What wood are they usually made from?

Walnut leads by a wide margin, and burr walnut is named in over five hundred titles on Sellingantiques. Oak and mahogany are the next two staples. After those come elm and solid oak in country pieces, French fruitwoods like cherry and chestnut, Oriental hardwoods, and Art Deco timbers such as maple, macassar and birch.

How old is an antique coffee table?

The dated listings run from 1750 to 1960, so two centuries of furniture sit under one modern name. The bulk is interwar: the 1920s and 1930s carry the most dated entries, with the 1900s and 1910s behind them. Anything before about 1800 is scarce, and the few 17th-century entries are older tables now used low.

Why are so many described as converted or adapted?

Because the low table in front of a sofa is a 20th-century idea. Earlier furniture that suits the height - centre tables, tripod tables, farmhouse and kitchen tables, Oriental low tables - gets sold for the job. Titles are often open about it, with wording like "Converted to Coffee Table", "Reduced", "Lowered" or "Georgian and Later". Those pieces sit lower in the range than comparable untouched ones.

What is a nest of tables?

A graduated set that stacks under one another, usually three or four tables. Around a hundred and twenty titles use the term. Sets of four and five appear as quartetto and quintetto. Complete nests sit above single tables of the same wood.

Are marble-topped versions common?

They're a small but conspicuous group, with marble named in around a hundred and twenty-six titles, mostly on French gilt and brass frames. The stone ranges from plain French marble to onyx, travertine, Carrara, Scagliola, pietra dura and specimen marble, the last near the top of the range.

Do unusual examples turn up?

Now and then. Recorded singly are a grape-vine sculptural table, a verdigris pineapple glass table, a Japanese hibachi table, a mother-of-pearl inlaid folding Damascus table and a carved African tribal table. The Oriental and colonial group is steadier: Chinese kang, hongmu and huanghuali tables, Anglo-Indian elephant-leg and takhat forms, Kashmiri and Damascus work, Benares brass and Berber trays.