Restoration of a Dresser.

[Shedhand]

It had umpteen layers of old varnish stained the ugliest dark brown you could imagine. Took it completely apart and stripped it all off to find it was made of Silky Oak.
IMG_0686.jpgHad to replace all the drawer pulls as only two originals were any good. These were very close and cost over a $100 for the six large and two small.
its sanded to 800 and finished with 2 coats of FW satin wipe-on
poly. I'm hoping to get about $600 for it or is that too much.
Not sure of era but could be pre WW2. Someone might know and tell me.
cheers

[Xanthorrhoeas]

It looks to be circa 1920 to me.

Are you sure it is Silky Oak and not English/European/Japanese Oak (Quercus sp.)? I'm not meaning to be argumentative and you may well be very expert in timber id but its just that some of the figure under the mirror and in the LHS leg looks like one of the Quercus oaks. However, it is very difficult to id from photographs and you have the piece in your hands so probably are correct.

If it is Northern Silky Oak (Cardwellia sublimis) then there are plenty of collectors here in Queensland that love the stuff. I'm not sure of the sale price, but I would have thought a bit less than $600 unless you have a good retail outlet. A dealer near us sells a lot of Northern Silky Oak and he tells me that most collectors much prefer a traditional shellac finish and would shy away from a contemporary poly finish like the plague. He refinishes a lot himself when he finds them dark and nasty like this one sounds as though it was, but always uses shellac.