Driscolls Antiques – Antique Furniture Blog

Beware of the latest paypal scam where people who sell antiques and antique furniture via EBAY.  The latest scam targets sellers who allow buyers to collect items in person from there shop or home. When the buyer arrives at the shop or home to collect the goods they ask if they can pay via paypal through the sellers computer. The buyer then pays and the seller checks that payment had been cleared via PayPal, which it has

Around one hour later, the seller received an email from PayPal saying that the buyer claimed that their account had been hacked into and the payment was not authorised. PayPal then withdrawers the payment because the seller had no receipt proving postage or delivery, which meant that they did not qualify for PayPal’s Seller Protection policy. PayPal have now warned that sellers should not allow antiques or items to be picked up from personal addresses, both because of the ‘hacking’ scam, but also because in other cases buyers claim never to have received the goods. If they do collect then i would recommend you ask for ID and also get a signature that they collected in person. 

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Retaining the Value In your antique furniture

Most people want to protect their investments, no matter what the item is. People who have invested their money into antiques and antique furniture also want to retain the value and maintain them so keeping them to their best potential if they decide to sell at some point in the future. It is important as they worked hard for these antiques and it also shows a certain pride in ownership. Most pieces of antique furniture that are purchased should be cared for as if they were essential parts of the household as the better the original finish, the more valuable the pieces will become over time.

Therefore it is very important to take care of antiques so that they retain their value so we recommend cleaning the original finish with a good quality wax once every couple of months and try to keep it away from direct sunlight.

Try not to keep your antiques too close to a radiator as heat can crack the wood and dry it out.

Protect the surface with a cloth if placing objects on the pieces to prevent scratching or water marks from a vase. If any damage is caused seek advice from a good antiques restorer as sometimes trying to rectify a problem yourself can cause more damage.

Check out our website for quality antique furniture that you can purchase and be proud of as your investment.

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Antique furniture a financial investment and an environmental investment.

When you think about buying antique furniture for your home, you fist think about the practicality of the piece and will it fit the purpose for what you wish to use it for. Then many people think about the financial investment of the piece as it should go up in value over time if cared for correctly. One thing many people forget to think about is the environmental investment. Antique furniture is sustainable, re-usable and re-saleable. Antique furniture is environmentally friendly as it has already been built so is really recycled furniture. The manufacture of a modern furniture means more trees are being cut down to make them. The trees have to be transported to the warehouse and then transported to the shops. Newly built furniture is never saved as once finished with, they mainly end up in the landfill. Antique furniture is never thrown away, so this also reduces carbon emissions. The transport of new furniture is mainly from outside the UK so buying within the UK means less freight and this is also better for the UK economy. The antique furniture trade is one of the earliest recycling business in history as antique furniture has been built to last and is always saved and passed on so this preserves our heritage for future generations. No trees are being cut down to make antique furniture unlike the modern equivalent and antique furniture was originally mainly constructed by hand in daylight so no power tools or lighting was used.

The lifespan of the new furniture is only approximately fifteen years and is not normally resalable according to certain studies but antique furniture can last forever is cared for and especially if you buy the best quality antiques like at Driscolls Antiques Ltd. So remember antique furniture is not just a financial investment but is also an environmental investment.

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Buying Antique furniture From London

If you live in or around London and you are looking to purchase some quality antique furniture, before you go into the capital to view the antiques shops first look at driscolls antiques antique furniture website. In most cities like London you will have to pas far over the odds for the piece of antique furniture where as looking online you can get pieces for a much more reasonable price and they are just as good quality. Driscolls Antiques has over 300 pieces of antique furniture to choose from at any one time, the turnover is very quick so there is plenty of choice and the quality of stock is superb. All the pieces of antique furniture are carefully cleaned and restored using traditional methods so they are in good usable condition and they are reasonably priced. Two men come to deliver to any room in your home and are assembled if required. There is also a 28 money back guarantee in place for peace of mind. Have a look at the vast array of antique desks, tables, chairs, wardrobes and many other beautiful pieces of antique furniture available. It is a much better option than buying antique furniture in London not just for the money saving but also for the comfort of shopping at home on your computer rather than trailing around lots of small shops with no or little choice.

Have a good look around the website at the large selection available and if you still feel you want to touch and feel before you buy have a trip to driscolls large showroom in Lancashire, you could even make it a nice weekend break as there are some wonderful places to visit in the surrounding areas.

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The clever car boot buyer has recently bought these glasses at a car boot sale for 40p each. The glasses ended up being opaque twist wine glasses decorated by the Beilby workshop of Newcastle upon Tyne c.1765 and they sold at auction for £16,000.

Less than 100 Beilby armorial glasses have been documented so they are very rare antiques.

Before you take your antique to a car boot check before hand if you do not know what you are selling as you may regret what you sell them for.

Well done to the canny car boot buyer as his 40p investment paid off!

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Antiques sold on ebay watched by the tax man

With the government trying to get as much money as possible they are looking to new ideas to get more revenue and there latest idea is to watch people who buy and sell goods over the internet and on ebay.

HM Revenue and Customs whose are currently looking into people and businesses who are selling on ebay but have not paid enough tax. They are not looking into people who sell the odd unwanted items but more the larger dealers with large stocks of goods, including antique dealers.

New technology will be used to catch people failing to pay the right tax or trading illegally.

This new technology can identify inconsistencies between an individual’s stated financial situation and their lifestyle. The new software will gather data from a huge range of sources and compile that information into individual profiles. This should identify people who are living in a way that suggests they are not declaring all of their income.

They are specifically looking for VAT rule breakers trading above the £73,000 turnover threshold who have not registered for VAT.

Similar plans are currently going ahead in Australia and i would imagine it will soon spread across the entire world.

ebay has to pass the details to customs including names, home and email addresses, telephone numbers, user IDs, dates of birth, date of registration and most importantly monthly and annual sales volumes.

So be warned if you are trading antique furniture or antiques or anything else on ebay with a turn over above the VAT threshold i would register now otherwise you may find yourself in a lot of trouble.

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Antique pine chests

When looking around at antique chest of drawers, you will see many different woods from mahogany, oak and walnut but if you want a lighter looking antique chest a good alternative is a pine chest. Pine is a lighter looking soft wood and was usually made for country homes. Because of the lighter appearance pine can look very nice in modern homes or rooms that are dark as the light wood can look will fit into modern interiors and lighten darker spaces. We have two very nice pieces of pine antique furniture chests for sale at the moment and they are both available on our antiques website.

The first is a Victorian pine antique chest of drawers with rounded corners, graduating drawers and glass handles.

The other antique pine chest is a superb looking antique Georgian chest of drawers with a rectangular moulded top above a slim drawer and two over three graduating drawers with cock beaded edges and turned handles. The antique chest of drawers stands on shaped bracket feet and is simple in design and a very usable piece of antique furniture.

Driscolls antiques stock only the best quality antique pine furniture for sale so please check our website for details of pine and many other woods in our range of quality antique furniture.

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