You are right.. I told my wife that the hardware was modern and not original, especially the hooks that my hats are on.... on the back of the drawer and on the area where the drawer goes into it is engraved HST I or HST 1 I'll add a pic.... I will also include a pic of a sample of the wood...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242612279.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242612307.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242612329.jpg

Home Shopping Television ??? Lol....

Home-made. Cottage craftsman or even very early commercial mfg. 'Early' in the sense that the company was brand new when it (the piece) was made. Quite possibly one of a kind or a commission piece for "New Money" very late 1800's. Dove tail joinery? If that's a gap there below the brand in pic 1 above, which is due to shrinkage, leans toward it being home made more than a manufactured piece. However, being from the Great State of Tejas, it could even be Mezzigan.

Thanks CrowBob,


I called it dove tails, but I don't think so.... here are some pics of the drawer...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242614522.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242614543.jpg


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242614646.jpg

That's Harry S. Trumans water closet/commode converted into a hall tree! Take a deep whiff, probably worth a fortune. ;)

Seriously, it looks like a well-made handcrafted piece!

Honestly, I would have given $250. for the piece if it had been newly mfg'd and was at Wally World.... Anything to keep momma happy, but I was sorta intrigued by the piece as I thought it was a little unusual, a friend of mine had it at his house, his wife wanted to get it out of the way, and my wife wanted it.... soooo, she got what she wanted.... Now my mom is trying to talk my wife into selling it to her.....:D

A lot of furniture pieces in that dark mahogany color are Indonesian made to resemble "antiques". The wood is stained dark to enhance the appearance, making it look more expensive. It's possible that piece is just a dozen or so years old, maybe 20 or 30.

Could be...., I really don't know....

Mortice and tennon AND dovetails? In the same drawer? Hmm.

Verdict: The piece is good for the inherent beauty; probably very rare but w/ no identifiable mfger (or lineage of ownership) not a really, really valuable piece.

Now, if you could prove it was once owned (or even made by) some big shot in history, Like Mark Twain or whatnot, you could sell it to a museum. I wouldn't though. Where will you put your hats? Plus, by the way, hats were never intended to be hung on the piece, I think. Somebody screwed in some hooks to hang their Budweiser/Nascar caps thereon.

NEXT!

HST-I could be Hallstand-I, where "I" could be the series designator. Mass produced to look old isn't necessarily a bad thing if it's well constructed. Difficult to go wrong if you got the wife happy and a functioning piece of furniture for $250.

Take it to the Antiques Road Show. :)

Hunter S. Thompson (HST) "kept his weed in there."

whatnot? How about whatfor?

+1 dipso

BINGO! That's what I was talking about in my earlier post. Just for grins, I took one of the drawers out of ours this morning to show the same joinery. The place we bought this from has many styles, including the clone of "Futuresoptions". This one was tagged @ $125, bought it for $75. We just use it as a place for our friends to put purses/bags on as they enter the house so our Spaniels won't rifle through them (they LOVE going through bags and scattering contents).

I could not have made something like this for $75. And in a room that also includes a seasonally-decorated mannequin (the wife dresses her up for the different holidays) and also antique victrolas and gas pumps, it fits in quite well in a white-trash type of way. ;)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242662101.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242662126.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242662144.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1242662162.jpg

That's also know as an etegiere.
The hall tree looks to be a repro.

Umbrella stand?