How Much Is Antique Furniture Worth?

Antique furniture is the most misunderstood category in this entire field, because the market has inverted over the past twenty-five years. Traditional dark wood antiques, known in the trade as brown furniture, have collapsed in value: a Victorian mahogany dining table that brought two thousand dollars in 1995 might sell for two hundred today. Meanwhile mid-century modern furniture from the 1950s and 1960s, once considered used furniture, has appreciated enormously, with designer pieces by Eames, Wegner, and Jacobsen bringing thousands. The drivers are straightforward: smaller homes, changed aesthetics, and a generation that does not want inherited formal furniture. Value now concentrates in three areas: genuinely early and rare pieces from the eighteenth century and before, documented designer pieces from any era, and anything with exceptional provenance. Condition and originality matter enormously in the surviving high-value segments, and refinishing an antique can destroy most of its value.

Period and rarity establish the tier, and genuinely early pieces from the eighteenth century remain valuable while nineteenth-century mass-produced furniture has collapsed. Designer attribution has become the dominant factor in twentieth-century furniture, and a documented Eames or Wegner piece is worth many times an anonymous one of similar quality. Original finish and surface are critical and frequently misunderstood, since refinishing an antique removes patina that took two centuries to develop and typically cuts value by half. Construction details date and authenticate pieces, including dovetail cut, saw marks, secondary woods, and hardware. Size is a real market factor now, since large wardrobes and dining suites do not fit modern homes and sell at steep discounts regardless of quality. Provenance and documentation add substantially at the top. Finally, condition of structural elements, veneer, and upholstery all affect price, with veneer loss being expensive to repair invisibly.