This magnificent étagère attributed to Mitchells & Rammelsberg, with four shelves and carved finial, are among the items from the antique shop and personal collection of Brad and Eunice Witt that will be up for action on Nov. 7, 2009.

ST. CHARLES, Mo. – The contents of the antique shop and items from the personal collection of Brad and Eunice Witt, including more than 300 lots of Victorian furniture, vintage French dolls, Babes in the Woods items, Yard Longs, Flow Blue, R.S. Prussia and more, will be sold without reserve on Saturday, Nov. 14.

“Brad and Eunice have decided to downsize their private collection and small antique shop,” said Jason Woody, proprietor of Woody Auction, which is facilitating the sale. “All items will sell to the highest bidder, without reserve. Come prepared for a really exciting auction.” The auction will be held in the grand ballroom of the St. Charles Convention Center.

Woody said he isn’t sure what to expect from this sale, since period furniture isn’t something he typically offers. “The R.S. Prussia and Flow Blue people will be there. I can always count on them,” he said, “but we’ll just have to see regarding the furniture. If the quality and consistency of the pieces count for anything, then it should be a wild success. We’ve got some truly wonderful furniture items.”

Some of those furniture items will include a super Victorian walnut drop-front dresser/étagère attributed to Jelliff and featuring a domed cornice with carved bust and heavy burl accent; a rare 8-foot ornate oak display cabinet with large winged gargoyle supports, beveled glass door and lots of carving; and an all-original Belter recamier with carved apron surrounded by heavy scrolls and grape clusters.

Gorgeous 14 inch by 10 ¾ inch oval Babes in Woods plaque with a summer scene of a lady and girl.

About 20 Babes in the Woods pieces, all circa 1880-1920, will cross the block. Expected to pique bidder interest will be a rare and excellent Royal Doulton winter season plaque depicting a lady and child in the woods during a snowstorm; a Royal Doulton oval plaque showing a lady playing the mandolin; and a very rare tall (16 ¾ inches) Royal Doulton vase, spring season, with a lady and girl.

Very rare Yard Long calendar print, titled “Temptation Candy Girl,” the only example known to exist.

Yard longs are so-named because they’re just that – about a yard long. The long, skinny prints usually show women, but sometimes flowers and fruit. Two pieces in the sale that should do well are a 1916 Clay Robinson & Co. advertising calendar, with a woman in a blue hat surrounded by flowers; and a Temptation Candy Girl calendar print, the only one known and with 10 of the 12 months intact.

R.S. Prussia pieces will include a 15 ½-inch carnation mold center piece bowl, cobalt blue, with great size, color and condition; and an outstanding 6-piece plume mold ice cream set, with 13-inch oval tray and five matching bowls, cobalt blue with nice gold highlights. Also sold will be a nice Victorian bride’s basket with fireglow ruffled bowl by Sandwich Glass and large silver plate frame.

Fans of vintage French dolls will not be disappointed. Anticipated top achievers include a 29 ½-inch tete Jumeau closed-mouth doll with an ornate beige and blue costume with matching hat; and a beautiful 25-inch Jumeau doll (size 12), dressed in a lavender Victorian costume with matching hat and plumes and lifelike hair with blond curls. Many other examples will be sold.

Beautiful 29 ½ inch Tete Jumeau French closed-mouth doll with ornate costume and matching hat.

Flow Blue is a common offering at many Woody Auctions, and this one will be no exception. Pieces include a 23 ¼-inch Royal Doulton burslem umbrella stand/floor vase in the Jessica pattern, with great color, pattern and size; and a 6- inch by 8-inch Nonpareil pattern handled tray by Burgess & Leigh. Also sold will be a 7-foot Victorian walnut easel with inlaid ebony designs and gold highlights.

Returning to Victorian furniture, the following will be sold: a magnificent and important étagère attributed Mitchells & Rammelsberg, 108 inches by 74 inches, with four shelves, large carved finial, deep pocket crest, great carving, and a huge mirror back with four swivel mirrors on each side; and a Victorian red velvet pin cushion chair with bride’s floral head piece, bride’s flowers and beveled mirror.

Also from the furniture category: a walnut center room parlor table attributed to Mallard, with long carved floral finial and rose and scroll design; a mahogany partner’s desk attributed to Horner, with large, cherub legs; a beautiful and rare Karpen mahogany barrel-shaped parlor set with love seat and two arm chairs; and a Victorian walnut marble-top table by Brooks, with a large carved pedestal.

Wonderful 15 ½-inch R.S. Prussia carnation mold centerpiece bowl, cobalt blue, great condition.

Rounding out the expected top lots: an outstanding three-piece figural clock set with bronze women holding a cherub above their head surrounding the clock, with 40-inch tall side pieces consisting of a woman holding a 6-arm candelabra above the head, and every piece matched on bronze marble and gilt metal base; and a 54-inch floor fan with light, Luminaire, by the Cincinnati Victor Co.

Online bidding will be facilitated by Proxibid.com. There will be no phone bidding, but absentee bids will be accepted with a written statement indicating the amount of the bid (deadline: noon Thursday, Nov. 12). Absentee bids will be charged an additional 10 percent of the sale price and may be faxed (316-747-2145) or e-mailed (info@woodyauction.com).

