What wood are antique dining tables usually made from?

Mahogany and oak between them cover the greater part of the category. Mahogany appears in around a third of titles and oak in a quarter. Walnut, rosewood and pine follow behind, with rosewood concentrated in round and oval tilt-top forms. Figured, burr and named timbers such as Cuban mahogany, flame, pollard oak, satinwood and padauk are called out in titles when they're present.

How does an extending dining table work?

The frame opens on a screw or slide mechanism and extra boards, the leaves, drop into the gap. Crank-driven versions are described as wind-out. Other systems turn up throughout: draw leaf, where leaves pull out from under the top at each end, pull out, concertina and named patent actions. Titles almost always state how many leaves come with the table.

What's the difference between a refectory and a farmhouse table?

Refectory describes a long fixed-top table on turned or carved legs joined by stretchers, and in this category it's nearly always oak. Farmhouse is the country kitchen version, often plank-topped and scrubbed rather than polished. The two words overlap in listings, and a fair number of titles use both.

How old are most antique dining tables for sale?

Dated listings run from 1690 to 1960, but fewer than half carry a clean year. The largest bucket is the broad "19th Century", followed by the 1920s and "Victorian". Read "Georgian" and "Regency" as period ranges rather than dates. Georgian is a small share of the whole; Victorian is far more common. A great many oak refectory, farmhouse, bleached oak and burr walnut tables are early 20th-century work in earlier styles.

Are dining tables sold with a seating capacity?

Stating seats is a habit in this category. Sampled titles run from a four-seat supper table up to a twenty-eight-seater on six pillars measuring 609cm. Length gets quoted freely at the large end too, in metres or feet: three metres, four metres, nineteen feet. A sixteen-foot mahogany extending table on ten legs is among them.

Do many antique dining tables carry a maker's name?

Most don't. Across 334 dealers, only four names clear three dealers each, and the great majority of titles name no maker at all. Where a name does appear it may be stamped, labelled, or given as an attribution. Dealers distinguish "by Gillows" from "Gillows style" and "manner of Gillows", and the qualified forms are a lesser claim.

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Antique Dining Tables

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A dining table is a large wooden table made for eating at, and on Sellingantiques that means everything from polished Victorian extending tables in mahogany to scrubbed oak farmhouse and refectory boards.