How can you tell if an antique is a reproduction?

Wear tells the truth

An object used for a century has wear that maps to how it was handled. A chair's arms are worn where hands rested, not on the underside. A plate's base ring is scratched from sliding on shelves; its face is scratched from cutlery. A drawer's runners are worn concave, not flat.

Artificially aged pieces get distressed in a workshop, and the wear ends up in the wrong places or spread evenly. If a piece looks uniformly old, be suspicious — real age is uneven.

Construction gives away the century

Furniture

• Look at the joints. Hand-cut dovetails are slightly uneven and few in number. Machine dovetails are identical and evenly spaced — that means after about 1890.
• Look at the saw marks on unfinished surfaces. Straight parallel marks mean a pit or frame saw (early). Curved arcs mean a circular saw, so after about 1830.
• Look at the screws. Hand-made screws have off-centre slots and irregular threads. Perfectly uniform Phillips-head screws mean the 1930s at the earliest.
• Look underneath. The parts nobody sees are where reproductions get lazy: new plywood, staples, modern glue.

Ceramics and glass

• Weight. Modern reproductions are often noticeably heavier or lighter than originals, because the clay body or glass formula differs.
• Pontil mark. Old hand-blown glass has a rough scar on the base where it was broken off the rod. A smooth moulded base means machine production.
• Crazing. Genuine crazing is a fine irregular web that runs into the glaze. Faked crazing sits on the surface and often follows suspiciously even lines.
• Bubbles and imperfections in old glass are random and few. Deliberately "antique-looking" glass tends to have too many, too evenly spread.

Then, and only then, look at the mark

Marks are the last check, not the first, because they are the easiest part to copy. What to look for:

• Is the mark too crisp? A stamp applied under a glaze in 1890 blurs slightly. A laser-sharp mark on a supposedly 130-year-old piece is a problem.
• Is it the right mark for the claimed date? Most major makers changed marks every few decades, and reference lists are freely available. A mark that postdates the claimed era ends the discussion.
• Does the country name fit? "Made in China" as a country-of-origin mark is a modern requirement. Older Chinese export pieces are not marked that way.

The senses people forget

Smell the inside of a drawer or the underside of a lid. Genuinely old wood smells of old wood — dry, slightly musty. New wood, modern varnish and fresh glue are unmistakable and do not fade for years.

Listen. Tap a porcelain piece gently with a fingernail. A sound, undamaged piece rings. A dull thud usually means a hairline crack or a repair, which matters as much to value as authenticity does.

For a first pass on something you cannot identify at all, Attic Gold names the category and era from a photo and shows what comparable pieces sold for — enough to tell you whether the careful checks above are worth your afternoon.

Common questions

What is the easiest way to spot a reproduction antique?

Look at wear patterns before anything else. Genuine age produces uneven wear in the exact places hands and surfaces touched an object. Reproductions show either no wear at all or wear applied evenly across the whole piece, which does not happen naturally.

Do reproductions have marks?

Frequently, and often the correct-looking one — marks are the easiest element to copy, so they are the first thing a forger reproduces. Check construction, wear and weight first, and treat the mark as a final confirmation rather than the starting point.

Is a reproduction antique worth anything?

Sometimes. Well-made reproductions from the 1920s to 1950s have become collectible in their own right, and quality reproduction furniture still has real furniture value. What it does not have is the premium of the original, which is usually many times higher.

How can I date old furniture?

Saw marks, joinery and hardware date furniture more reliably than style, because style gets copied constantly. Circular saw marks mean after roughly 1830, machine-cut dovetails after about 1890, and Phillips screws after the 1930s.

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