Inventory items from the Witt’s antique shop will be charged 7.45 percent unless a current sales tax number is provided. Items from their private collection are indicated with an asterisk (*) and will not be charged a sales tax.

For more information about this auction, visit the Woody Auction Web site, call at (316) 747-2694, or e-mail them at info@woodyauction.com.

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This is a piece of 1/8-inch square rolled iron nail stock that was used by a “nailer” to hammer out a handmade nail.

One of the key ingredients in the process of determining the age of a piece of older or antique furniture is how the wood is assembled to produce this functional work of art. Drawers are typically put together using various methods of wood joinery, i.e. dovetails, scallop joints or rabbets. Older case goods generally employ mortise and tenon joints, as do old chairs and doors. But the most straightforward method of all construction techniques is the use of a fastener, an external device that holds two pieces of wood together without additional shaping of the wood and the simplest fastener is a nail—in essence a tapered metal dowel inserted by the brute force of a hammer blow.

Nails, of course, have been around for thousands of years, but their general application to furniture making is fairly recent. Until modern times all nails were hand made, one at a time by a blacksmith or a specialist, called a “nailer.” But since nails are such useful items, not just for furniture but for general building applications, it is not surprising that some of the first modern machinery was devoted to the manufacture of nails.

These are hand-made iron nails from the 18th century. Note the “rosehead” hammered head and the sharp point.

In the American Colonies, one of the early industries to be well established, after glassmaking and spirits distilling, was the nail stock business. Up and down the East coast as early as the late 17th century, rolling mills turned out long, thin, square pieces of iron called nail stock, to be sent to the local nailer.

The nailer then heated a section of the stock and pounded out a point on all four sides. After cutting to length the section was inserted in hole on the anvil called a “swage” block and the head of the nail formed by repeated blows to the top of the nail, giving it the “rosehead” look we identify with hand made nails. A lot of work for just one nail.

But this method had its rewards. The pounding of the nail to shape it made the iron denser and thus more water resistant and durable, as well as malleable (bendable). This malleability was one of the key factors in the success of the handmade nail; it was so flexible that as it was driven into a piece of wood it followed the internal grain pattern, often in an arc, and thus provided a clinching effect that help hold the nailed joint very tightly. The hand-wrought iron rosehead nails leave a very identifiable clue—a square hole—when they are removed from wood. No other type of nail leaves a square hole.

By the early 1800’s, nail cutting machines were in general use in America. These early machines cut angular strips from a thin sheet of metal resulting in a nail with two parallel sides, representing the thickness of the sheet of metal, and two cut angular sides forming the point. The heads still had to be hammered by hand and these nails are easily confused with hand-wrought nails because they both have hand hammered rose-like heads. The difference is in the shape of the hole. The machine made nails leave rectangular holes which are easily distinguished from the square marks of the earliest nails. This type of nail is the kind frequently found in early 19th century Federal and American Empire furniture and just as frequently misidentified as hand wrought.

These nails were all cut from a sheet of iron. The top nail with the “notch” head is from the early 19th century. The middle nail with the rectangular flat head is from around 1830/1840.

Another type of early nail merely had a notch as the head. This wasn’t very effective but it was quick and cheap and machine cut nails became a staple of both the construction industry and the furniture building trade. An even better nail came around 1830. The machines by now were producing nails that actually had flattened protruding surfaces to function as the head. These were made by a single, forceful impact on the top of the nail by the machinery itself and no human work was required. As erratic and small as these new heads were, they were still the best yet.

By the 1840’s, the nail making technology settled down to making the best cut nail yet. This mid-century nail had a large, uniform, machine-made head and it became the standard nail for more than 50 years, and it continued to leave the characteristic rectangular hole. These nails are ones found in late Classicism (C-scroll Empire) and Victorian furniture throughout the rest of the 19th century. As good as these nails were however, they did have a drawback. They did not benefit from the hand pounding reserved for the making of hand wrought nails and thus were more brittle than earlier nails. This stiffness meant that they did not have the same internal clinching power as their predecessors and tended to snap off under duress rather than bend.

This is the standard wire nail first introduced around 1880.

Around 1880 came the next major leap in nail development. A machine was invented that produced a round nail drawn from a piece of steel wire and formed with a perfectly circular, stamped head and a sharp, cut point. This does not mean that all cabinet shops instantly stopped using cut nails when the new style showed up. Cut nails continued to be used early into the 20th century until existing stocks were used up. And hand-wrought nails continued to be made throughout the 19th century for certain specialty applications, such as gate building and other instances where the benefits of the clinching nail outweighed the cost of hand production.

But in the end the round wire nail became the universal standard and still is today. It represents a technology that is still in use and virtually unchanged for more than 100 years; quite a rarity at the beginning of the 21st century.

Even if the nail itself is missing in a piece of furniture, you can sometimes determine its origin by the hole it leaves. Handmade nails leave square holes, cut nails leave rectangular holes and wire nails leave round holes.

Each type of nail leaves its signature hole.

Fred Taylor is a Worthologist who specializes in American furniture from the Late Classicism period (1830-1850).

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