Warren in Lancaster, PA
I have known people whose work came up for sale 20 years later where the auction house thought something was 250 years old and it was not. or was shown in prestigious publications as 18th century. These were not Sapfm people. It makes a nice story, but nobody is happy when this happens.

Generally reproductions have different flaws than 18th century work, like doughy carvings, bland turnings and mouldings, crappy 21st century curves and on and on. The style, the charm, the liveliness are very important indicators of age. And you want something to look like it was just tossed off spontaneously, not labored over., Style and refinement were much more important in the 18th century; guys were not walking around in baggy tee shirts and shorts. Looking at high quality work and doing hand work and repetitive work help refine one's eye.

My experience after 40 years in the business is that people are interested in quality and price. They don't care what was done by hand. If the piece needs a lot of hand work it becomes very expensive for a power tool guy to make. His machines, 3/4 of his shop, and his investment in machine tool skills sit idle whenever he does hand work and in a lot of cases he is not all that fluid with hand work either.