What Can You Tell Me About This Washstand.

[frogpatch]

Mart, here is the one of two nails from the bottom and a picture of the drawer bottom. The nails are the older and forged variety that were used until the 1860s or so. Not square sheet cut. I have more pics but I keep getting error messages about the size. They are the same as the first so I don't know what the problem is.

Cogar, thanks for the info. The piece was never cut down.  I can tell, trust me. I did this for forty years.

[frogpatch]

More Pics including a bottom detail

[frogpatch]

Two more

[mart]

Much better pics !! Kind of hard on the first ones to figure it out because its little pieces here and there and you have to put it together like a jigsaw puzzle !!  What I was looking at was not the hidden pull in the first pics !!  That's why I asked the questions !!  Good light works wonders on these things !!  $15. bucks,, ??  I would say you did well !! Have to agree with Cogar on age at mid 1800`s !! I personally have never seen a hidden pull that early !! Not to say they didn`t use them,, evidently they did,, I have just not found one !!  Good score on this !!

[frogpatch]

I would say now that I dragged out in the yard and saw it upside down that it is around 1860 ish. It has a transitional Empire to Victorian look. I do not come across those hand smashed nail heads often. I saw a blacksmith in Williamsburg making them. He would cut a piece of hot iron at a shear angle, drop it in a hole in an anvil and whack the top with a hammer. He could make about a dozen per minute. The points are always squared off.

I still do not think it had a cupboard or open shelf on top. It is too small to me. If anything a splash. I showed the photo of the only holes and where they are. They did have a purpose once I would guess.

That hand hole really threw me off. I am thinking about removing the pulls and filling the holes, I know I can make them go away completely. I once to get paid to do that sort of thing. I doubt my wife will let me. She found it.

[cogar]

The points are always squared off.

Squared off points are always good. They won't cause the wood to split like sharp pointed nails will. They "cut" the wood when driven in. They don't spread the wood apart like sharp pointed nails will do.

Anyway, Frogpatch, I scanned these images out of my ... "Book Two - Country Furniture", ...... and I did so FYI, ......... to wit:

[bigwull]

The points are always squared off.

Squared off points are always good. They won't cause the wood to split like sharp pointed nails will. They "cut" the wood when driven in. They don't spread the wood apart like sharp pointed nails will do.

Anyway, Frogpatch, I scanned these images out of my ... "Book Two - Country Furniture", ...... and I did so FYI, ......... to wit:

but anyone worth their salt knows that if you dull the point of a nail it will not split the wood...to .woo..

[frogpatch]

Cogar,

I am not trying to create a debate or be argumentative but please scale this on paper. The piece is 29 high x 29 wide x 14 deep. If you were to have a case on top it would around 10 inches deep x 28 inches wide and maybe 30 inches high. That would create a piece that was less than five feet tall and just shy of 2 1/2 feet wide. This is all approximation of course. It would be a very small cupboard. The piece you are showing me has no top either. The other has a table base. I have a very small open hutch with H hinges right behind where I am sitting. It is the smallest one of these that I have ever seen. It is still 6 feet tall, three feet wide and 18 inches deep. Do you see what I am saying. This thing is the same size as any washstand that I have ever had. Why can't it be one?

[bigwull]

a 6 feet tall hutch....gawd..that s big enough for Harvey....to woo

[cogar]

Cogar,

I am not trying to create a debate or be argumentative but please scale this on paper. The piece is 29 high x 29 wide x 14 deep. If you were to have a case on top it would around 10 inches deep x 28 inches wide and maybe 30 inches high. That would create a piece that was less than five feet tall and just shy of 2 1/2 feet wide. This is all approximation of course. It would be a very small cupboard.

Yup, that would be a small cupboard. Best you check this Windsor chair out. 

http://www.nj.com/homegarden/design/index.ssf/2008/09/kovels_childrens_furniture_old.html

This thing is the same size as any washstand that I have ever had. Why can't it be one?

 
 
Frogpatch, ….. I told you it could be a washstand, ….. but if it is, …. it is an awful elaborate one that was specially made for a ritzy rich customer. 

An yway, .............

You said = #27 - Like I said it is only 29 inches tall. I have two real open hutches and a step back cupboard and the bases are all taller than that.

I said = #27 - The cabinet’s current height of “only 29 inches tall” is irrelevant given the possibility that the legs could have been cut off  …. or ….. that is the original height that the cabinetmaker chose to make it.

You said = #30 - Cogar, thanks for the info. The piece was never cut down.  I can tell, trust me. I did this for forty years.

Then I posted 2 pictures of cabinets, including their dimensions, ….. with a THICK RED LINE underneath the BASE height dimension FYI, … one being 29” high and the other 28” high. And because of their “turned” legs one can be fairly confident they have never been cut down. 

Yup, and the bases of your 2 pieces are both taller than the above 2 pieces. So what?

But anyway, if your cabinet is pre-1880 …. and given the fact that it has 4 straight legs (see Post #32), ….. then I’m sure not brave enough to be betting my last cold 6-pack of beer that those legs have never been cut down at sometime in the past 130+ years.

I was good too, and iffen I had cut them down ...........

[frogpatch]

I have an update for this old post. While reading the description of Early Commode Washstand 1840-1860 in my 1952 Field Guide to American Victorian Furniture I found this. "Drawer front...placed in an overhanging frieze, is boldly ogee molded with finger grips on lower edge.."
Mystery solved. The pulls were added later. Someone tried to paint it like oak but only did the sides and back for some reason.

[jacon4]

Late to this thread but I'd say, classic mid 19th century panel construction and, for 15 bucks, how can you go wrong?

[KC]

Still makes me laugh to read this from way back when.

Hope you have been making some good use of this over time frogpatch.

By-the-way...how in the world did you come up with the name "frogpatch"?

[frogpatch]

KC, When I needed a screen name for a site where anonymity was key, I made it up by taking Lil Abners home of Dogpatch and changing it to Frogpatch. Then I started using it for a screen name on Hub Pages. I even owned Frogpatch.com but when it expired someone stole it in hopes that I would buy it back. Today I have my first and last name as a dot com for my writing portfolio. By the way I did not know that people could go into my profile and get my personal info. I got an email addressing me by my full name from someone here. No big deal.

[mart]

Frogpatch,, you remember that little line that used to be under your posts ??  That's how !! Just click on it and it gave a writing bio !! Old one did  not sure about later one,, you changed it !!