value and something counterfeit that’s not legal to sell even at a village boot sale. However, things can be reproduced, or later works by a maker re-issued honestly. Reproduction furniture and smalls are the staple of many antique sales and galleries. What often makes the difference between assigning something as a rogue or a reproduction is the handling of the piece.

Starting with fake — in antique terms, fake is not just a mistaken reproduction, faked things crucially, are presented with the intention to deceive. They are the liars in the trade, and sold by the liars in the trade and also, unwittingly by others too incompetent or careless to know the difference.