Terry Therneau
12-18-2012, 8:30 PM
I was looking at a copy I have of the 1930 Wallace Nutting furniture catalog (modern reprint ISBN:0-916838-09-9), and found a paragraph on the subject.
I'm not looking to start a war nor even a spirited discussion, just thought it of interest and amusement to see that the debate is an old one.
"...Trade furniture was shown to me recently with spurious pins, without tenons under them. Its sales are vast. Disgust with such widespread enacted lies has induced me to open my shop to customers who can see the work go together -- big tenons into big mortises. The dowel is the bane of furniture. To begin with, it makes construction only one quarter as expensive. It is weak from the first, rickety shortly, a disgrace to the maker, a sorrow and shame to the owner, the shoddy symbol of a shoddy age."
His comments on faked antiques (new furniture artificially aged) are just as lively.
Terry Therneau
I'm not looking to start a war nor even a spirited discussion, just thought it of interest and amusement to see that the debate is an old one.
"...Trade furniture was shown to me recently with spurious pins, without tenons under them. Its sales are vast. Disgust with such widespread enacted lies has induced me to open my shop to customers who can see the work go together -- big tenons into big mortises. The dowel is the bane of furniture. To begin with, it makes construction only one quarter as expensive. It is weak from the first, rickety shortly, a disgrace to the maker, a sorrow and shame to the owner, the shoddy symbol of a shoddy age."
His comments on faked antiques (new furniture artificially aged) are just as lively.
Terry Therneau