Blanket Chests
I asked my leather-skinned New Hampshire skiing buddy, Jack, why he had waited until he was sixty years old to get married.
He took a long puff on his meerschaum pipe, "Well Wayne," he said, "I always kind of figured it's better to want something I didn't have, than to have something I didn't want."
That same Yankee prudence should be applied to antique collecting. Seek things you really like, and be sure that they have integrity. This will make for a happy union.
Today, old blanket chests can serve two practical decorating purposes; they can be used as coffee tables-antique coffee tables don't exist, and they can be put at the foot of a bed to store the your sleeping quilt during the day and your decorative bedcover, an antique quilt or coverlet, at nighttime.
An old blanket chest is usually fashioned out of a small number of wide boards, sometimes as few as six. Chests fashioned of multiple planks should be avoided. Fat virgin trees, and accordingly wide boards, were available to early American craftsman and they used them. The wood is normally a "soft" wood, like pine or poplar, compared to a "hard" wood like maple, cherry, or mahogany. Two exceptions; the hardwood oak was often used in pilgrim period blanket chests, however these are seldom encountered today, and walnut was often employed in dutch communities like Lancaster, Pennsylvania where they fashioned fancy blanket chests called "dower chests".
The wood on a blanket chest should have few "knots" in it. Old time cabinet makers in Europe and America were proud and highly skilled, just as our craftsman are today. They would not choose lumber with large knots that would fall out. A few small knots are acceptable, especially on the unfinished backboard of the chest that would normally be hidden against the bed, however any antique furniture item made of "knotty pine" is most likely a fake.
The hinges, connecting the lift-up top to the backboard of a blanket chest may be of several varieties; "snipe or cotter-pin hinges"-interloped wormlike wrought-iron hinges that were driven through the wood and peened over, or long wrought-iron flat face hinges often hammered out in the shape of a "strap" or "butterfly," or, more common to 19th century chests, today's square angled "butt hinge." Study hinges as a clue to integrity. When iron rests on wood for hundreds of years it often leaves a rust shadow. The backboard of an old blanket chest will have commonly have a long dark line running vertically down from the hinges where rusty moisture has been leaking for many years. Inside an old blanket chest you may encounter a small box compartment called a "till" that was used to store candles and other small items. Remember to feel the wood with your hands to check for wavelike undulations that were left by old time hand-planing.
Old blanket chests should be purchased in two conditions; retaining their beautiful old paint, which is most desirable, or stripped down to the handsome bare wood. In addition to integrity and handsome surface a blanket chest should be selected for its "form." I know what your thinking; "Wait a minute, its just a box!" It is not. Is the blanket chest handsomely proportioned? Does it have a beautiful base? One of nature's most beautiful forms is one of her simplest-the egg.
