Shipping and Terms

We ship antiques all over the world and endeavour to help all of our customers with all of there needs.

All sizes given are specified as over all sizes of height, width and depth. If you have any queries on these please contact us and also ensure there is sufficient reasonable space to get the item into the space available. Please also ensure that the item will go through all the relevant doors, corners and stairs where the antique needs to travel through.

within the UK mainland we use Royal Mail or Parcel Force unless asked to do so otherwise. All large items we deliver ourselves within the UK.

International Shipping

If we are sending a large or delicate item internationally then we prefer the item to be packed professionally by Mailboxes a professional packer and shipper based on Colmore Row in Birmingham city centre. We regularly deliver purchased items to international shippers all over the UK.

Payment

We are happy to accept cash, cheque or postal order but prefer to generate an invoice via paypal secure payments. All goods will be held by us until payment has cleared. We are more averse to negotiation directly with ourselves over antiques we hold in stock rather than through other selling platforms we may be currently involved with.

Refund Policy

If you are not happy with the goods or service we will happily refund your payment with return of the goods in the condition they arrived with you in. This is also not an open ended offer, a reasonable time lapse will be left for this of 30 days for this process, although this is not set in stone.

Measuring of items and Houses

We would ask all of our customers to measure accurately any aperture that we may have to take a piece of furniture through. This particularly applies to stairs and stairs with kinks or dogs legs doubling back on themselves. We are happy to deliver a wardrobe to a bedroom in your house within reason. This involves stairs and not windows if will fit up the stairs. We do not look well on items that do not fit in to houses due to a lack of accurate measuring having had this debacle previously.

Condition

There has been a debate in our house as long as I can remember. It’s the condition debate, everyone has an opinion and here in North Worcestershire even our cat Cindy and the puppy Don have their own views. The first thing to say is that there was an Antique Trade Gazette report some years ago about the average amount of time between when a piece of furniture on average has to have restoration done. Now our opinion and vague recollection is on average it’s every 70 years. The factors we have to overlay on this are fashion at the time of that work being done and where the line is drawn between conservation and restoration. Fashion in this sense means it could have been altered a while ago because of trends. The main example I can think of is painting furniture which first came in to vogue around the First World War to early 1920's.

Our next example is a Victorian pine piece. The original finish is what was called a spirit varnish. In modern day interpretation this is a thick layer of garnet polish that covers all site of what wood is underneath. Now these often turn up in their original finish all over the country and in that state are completely unsaleable. If it is stripped and waxed with clear wax and the joints made to be ok, what is that? Is that conservation of a piece so it has a new lease of life in the modern age, is it up cycling or is that over restoration.

The next example is a mahogany Victorian or Georgian piece. At top end Antique fairs there are two clear camps, those who like and want patina and those who don’t. We are those that like patina so you have my bias. Those that don’t can be spotted because all of their stock looks the same despite its origin. Now surely if you buy an antique you are buying its age, you are buying the fact that it’s been there and if it could talk would make you laugh and cry in equal measure.

Certain dealers remove all patina and re-polish all of their stock. Now this is great if you are one of those customers who would like an antique but want it to look like the same finish as a reproduction piece, if this is you please walk on as we are not the dealers for you. Antiques should be in good condition, fit for purpose and have age or patina. Coming back to those who remove all patina, now sometimes the piece may have had to be restored in a way that it needs a re-polish to save it but this isn't the norm it’s the exception.

We have been in the business many years and have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. Patina is its wear which means it has knocks, it has blemishes and it’s what you are buying, antiques by their nature have age. We have a healthy debate whether the condition is saleable, the problem lies in perception. Where each of us individually draws the line of acceptable condition is different and the acceptable condition of a piece of furniture is SUBJECTIVE and always will be.

All antiques by the nature of them being antique have age and with this comes the odd blemish which gives a unique appearance and that distinctive character so sought after in our mass produced society.