Identifying furniture and box fittings

Hinges, hasps, drop handles, and the decorated corners of vanished chests.

Wooden furniture decays; its metalwork scatters. Common survivors include strap hinges and butterfly hinges, hasps and lock plates from chests, drop handles and escutcheons (keyhole surrounds), decorative corner mounts, and dome-headed upholstery nails.

Style dates them: gothic openwork and stamped rosettes for medieval and Tudor; symmetrical engraved brass escutcheons and swan-neck handles for the 18th century; stamped, mass-produced fittings for the 19th. Roman box fittings — lion-head studs, lock bolts — are a distinct, collectable family of their own.

Ask what the piece attached to and how: nail holes, rivets, and bend marks reconstruct the join. Record dimensions and fixing holes, and describe ornament concretely. A drawer handle in a field usually means manuring with household waste — worth noting as context.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on metalwork

Identifying harness and horse fittings — Pendants, mounts, and buckles.

Identifying weights — Standardised mass, marked.

Identifying keys and locks — Bit, bow, and stem.

Identifying pins and needles — Head form and point.

Identifying mounts and fittings — Rivets, solder, and back.

Identifying buckles — The commonest metal-detecting find after coins — and surprisingly datable.

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