Q: My parents just bought a dining room set with a Berkey & Gay logo burnt into the wood of the top drawer. My research indicates it was made between 1873 and 1900. The matching set consists of a table with four leaves, six chairs, a buffet and another cabinet for dishes with glass doors and I believe three or four shelves in it. This set was purchased around 1910 for a priest’s house in our church parish. Thanks for any help you can give.

A: I believe your date of 1873-1900 may be just a little early based on the trademark. According to Grand Rapids Furniture – The Story of America’s Furniture City by Christian Carron, curator of the Public Museum of Grand Rapids, that circular mark was not adopted until 1905. That date also works much better with the style of the set, which is actually a mixture of several styles.

The buffet looks very Mission-like with the Arts & Crafts style low mirror and square design. The chairs show a great deal of the William & Mary style with the split banister splat, originally derived by splitting the posts under a banister railing along a staircase. The round table reflects the Golden Oak style of the period but with William & Mary inverted “V” lower stretchers. This mixing of styles was quite common at this time. According to the book mentioned above B&G did make some Arts & Crafts style sets under the trade name “English Modern.” This would fit your set very nicely.

The suite is made primarily of quartersawn white oak. Quarter sawing is a method of cutting an oak log that produces the distinctive grain pattern seen in the wood. The color of the wood seems to indicate that the finish is a “fumed” finish, the nut brown finish that was popular in the period. The color was achieved by exposing the raw oak to ammonia fumes. The ammonia reacted with the tannin in the oak causing a chemical change that created the dark brown color. It is a permanent color since it was not a stain but a chemical reaction.

In today’s market the Arts & Crafts/Mission look has retained its value much better than many other styles and periods. Your set has some condition issues that can easily be resolved without devaluing the set. In its current condition your set would sell at auction in the $3,000-$4,000 range.

Q: My wife and I have a small table that I am sending you pictures of. We would like to display the table or use it in our bedroom. As you can see, the top finish is in pretty bad shape. So we decided to refinish it. But before I do, I would like to get some information on it and know if indeed I should refinish it. We can trace it back in our family about 80 plus years. As you can see from the photo of the bottom is says Kiel Furniture Co. Milwaukee Wis., Makers of Quality Furniture. The legs are in very good shape, no cracks, chips and most of the finish is still on them. My question is, is it worth anything as a collectible, or should I strip it and refinish it?

A: Your table is an occasional table from the late 1920s to early 1930s. Kiel made fairly inexpensive tables to fit the mood of the Depression era. The legs on your table are made of a secondary wood called red gum. The top is what the company called a “Badger” finish. The book American Manufactured Furniture is a compilation of manufacturer’s promotional material to retailers for the model year 1929. In the Kiel section of the book the Badger finish is described as “A name adopted by us many years ago as indicating an imitation finish. These pieces are made of solid gumwood and the finish is built up....”

In other words the finish is printed on the table top in layers to make it resemble an expensive wood or in your case a couple of different woods. Kiel made hundreds of thousands of inexpensive tables so they are not rare. They have no antique or collector’s value.

You must realize that if you strip the top you will have nothing but a series of plain red gum boards glued together to make a surface. You can see the outline of the boards in your photos. On the other hand you don’t have much to lose given the condition of the top.