50 Fun Facts About Antiques

Which American Revolution hero was a Boston silversmith who took up dentistry to make ends meet?

Paul Revere went back to his silver shop after the war and in 1800 became the first American to roll copper into sheets for sheathing naval ships.

Which radioactive element makes antique Vaseline glass glow bright green under ultraviolet light?

Uranium, first identified by a German chemist in 1789, was colouring decorative glass by the 1830s. The Vaseline nickname came later, from its likeness to petroleum jelly.

Which London cabinetmaker's pattern book, the Director, turned his surname into a furniture style?

Thomas Chippendale issued the catalogue in 1754, and it spread so widely that similar furniture by other makers came to be called by his name.

Which country's name became an English verb for coating furniture in glossy black imitation lacquer?

Japan gave English the word japanning in the 17th century, when European craftsmen copied the then-famous Japanese lacquer with resin varnishes instead of true tree sap.

Which Saint Petersburg jeweller made Easter eggs for Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II to give as gifts?

Fabergé delivered 50 Imperial eggs from 1885 to 1916, each one an Easter gift from a tsar to his wife or his mother.

Which BBC series, first shown in 1979, has experts value the public's old treasures and inspired a PBS version?

Antiques Roadshow grew out of a 1977 documentary, and Boston's WGBH licensed the format from the BBC to launch the American edition in 1997.

Which carved jewel with a raised portrait shares its name with a star's brief appearance in a film?

Cameo first meant a gem carved in raised relief, and the screen sense grew out of its use for a short literary portrait. An intaglio is the reverse, with the image cut into the stone.

By the customary definition, which also asks for original condition, how old must an antique be?

100 years is the usual threshold for an antique, though motor vehicles are an exception: some definitions let a car qualify after as little as 25.

Which Chinese dynasty, whose Yongle Emperor built the Forbidden City, is renowned for blue and white porcelain?

Ming emperors ran imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, a city sometimes called the porcelain capital of China, and production has continued there to this day.

Which designer's New York studio made leaded stained-glass lamps, many now credited to his employee Clara Driscoll?

Louis Comfort Tiffany was the son of the founder of the jeweller Tiffany & Co., and for over a century he was given the credit for shades that Driscoll designed.

Which auction house, founded in London by a bookseller in 1744, is the slightly older rival of Christie's?

Sotheby's was started by bookseller Samuel Baker 22 years before James Christie held his first London sale, and the firm later put its headquarters in New York City.

Which Cremona craftsman's violins are known by the Latin form of his surname and often sell for millions?

Antonio Stradivari marked many of his labels Cremonensis, meaning 'of Cremona', and players shorten the name of his instruments to Strad.

Which German region popularised the cuckoo clock and exported it worldwide, although it was not invented there?

Black Forest makers came late to the bird call: an Augsburg merchant described a cuckoo clock in 1629, decades before clockmaking was established in the region.

Which English potter, whose grandson was Charles Darwin, created jasperware in the pale blue that now bears his name?

Josiah Wedgwood's daughter Susannah married Robert Darwin and became the mother of the naturalist, who went on to marry another of the potter's grandchildren, Emma.

Which word, first used of a year's grape harvest, do dealers use for items too young to be antiques?

Vintage first described the wine made from one year's grapes. In fashion it usually means more than 20 years old, while retro describes new goods made in an older style.

Which celibate American sect, nicknamed for ecstatic worship, made plain ladder-back chairs collectors prize?

Shakers were first known as the 'Shaking Quakers', and the rarest pieces of their furniture have sold at auction for sums in the mid six figures.

Which island did Venice order its glassmakers to move to in 1291, making it Europe's main glass producer?

Murano took the furnaces because Venice feared fire, since most of the city's buildings were then made of wood.

Which sleek interwar style, seen in New York's Chrysler Building, took its name from a 1925 Paris exhibition?

Art Deco is short for Arts Décoratifs, and in its own day the look went by names such as style moderne instead of the label used now.

Heirloom began as a term of English inheritance law, and its ending 'loom' originally meant what kind of object?

A tool is what loom first meant, and in English law an heirloom was a movable possession that long custom tied to a family estate, so it passed with the land.

Which word for the mellow surface age gives old furniture also names the green layer on the Statue of Liberty?

Patina once alarmed Congress, which voted money to paint the statue until Army engineers found that the green layer was protecting the copper beneath.

Which name is given to silver that is 92.5 percent pure, the standard often stamped as 925 on jewellery?

Sterling was another name for the English silver penny, so the phrase first meant metal fit for making those coins. The other 7.5 percent is usually copper.

Hallmarks on British silver are named after the London hall of which guild, where metal was tested?

Hallmark comes from Goldsmiths' Hall, and the oldest English mark is the leopard's head that a statute of Edward I ordered stamped on tested silver in 1300.

Which term, from the French for 'to come from', means an antique's documented chain of past owners?

Provenance does double duty: a recorded line of past owners adds value, and tracing it is also one of the ways experts authenticate an object.

Which Dutch city, home of the painter Johannes Vermeer, gave its name to blue and white tin-glazed pottery?

Delft potters turned to copying Chinese porcelain after 1620, when the death of the Wanli Emperor interrupted the supply reaching Europe.

Which lidded metal antique with a handle was filled with hot embers and slid under the bedcovers on cold nights?

Warming pan use ran from the mid-17th century to the early 20th, and the embers dried out damp bedding as well as taking off the chill.

Which grey alloy, made mostly of tin, was a leading material for plates and cups before porcelain spread?

