Back when I was active in the buying, selling and restoring furniture, etc., I once bought an old piano at auction for $1.00, and of course everyone thought I had lost my mind, especially my antiquer friends.
But there was a reason for my madness. I purchased it specifically for disassembly and saved all the potentially usable parts. Just the screws, hinges, etc. that I used over the next 10+ years were probably worth $200+ retail value iffen there was even a place I could have found to purchase them. For authentic restorations one needs authentically old hardware to do it with.
To make a repo or restore an item of “square-nail” vintage one best have a “stash” of different sizes of square nails before they even think about doing said project.
