Antique Dealers Editing and Proofreading Services

A chest of drawers is described as period, and it is. The top is a replacement from about 1910, two of the feet have been rebuilt, the handles are modern castings, and the back boards came from another piece entirely. All of that is normal in furniture of that age, none of it is dishonest, and whether the buyer finds out from the dealer or from an auctioneer three years later decides everything about the relationship.

We edit what antique dealers and vintage sellers produce — item descriptions and condition disclosures for catalogues, fairs and online listings, invoices and receipts with their descriptions of goods, valuation and insurance documentation, provenance and research notes, terms of sale and return policies, fair and exhibition applications, and correspondence with buyers, restorers and institutions. Our editors work on descriptions that a buyer will re-read.

The restoration and replacement disclosure is where an antique dealer's reputation is made, and its failure is a description that says what a piece is without saying what has happened to it. In this trade the omission is the claim. We work through these so original and replaced elements are separated explicitly, since a buyer assumes everything not mentioned is original and that assumption is the source of nearly every dispute; so restoration is described by what was done rather than as "restored", because a sympathetic repair, a replaced element and a refinish are three different facts about value; so any marriage of parts from different pieces is stated plainly, given that this is the single disclosure most often left out and the one most likely to be found; so terminology is used precisely — period, of the period, in the style of, after, later — as these words have settled meanings in the trade and a buyer who learns them later feels misled; so surface and finish are described, since an original surface is often worth more than a perfect one and a buyer needs to know which they are getting; so faults are described in the same voice as virtues rather than in smaller type; and so the invoice repeats the description, because that is the document a claim is decided against. Descriptions written this way produce buyers who come back.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including stock descriptions, valuations, provenance research and client information. We are editors rather than dealers, valuers or lawyers, and we offer no view on authenticity, dating, value or any transaction. What we can do is make the description say what the piece has been through.