American Shaving Stand, ca. 1875
GUEST:
Well, this shaving stand's been in our family... we can account for about 110 years or so. It was originally my great-grandfather's and then it passed on to, I believe, his son and then my mom inherited it, and then it's been in our living room ever since I have memories.
APPRAISER:
So it's been around for a while. It's a great piece of furniture. It has everything in a piece of Victorian furniture that you'd like to see. One, it's a shaving stand. We don't use shaving stands today; we shave in the bathroom. This is just sort of an unusual object that we don't run across. Two, it's tall, it's sculptural, it's beautiful. This piece is made out of solid walnut, has wonderful legs, curves and arches. Very, very sexy. It just screams Victorian when you see it. It has a fluted column. What I love is this handle, too. On this side of the handle, we have quite a bit of wear where people have hung the strap up there for 110 years, 120 years. Most Victorian furniture has some sort of decoration to it, and we have these wonderful pieces that are hanging down. We have a drawer-- fantastic. Put your razors in, put your accoutrements in. We have a great marble top. A lot of Victorian furniture has marble tops, and a lot of it has a wonderful beveled edge, just like this. It's very difficult to tell exactly where it was made. Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania-- those were all places where this type of furniture was made with some regularity. We have two condition problems. One is the mirror has been replaced. The back has been replaced here. In Victorian furniture, it's not such a big deal to have the mirror replaced. We are missing the knob here. That would be fairly easy to get replaced. You could use one of these as a reference. When I was younger, in my 20s and 30s, Victorian furniture was the absolute epicenter of the antique market, and now, if you watch the Antiques Roadshow regularly, you know, we see a lot more early furniture, we see a lot more 20th-century furniture, and Victorian has kind of been pushed to the side a little bit. From a value perspective, this piece is probably worth at auction, $3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST:
Wow. Okay, wow. That's very good. (chuckling)
Appraisal Details
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