Even if you’re not prepared to disguise yourself as a gentleman dealer, you must still resist the impulse to pay the asking price. Make an offer, but not before making a few disparaging remarks about rickety legs, dents, scars, and interesting blemishes that have accrued with the passage of centuries. The dealer expects it. In fact, he might be hurt if you didn’t point them out, because he may have spent several days in his workshop putting them on.
The process of aging an object or a piece of furniture overnight—or“distressing”it—is an art in itself, and it is miraculous what a talented distresser can do with rusty nails and pumice stone and a mixture of soot and bees-wax. More miraculous still is how three-legged chairs can suddenly sprout a fourth leg, marquetry with a bad case of acne can regain a smooth complexion, and tables originally constructed for midgets can grow to adult height.
Inevitably, some killjoy will try to belittle these marvels of inventive restoration. We all have at least one acquaintance who is a self-appointed expert and whose mission in life is to tell you that you have bought a fake. Shaking his head at your foolishness, he will point out in great detail what you were too dumb to see for yourself. It’s not a bad piece, he’ll say, but you could hardly call it a genuine antique. But what the hell. Does it matter? If the piece pleases you, if the faking has been done well, who cares? You bought it to live with, not to sell. The antique know-it-all is a pest who should be locked up in the bowels of the Metropolitan Museum to study pre-Columbian bidets.