There is no substitute for handling old furniture. After a while the eye learns a certain grammar — the way a century of polishing has softened a sharp edge, the faint unevenness of a hand-cut joint, the dry, waxy smell of well-kept oak. Whether you are browsing a Shropshire barn sale or a smart London dealer, here is what to look at, and in what order.

Begin with the Surface

Genuine patina is not a finish applied to wood; it is the wood itself, worn and fed with wax over generations. It has depth and a soft, shifting sheen that follows the grain, and it will be darker where hands have rested — the edges of a drawer front, the arms of a chair, the top of a leg just above the floor.

Reproductions are usually too even. Look for a uniform sheen across the whole surface, or the opposite fault: a fresh-looking top with suspiciously dark corners, where a tinted wax has been worked into the crevices to imitate age. Feel an inside edge if you are allowed to. A genuine surface should feel dry and very slightly uneven, never slick.

Read the Timber

Solid timber moves. Over a century or two, wide boards shrink a little across their width, which leaves fine gaps at the joints on a tabletop or a chest, and a slim dark line where two boards meet. Shrinkage splits along the grain are equally normal in old oak and walnut, and were often there before the piece was finished.

• Boards cut before the nineteenth century were often riven — split along the grain rather than sawn — which leaves a subtly undulating surface instead of a flat one.
• Inside drawers, old wood is usually pale and unpolished, standing in sharp contrast to the dark exterior. A modern copy is often stained all over, inside and out.
• Beware fumed oak, treated with ammonia to darken it quickly. The result is flat, dull and faintly greenish, with none of the reddish warmth of genuinely aged oak.

Look in the Hidden Places

Reproducers decorate the front; the truth is at the back. Turn a chest around and study the backboards. Hand-cut work uses thin, wide boards of irregular widths, often with a beaded edge, and they will have darkened unevenly with age. Modern backs are neat, uniform and fixed with identical screws.

Drawer bottoms are just as revealing. A proper old bottom sits in grooves cut into the sides and is made from one or two wide, riven boards. A replacement is often thin ply, nailed or stapled in place. Then slide the drawer out and run a fingertip along its side runners: after a hundred years of use, these acquire a polished, worn hollow that is quite distinctive.

Joints, Metalwork and Dating Clues

Hand-cut dovetails are irregular. The tails and pins vary in width, the spacing is uneven, and the saw cuts are rarely perfectly plumb. Machine-cut dovetails, which appear from the middle of the nineteenth century, are uniform and symmetrical — a strong hint of later manufacture, though not proof of it, since repairs are common in genuinely old pieces.

Screws are a useful guide. Hand-made screws, with off-centre slots and irregular threads, were in use until the mid-nineteenth century; slotted machine screws followed; Phillips screws belong to the twentieth century and have no business in a Georgian chest. Old brass has a warm, reddish tone and an uneven patina, while modern cast brass looks uniformly yellow and lacquered.

Wear, and Where It Falls

Real wear follows real use, and it appears in logical places: the front feet of a chair, the top rail where hands grip to move it, the centre of a drawer front where a thumb has pulled it for decades, the stretchers rubbed by heels. It is gradual, polished and smooth to the touch.

Faked wear is usually wrong in one of two ways. It may be random — sanded patches in places a hand would never reach — or mechanical, with sharp scratches and chain marks that look scratched rather than absorbed. Genuine old damage is dark with dirt and age; fresh damage is bright and raw underneath.

A Few Questions Worth Asking

• Is the timber right for the period? Oak dominated until the late seventeenth century, walnut until about 1730, then mahogany, with satinwood for the delicate pieces of the 1780s.
• Has it been over-restored? A replaced foot, a new top or a stripped surface reduces value and can disguise a much younger frame.
• Does it smell old? A faint, dry, waxy scent is reassuring. Fresh timber means recent work, however clever.
• Are the repairs honest? Good repairs are part of a piece's history and often rather charming, but you should know exactly what you are buying.

Above all, buy with your hands as well as your eyes. Sit in the chair, open the drawers, feel the underside of the table. Old furniture has a softness and a weight that is very hard to imitate, and once you have handled enough of it, you will recognise it at a touch.