Quote:
|
Someone once said that the biggest users of .22 shot shells were the makers of fake "antique" furniture. ???
|
It's called "distressing" - a technique to make brand new furniture look old/antique. Such places will also apply faux stains and dyes to the wood, deliberately tarnish the hardware, etc., to fool unknowledgeable folks into thinking that sideboard made last month in a Pakistani garage came out of a Philadelphia carpenter's shop in 1779.
Such fakes/forgeries/frauds are easy to spot if you are knowledgeable; however, there are many folks out there with more money than sense who fall for these pieces. They see something on Antiques Roadshow appraised for $30k and assume that a similar piece they see in a flea market or swap meet is equally valuable because it "looks old".