Is the furniture veneered or solid wood? How to tell

You can tell whether a piece of furniture is veneered by looking at the edges and the end grain. On solid wood the grain continues round the edge and the end grain is visible on the short side. On a veneered surface the pattern stops at the edge, the edge is often covered by a strip, and where the veneer has worn or come loose a different wood shows beneath. Mirrored grain and burrs are almost always veneer.

Facts

Veneer is not cheating

Veneer is a thin sheet of wood glued to a carcass of cheaper timber. It sounds like a shortcut, but it is one of the oldest and finest techniques of cabinetmaking. The masters of the 18th century, such as Georg Haupt in Stockholm, veneered their best furniture, since veneer makes it possible to use expensive and beautifully figured woods sparingly and lay them in patterns; see the chest of drawers by Haupt.

Solid wood is sawn from the log and is the same wood all the way through. It moves with the humidity, so panels and fillings must be able to shrink and swell without cracking, whereas a veneered surface on a stable carcass moves less. Both terms are explained in the glossary. The question is thus not which is finer, but what you have in front of you and what it says about the age.

Look at the edge and the end grain

The surest test is the edge. On a board of solid wood the grain continues from the top round the edge, and on the short side the end grain is visible, the tree’s annual rings in cross-section, which connect with the pattern on the surface. On a veneered top the pattern stops at the edge. The edge is often covered by a strip of its own or a band of veneer with the grain running in another direction, and the end grain is not visible at all.

Look also where the furniture is worn. On old furniture the veneer has often flaked or lifted at corners and drawer edges, and then the carcass wood, often pine, oak or birch, is visible beneath a thin sheet of another kind. Small blisters in the surface, where the glue has let go, occur only on veneer.

The grain gives it away

Some patterns can hardly be obtained except with veneer. When two sheets cut one after the other from the same log are opened like the pages of a book, book-matching, the grain is mirrored in the middle, as on the Viennese Biedermeier secretaire. Flame mahogany from a branch crotch and swirling burrs from knots in the tree were too expensive and too unstable to be used in solid form, so such surfaces are almost always veneered.

Patterns of different woods pieced together, marquetry, are also veneer; see the guide to intarsia and marquetry. Solid wood, by contrast, has a grain that is the same on the top and the underside and that follows the whole length of the board. On a tabletop you can compare the top with the underside: if the underside is a different wood, the top is veneered.

The thickness dates

The thickness of the veneer is one of the best ways of dating a piece of furniture. Before the mid-19th century veneer was sawn by hand and became several millimetres thick, often uneven. In the 19th century machines arrived that cut the veneer with a knife, and it became about a millimetre or thinner. Measure where the edge is worn or where the veneer has flaked, or look at the edges of the drawer fronts.

The detail drawing further down shows the difference. Thick veneer on a Karl Johan chest of drawers speaks for its having been made in the first half of the 19th century; thin machine-cut veneer on the same form indicates a later copy. Read the veneer together with the drawer joints, see the guide to the dovetail, and the rest of the chest in the guide to dating an antique chest of drawers.

The carcass: pine, plywood and board materials

What the veneer is laid on also tells you something. Older furniture has a carcass of solid boards, often pine or oak, which can be seen at the back and in the drawers. Moulded and glued plywood became common in 20th-century furniture, and chipboard and other board materials, covered with veneer or plastic, in furniture from the mid-20th century onwards.

Look, therefore, at the back and the underside, where no one has bothered to hide the material. A top that looks like solid walnut but shows board material where an edging strip has come loose is a late piece. In Swedish Karl Johan furniture mahogany veneer on birch or pine is common, and sometimes the birch is merely stained dark to resemble mahogany; see the guide to the Karl Johan style.

What to look for: five quick tests

Follow the grain round the edge. Look for the end grain on the short side. Compare the top with the underside. Look for mirrored patterns and burrs, which are almost always veneer. And measure the thickness where the veneer is worn or flaking. With the five tests you can almost always say whether a piece of furniture is veneered and roughly when the veneer was made.

The words in auction catalogues are explained in the guide to furniture terms, and more furniture to practise on can be found under furniture.

How to recognise it

Exercise

On a tabletop the grain continues round the edge, and on the short side annual rings are visible that connect with the pattern on the surface. What does that indicate?