We may assume, then, (1) that cane does not belong to the Elizabethan-Jacobean old oak period, but does belong to the Stuarts and later; (2) that the old oak style of incised carving and panelling is not found in the bureau shapes of the eighteenth century; (3) that mahogany has nothing to do with either the old oak or the walnut periods. Maxims such as these are truisms to those who have studied the subject, but their truth does not prevent a huge quantity of things being bought as genuine which have been made up into shapes entirely unknown to the periods ascribed to them. Many a dealer who has kept photographic records of his doings could show sideboards with cupboards and drawers made up of old oak by the dozen. No such thing as a modern-shaped sideboard was ever made at the time that the panels thus employed were carved. 'Buffets' and 'credences' are the nearest approach to it, and they are extremely rare. The same may be said of long clocks with incised oak panels, which are also very commonly now produced. They are historic impossibilities. The earliest long clocks belong to the period of Charles 11. or thereabouts, and are inlaid, not carved.

To the same category of impossibilities may also be referred anything in the way of a washing-stand, dressing-table with drawers, and, with very rare exceptions, a chest of drawers of incised oak. As to this last, it certainly does seem strange that this gradual evolution from the chest should so seldom be found with incised ornamentation upon it. Such things do exist, but are not greatly in evidence. The chest of drawers proper, in its earliest guise, relies upon the varied shapes of its panels, its applied mouldings, and the prettiness of its iron drop-handles for its beauties, but not often upon incised carving.

In the colour and surface of old oak furniture consists a large proportion of its beauty. Extreme darkness is not desirable, as it tends to give a funereal appearance, such as is the defect of ebony furniture unrelieved by metal mounts, coloured shell, or polished stones. It is probable that the makers of old oak, except where, in the Gothic periods, they used painted decoration, were accustomed to rely for the tone of their handiwork mainly upon the effects of smoke and time. The permeating capacities of smoke are extraordinary, and the results of that and turpentine, beeswax, and rubbing, are something entirely different from the colour of the made-up or manufactured 'old oak' widely sold. The panelling of the Sizergh Castle room in the Victoria and Albert Museum, for instance, shows very little of that blackness which is regarded as so essential by the totally uninitiated.