Vtg 1800s Antique Hall Tree Mirror Hat Rack Wood Wash Stand Vanity Knapp Joints


Vtg 1800s Antique Hall Tree Mirror Hat Rack Wood Wash Stand Vanity Knapp Joints

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Vtg 1800s Antique Hall Tree Mirror Hat Rack Wood Wash Stand Vanity Knapp Joints:
$772.07


*Delivery to a Limited Area - Contact us with zip! Shipping listed but not always possible. (Most of lower 48 states only.)


 Contact us with zip code before making an offer/offer/purchase.


The label on the mirror indicates that this item was originally purchased at Segal Brothers Antiques and Fine Furniture which was, at one time, located at 1234 NW 14th St. in Washington, D.C. 


We will bring the mirror (and the stand-dresser of course) back to Washington D.C. or the surrounding areas......at a reasonable charge!!!


Reasonable charge for delivery to the Metro NYC/NJ, or the Buffalo/Niagara area..... Send us a message with your location and we will work out the details with you.

Also, other areas are possible: Other directions and further distances possible. Inquire. 


UPS Ground only to 48 states - no PO Box or APO.


Backsplash may need to be removed for shipping.


This exquisite pair will make a strong first impression on your guests. 


Because the mirror is not attached to the wash/hall stand as in the case of many similar antique units, your own height can be considered when mounting the mirror. 

It will make a great display rack in any room for 16 baseball caps or as a wash stand - as the hooks are all brass (nice patina) and will not rust like iron.


The stunning wood-framed beveled mirror - see my double reflection in the penultimate photograph - has four double, solid brass \"butterfly\" curled hat/coat/towel hooks. (The outer hook on the bottom right appears to be slightly bent out of shape. Also, there are some stress lines in that hook\'s center - as if someone had hung a heavy coat here at one time.) 


We believe that it dates from the 1800s. We have not been able to track down any information about the Washington, D.C. antique furniture store whose label is still attached to the back of the mirror: 


Segal Bros. 

Antique Shop

Fine Furniture

1232 NW 14 Street

Washington, D.C. 



An apartment complex - the Andover House - at 1200 NW. 14th St. now stands where the antique store used to be. We would love to bring this piece of history back to its source - free delivery!!


The mirror measures about 28\" wide x 20\" in height. The mirror and stand are a recent estate find. If you look at the right-hand edge of the mirror, you will see some paint. White paint. Also notice, that the brass hooks extend outward past the edges of the mirror. The ones on the right actually were not where they are now, but they are back in their original holes. They were in the holes that were slightly to the left. For the past 40+ years, this mirror was in the corner of a room over the washstand. Some of the paint from The wall transferred onto the edge of the mirror. It seems that whoever put the mirror in the corner, drilled new holes through the frame in order to get the hooks to be flush with or close to the wall but not extend past the edge. We had the extra holes filled with wooden dowels by Noah, a professional Amish cabinet maker with many years of experience. Whoever buys this pair has the option of removing all the hooks and then refinishing the entire surface - which would essentially cover the repaired holes. Or, the buyer could leave the filled holes showing as we have now, and keep the original finish which gives a real sense of the piece\'s true age (and now you know the story behind the holes. So, effectively, this makes for a great conversation piece! )

The washstand / hall stand / dresser is about 16 inches deep and 30 inches wide. It appears to be made of oak. It stands just under 30 inches in height with an additional 6 inches, approximately, for the backsplash. There is some slight water staining on the lower center area of the backsplash as well as a few areas on the top of the wash stand itself. The backsplash was at some time reattached with 2 modern Phillips screws. The top of the cabinet is attached from underneath with older slotted screws in round recesses. This unit has three drawers. Each of the three drawers has a brass lock mechanism installed. We do not have the key. The bottom drawer has the outer lock wood carving in the best condition. See photographs. The other two are worn away. All three drawers are jointed using a very special method invented by Charles Knapp in 1870; this effectively dates the piece sometime between 1871 and 1905. 


The following information was gleaned from the Internet - Antiquetrader / Fred Taylor - Furniture Detective:

One of the first things to be looked at when trying to determine the age of a piece of older or antique furniture is the type of joinery used in the construction of the piece. Knowing the history of the technology of various periods goes a long way toward explaining clues about the age of furniture and none is more important (or accessible) than the type of joint used to secure a drawer.


Mostly what we see are dovetails of a sort. The interlocking dovetail joint came into general use in the William and Mary period in the late 1600s and very early 1700s and for the first time allowed the construction of reliable drawers, a device with extremely limited use or convenience until then. Before this innovation most furniture consisted of simple boxes called coffers or some type of open shelving arrangement and cabinets with shelves behind doors such as the old court cupboard.


As useful as the dovetail joint started out to be, it did have a serious drawback: It was hard to make by hand and of course everything of that period was made by hand. By the end of the 18th century some progress had been made in furniture technology. Rotary saws were on the horizon and all nails were no longer made one at a time by a blacksmith. The early 1800s saw a lot of advancement in machinery for wood working and by the Civil War mechanized furniture factories were on line but the dovetail drawer joint was still a holdup.


While the joint had been refined and perfected it was still too difficult to be made by a machine. Some progress had been made by the use of jigs to help guide the hand-powered saws in their cutting but essentially the dovetail was the last hold out of hand work in a machine era.


Several inventors were hard at work on the problem in the 1860s and most concentrated on trying to duplicate the hand made dovetail using a machine – that is until Mr. Charles B. Knapp of Waterloo, Wis., applied himself to the task. He did some creative thinking and solved the problem not by duplicating the dovetail joint but by inventing another type of joint entirely that was at least as good as the dovetail and could be made by machinery. The joint he came up with has several colloquial names – scallop and dowel, pin and scallop, half moon – and all describe the new joint, which looks like a peg in a half circle on the side of a drawer. If you look at much old furniture, you undoubtedly have seen this unusual-looking arrangement and wondered what the heck it was. Now you know – it is a Knapp joint.


And knowing that you also get some very valuable information about the age of the piece on which you saw the joint. Knapp patented his first joint making machine in 1867. In 1870 he sold the rights to an improved version of the patented machine to a group of investors who formed the Knapp Dovetailing Company in Northhampton, Mass. The investors proceeded to make further refinements in the machine and actually put it into production in a factory in 1871 where it proved to be a technological miracle. A skilled cabinetmaker could turn out 15 or 20 complete drawers a day. On a really good day, the machine could turn out 200 or more and work more than one shift, if necessary. The drawer department had finally caught up with the rest of the factory.


By the mid 1870s the great factories were in full swing turning out late Victorian creations consisting mostly of Renaissance Revival and Eastlake furniture. While not all the great factories used the Knapp machine, particularly those of Grand Rapids, most of the Eastern factories and other Midwestern areas were faithful customers of the Knapp Company. Over time, maintenance on the machines became a chore but they were still a better alternative to hand work.


At the very height of its greatest popularity and use, the death knell of the Knapp joint was being sounded by a new movement afoot in the furniture design industry and it had nothing to do with the soundness or the economy of the joint. Like so many things, its demise turned on sentiment. That sentiment was the beginning of the Colonial Revival – the resurrection of things in style during the era of the founding of our country. And a round, technical looking, obviously machine made drawer joint just did not fit that image. At about the same time machinery that did simulate the handmade dovetail was perfected and by 1900 the Knapp joint had completely disappeared from the American furniture scene.


So now you know – without a doubt – that a piece of furniture with those odd little drawer joints was made between 1871 and 1905.



Vtg 1800s Antique Hall Tree Mirror Hat Rack Wood Wash Stand Vanity Knapp Joints:
$772.07

Buy Now