Antiques

Cedar dressing tables, display cabinets and the smaller pieces around them:

furniture is the bulk of antiques in Costa Rica, and most of it is Spanish cedar, the native hardwood. What comes up is the dressing table, the sideboard, the hutch that held the good plates, glass-fronted display cabinets and tall wardrobes. Wall clocks, treadle sewing machines on their iron stand, valve radios and charcoal irons make up most of the smaller lots. Tea sets and figurines have their own place under porcelain, and old colones and banknotes under coins.

Coffee-era imports against container vintage:

where a piece came from changes what it is. The coffee fortunes of the late nineteenth century paid for European furniture, pianos and floor tiles in houses like the ones still standing in Barrio Amón, and the odd piece from that world still surfaces when a family house is emptied. Far more of what is advertised as imported or European arrived much later, in loads of second-hand furniture, and is vintage rather than antique. Both are good things to own, but they are not worth the same, and the trade’s rule of thumb puts the line at about a century.

Dovetails, screws and the back panel of an old chest of drawers:

the construction dates a piece faster than the seller’s story does. Pull out a drawer: hand-cut dovetails are few and slightly uneven, machine-cut ones identical and tightly spaced. Old screws have a single slot, while Phillips heads, staples or a back of plywood or MDF mean the piece is younger or has been rebuilt. Wear belongs where hands and floors have touched it for decades, on drawer runners, the edges of the top and the feet. Even distressing all over, or worm holes with no tunnels behind them, point to a piece aged on purpose.

Drywood termites in a cedar piece:

they are the first thing to rule out. Look under the piece and inside the drawers for little piles of hard pellets like coarse sand and for tiny round holes, and tap the legs and back: eaten wood sounds hollow and gives under a fingernail. Cedar holds out better than pine but is not immune, and a live colony has to be treated before the piece joins other wooden furniture, so walk away if fresh pellets appear after sweeping. Then check the mirror for silvering lost at the edges, whether the key and original pulls are there, and whether a clock runs through a full winding.

An old cedar dressing table against one made new:

sound cedar case furniture in its original finish, a dressing table, a chest of drawers or a display cabinet, mostly changes hands between ₡100,000 and ₡300,000, and a side table or a pair of old oils goes for a fraction of that. Spanish cedar is one of the dearest timbers sawn in the country, so solid old cedar can come in under the cost of having a comparable piece made. A known maker, a documented house of origin or complete original hardware lifts a piece above that band; a stripped and varnished finish or a replaced mirror pulls it below, which is why it pays to leave restoration to the buyer.

Selling a heavy piece out of a family house:

measure height, width and depth, and say whether the mirror, top or legs come off, because the buyer is booking a truck and measuring a doorway. Photograph the front, the back panel, the inside of a drawer to show the joints, and any repair, lifted veneer or old termite damage. Say what you know about where it came from, and call it antique only if you can back that up: old, age unknown, is an honest listing that still sells. Someone driving over from Atenas or Moravia with a borrowed pickup wants to know before setting off whether there are stairs, who helps carry it, and whether the drawers come out to lighten the load.