Antique Secretary and Desks

It is such a joy for me to collect antiques. As any lover of antiques will tell you, the story behind each piece, as well as how you came to have it, is a huge portion of the pleasure. Sometimes realizing that each piece has a lifetime, if not lifetimes, of memories attached is so emotional.

The first picture is the inside of my paternal grandmother's mahogany escritoire, in this case a ladies writing desk. The second photo shows the whole desk and you can clearly see its beautifully turned legs. She gave this to me recently since unfortunately she can no longer live on her own. This used to sit in her living room holding her phone and other correspondence odds and ends. I am very fortunate to still have her in my life at 90 years old.

The third photo is my walnut typewriter desk. I was searching the classifieds, Ebay and Craigslist for a desk for my schoolwork. I came across an ad in Craigslist DE for somebody selling a desk for 10$. I figured it was a mistake. I called the number and he said he still had the desk and gave a brief description and verified the 10$ price. I could not believe it. Well that weekend I rushed over to DE with my mother to pick it up and lo and behold it was beautiful. We paid the 10$, snatched up the desk as fast as we could and beat it out of there. My mother kept whispering this can't be right. He must be selling off someone else's stuff out of spite. Like I said we flew out of here before he changed his mind. I took one drawer of the desk to a local antique dealer who told me between our explanation of what it looked like and the wood on the drawer, he said it was worth at least $500. The desk also has a 3 part leather top with gold detailing. It's hard to see with the desk pad, but I keep it protected. Good story right? I've had 3 people try to buy it from me, lol. Oh, another fun fact, the ladderback chair in front of it was $5 at a yard sale, hee hee. I'm so cheap!

OK, the last 3 pics are of my newest acquire, a mahogany china cabinet/secretary. My husband and I play spar over whether it's a secretary or a china hutch. For my purposes it's a secretary/bookcase. Again I was scanning the classifeds etc. for a bookcase or secretary. They are ever so expensive! Then I found this on Ebay. It was listed as a mahogany or walnut china closet/secretary for a buy it now of a $100 and it was in north Jersey! I jumped up, told my husband to look, and he knew it was over. I was buying a secretary! I emailed my information to the seller and asked where they were. A very nice lady named Barbara emailed me back and said to call her later in the week since I wanted to pick it up on the weekend. Well, we both had a bit of bad news during the week so we were not sure what would happen. I called her Thursday and she said she was going to be in PA on Saturay and would bring it with her so we could meet in PA! Oh, my, what luck! This saved us a drive to alost New York. She then said she would call when she was done with her auction in PA so we could arrange a meeting. Saturday afternoon when she called she said she was driving towards us and needed to get on the NJ turnpike to go home anyway and would come over to NJ. I could barely contain myself now! She ended up meeting us at the entrance to the turnpike which is only 6 miles from our house. We were ever so grateful, so we gave her some money for all of her above and beyond help. She told us it was her mother in law's and unfortunately she did not have room for that one and the 2 others she already had. I told her that I planned on using it for books and she said I would love it. Little did she know I already did. It was quite dusty from storage and its finish has a few issues, but after 2 cans of Liquid Gold it shines with love again. It looks little like its auction pictures. I will do a little more work to it in due time to help preserve it, but I like the well worn look. You know somebody loved it enough to use it and used it a long time.