Pewter once contained as much as 40 percent lead, and most modern versions are made without it to prevent lead poisoning.

Which collectors' name covers the cheap coloured tableware that Quaker Oats packed inside food boxes?

Depression glass was machine-made and given away free or sold cheaply, and some movie theaters handed pieces to their patrons.

Which wooden kitchen antique was worked by pumping a staff called a dasher up and down?

Butter churn dashers went by a string of regional names, including plunger, plumper and kirn-staff, kirn being a Scots word for churn.

Which lockable drawing-room box held an Asian import so costly that the mistress of the house prepared it?

Tea caddy is believed to come from catty, a Chinese pound of about a pound and a third, and until about 1800 the boxes were simply called canisters.

Which English textile and wallpaper designer, also a poet and socialist, led the British Arts and Crafts movement?

William Morris turned to wallpaper in 1862 with a pattern called Trellis, and his firm went on to shape the look of British interiors for decades.

Which interlocking joint, found in ancient Egyptian furniture, usually fixes the sides of a drawer to its front?

Dovetail joints lock a row of wedge-shaped pins into matching tails, so a drawer front cannot be pulled straight off however hard it is tugged.

Which folk art did whalers create by engraving sperm whale teeth and bone, then highlighting the lines with pigment?

Scrimshaw was a leisure activity done with sailing needles, and the roll of the ship shaped the result as much as the whaler's skill.

Which early synthetic plastic, developed in Yonkers in 1907, is now collected as radio casings and jewellery?

Bakelite, named after its inventor Leo Baekeland, resists heat and does not conduct electricity, which made it ideal for insulators and appliance casings.

Which chinoiserie tableware design with a bridge, a garden fence and a central pair of birds probably began at Spode?

Willow pattern legends are not old Chinese tales: the stories were invented in England from the elements of the design in order to promote sales.

Which German toy maker has fixed a button in the ear of its teddy bears since 1904 to deter counterfeits?

Steiff owes its bear to Richard Steiff, nephew of founder Margarete, and an American buyer ordered 3,000 of them in 1903 as the teddy craze took off.

Which town near Dresden, backed by Augustus the Strong, made Europe's first hard-paste porcelain?

Meissen marks its porcelain with crossed swords taken from the arms of Saxony, and the swords are reportedly one of the oldest trademarks in existence.

Which furniture style, named for a British monarch who died in 1714, is best known for its cabriole leg?

Queen Anne furniture is smaller, lighter and more comfortable than what came before, and the style went on developing well after the monarch's reign.

Which pottery vessel, popularised by Staffordshire potters in the 1760s, depicts a seated man in a tricorn hat?

Toby jug drinkers poured from the hat itself, since the tricorn forms the spout, while the jovial figure clutches a mug of beer and a pipe.

Which craft, brought to London furniture by Dutch immigrants after 1660, forms designs from thin pieces of veneer?

Marquetry makers in England went on being called 'inlayers' throughout the 18th century, although true inlay cuts into a solid surface instead.

Which mistress of Louis XV became a porcelain patron in 1751 and had a new factory built at Sèvres near her château?

Madame de Pompadour kept effective free rein over the works even after the King bought them in 1759, and Sèvres became one of Europe's most famous makers.

Which American furniture maker launched The Craftsman magazine in 1901 to promote his plain oak designs?

Gustav Stickley despised the 'Mission' label that the public gave his unadorned furniture and called the term misleading.

Which white clay, a basic ingredient of porcelain, takes its English name from a village near Jingdezhen in China?

Kaolin entered English in 1727 from a Frenchman's reports on how porcelain was made, and Gaoling, the village behind the name, means 'High Ridge'.

Which unglazed porcelain gives antique French and German dolls of the late 1800s their matte, skin-like finish?

Bisque dolls peaked in popularity between 1860 and 1900, and collectors keep the name 'china doll' for those with glossy glazed porcelain heads.

Which miniature carved toggles held boxes and pouches on cords from a kimono sash, since the robe had no pockets?

Netsuke began as simply carved button fasteners on the cords of a small box called an inro and grew into ornately sculpted works of craftsmanship.

Which enamel technique, named from a French word for compartments, fills cells made of thin soldered metal wire?

Cloisonné enamel was probably developed as an easier imitation of older work in which cut gemstones, not coloured paste, filled the little cells.

Which term describes the reddish-brown age spots on old prints and pages, though rarely on books printed before 1501?

Foxing may be named for the fox-like colour of the stains or may come from dialect words for going mouldy. An early artwork to suffer it is a Leonardo da Vinci chalk drawing.

Which term, from the French for 'ground gold', names the gilt bronze used for mounts on fine furniture and clocks?

Ormolu needed a kiln to drive off the mercury in the gilding mix and leave the gold behind, and France outlawed the process around 1830 for health reasons.

Which Latin word, originally meaning swaddling clothes or cradle, do collectors use for books printed before 1501?

Incunabula are all rare because the cut-off, though essentially arbitrary, falls just before the number of printed editions exploded in the following century.

Which short firearm with a flared muzzle takes its name from a Dutch word combining 'thunder' with 'container'?

Blunderbuss muzzles were flared to make loading easier, a help to sailors reloading on a rocking ship with wet, slippery decks.

Which piece of embroidery, stitched as a test of needlework skill, often shows the alphabet and the maker's name?

Sampler survivors in Europe go back to the 16th century, and each piece served as a 'specimen of achievement' for the person who stitched it.