Antique or not, small furniture is what she seeks

Marcia Wilk has a soft spot for small things — especially small furniture. She has about a dozen pieces spread throughout her Grosse Pointe Park home.

“It’s not dollhouse or child-size it’s in between,” she explains. “It was made by carpenters and woodworkers as a craft to show off their work. It didn’t really serve a purpose, although many people mistakenly think these items were salesmen’s samples.”

Wilk has been collecting the wooden pieces about 20 years. She purchased her first piece — a small icebox — many years ago while living in her native Pennsylvania. Since then, she’s picked up chairs, dressers, desks and other examples.

“It’s gotten really, really hard to find,” she laments. “When I do find pieces, the prices are extremely high. A lot of dealers also call them salesmen’s samples, which makes it harder to find them by category on places such as eBay, she says. Wilk paid just $35 for a curved glass china cabinet she stumbled on at the auction site. “I was looking at tea cups online, and found it listed under there. It was a great deal,” she says.

“People throw the salesman sample term around a lot, but many of these were not made as examples of manufacturer’s work,” she says. “They were just made to be beautiful, which is why I like them.”

She brought her favorite piece into a recent Trash or Treasure appraisal in hopes of finding out more information.

“I saw this in an antique shop window in Williamston, but the shop was never open,” she says. “I went back the next time and the shop was still closed. Eventually, I just called one day and had it shipped to me.”

She paid $100 for the small desk.”I think I like this the best of all my collection,” she says. “It has very fine detail. I knew it might not be old when I bought it, but I loved it anyway.”

David McCarron, of Freeman’s Midwest, says it probably isn’t an antique. He took a look at Wilk’s piece during a recent appraisal event held at Judy Frankel Antiques in Troy.

“The detail on this is beautiful, but I would say it’s probably more recently made,” he says. “It has old construction, but new wood. I would guess it was made somewhere on the East Coast.”

If old, it would bring $600-$700 and maybe more, he estimates. “Even these newer ones bring about $200-$250 on the auction market because of their fine quality,” he says.

Wilk, who owns one of Grosse Pointe’s top estate sale companies, says she seldom sees small furniture like this come through her business.

“I saw a beautiful piece a few years ago, but it wasn’t for sale,” she remembers. “Most people who have these items hang on to them.”

Information from: detnews.com