How To Identify Maitland Smith Furniture – A Detailed Guide

Are you an antique lover? Do you want to know How to identify Maitland Smith furniture? Are you looking to furnish your home with furniture from Maitland Smith furniture manufacturers?

If your answer is yes to the above questions, then you have got the right thinking and you came to the right place for guidance.

If not, you may want to give them a try, so stay and learn a few tricks. Maitland smith furniture is one of the leading furniture makers in the US.

Their furniture is designed with incomparable craftsmanship.

Whether you are looking to decorate your apartment with fantastic furniture, lighting systems, or mirrors, Maitland is your one-stop shop for all these products.

There are a couple of ways to help you identify Maitland Smith furniture.

It would be best to be sure that you are acquiring Maitland Smith furniture if that’s what you are dedicated to finding.

Maitland Smith furniture products do not involve any use of machines. Furniture by Maitland is built with a lot of preciseness and unimaginable eye-hand coordination.

Why Maitland Smith Furniture?

This article clears any uncertainties you may have regarding how to identify Maitland-Smith Furniture.

By the time you read to the bottom, you will have drawn essential tips that will help you a great deal in distinguishing between that which is furniture from Maitland and one that is not.

Maitland Smith furniture manufacturing Company was founded 111 years ago in Clayton, Missouri.

It was established as a home furnishing company, owning brands such as the Broyhill, Lane, Thomasville, Drexel, Heritage, Hickory Chair, and Maitland Smith furniture.

Recently, in 2013, the Company became liquefied and sold off its assets due to bankruptcy. 

KPS Capital acquired this furniture Company, consequently announcing the formation of Heritage Home Group on November the 25^th, 2013 as the new owners.

Products From Maitland Smith Furniture

As a furniture manufacturing company, the Maitland smith company produces most of the furniture used in homes, offices, and schools.

This furniture includes,

• Beds, barstools. benches
• Ottomans, dressers, game chairs
• Game tables, lighting filaments, chests
• Center tables, accent tables, accent chairs
• Nightstands, recliner couches, sofa sets
• Swivel chairs, tall display cases

Maitland Smith focused on producing antique furniture made with a touch of old-age art.

Their skilled personnel produced furniture crafted by art using their hands with keen eyes and superb eye-hand coordination.

There are no machines that were used to make these products.

Every part is carved by the hand, wood is cut by the hand, and paint is applied by the hand.

They still value the 17th and 18th-century skills in furniture making used by the Romans and Greeks.

This article will guide you through vital aspects to look for when looking to discern whether the furniture before you are a product of Maitland smith or just a decoy.

How To Identify Maitland Smith Furniture

Upholstery by Leather

Maitland Smith’s furniture uniqueness starts with the quality of leather they deployed in upholstering their furniture.

They use one of the finest and rarest leather and grain hides to make the finishing of their furniture outstandingly unique.

The leather is passed through a sophisticated tanning process to absorb and lock color within the final leather.

Note: The leather used here is exceptionally durable. It is only affected by light that sheds off the natural color.

Type of Wood Used

Teak, a hardwood tree, is one of the most familiar sources of timber for Maitland Smith furniture.

Teak is a dense wood with natural oils that aid it in its natural resistance to the sun, snow, or rain, thus preventing it from rotting or warping.

It is commonly used to prepare outdoor furniture due to its high resistance and endurance to harsh environmental conditions.

Besides teak, Maitland used other hardwoods such as oak and mahogany to build the best furniture.

Tip: Furniture made from hardwoods can endure harsh climatic conditions, and they are not as easy to break. They even outlive us.

The Painting

Furniture by Maitland was painted in various ways to represent multiple prehistoric ages. Every activity carried out by Maitland involved the use of bare hands.

You can identify their works by assessing the painting. The use of bare hands uniquely and artistically painted the furniture.

The painting by Maitland is highly decorative, thick, and is used to exhibit local, regional and international paint preferences.

Decorative Hardware

With all Maitland furniture products, the decorative metal hardware, whether brass, bronze, aluminum, or silver, was done with skillful and unrivaled caliber.

The lost wax investment casting method makes the drawer pulls, handles, and finer mountings.

As the leading furniture manufacturer, Maitland’s decorative hardware was an authentic and faithful reproduction of the antique original.

All decorative hardware was lacquered, with most furniture being antiqued before the lacquering process.

Larger metal fittings are produced using the sand cast technique.

Eggshell and Lacquer

Dating back to a thousand years in time, Maitland adopted the use of natural eggshells and lacquer in coating and finishing their products.

Raw lacquer is a product of the sap of the lacquer tree.

The Maitland’s artisans employ these eggshells and lacquer in their artistic work to have the final product.

The Use of Bare Hands

This is one of the most reliable ways to distinguish Maitland’s work.

Not even a single machine was used in the production of their furniture. Maitland engineered this furniture using bare hands.

The artisans and carpenters were skilled in using handheld tools to shape wood in the way and fashion they wanted.

Note: The visibility of any signs of machine effect on timber, drilling, or nails on furniture is a red flag.

The presence of any of these signs promptly denies whatever furniture it is the possibility of being the work of Maitland Furniture Company.

The architects employed to make furniture for Maitland were experienced and talented connoisseurs in the field of carpentry.

Etching

Maitland adopted the Etching method to design decorative patterns to create an ornamental pattern.

In this method, the designers used acid to produce an image on the furniture’s surface.

This was a printing process that was attended to skillfully and slowly with the agility of a cat.

This technique was used on brass sheets to create decorative patterns that would become tabletops or arms for chairs.

Special Finishes

Another handy way to identify Maitland furniture is by assessing the finishes. The furniture’s last stages of production were exotic and only used by Maitland.

The finishing was aimed at adding quality to the furniture while making it outstanding at the same time.

However, the unique finishes were not made by a machine but by human hands.

Ask a Professional

Lastly, you can visit an antique shop to seek guidance on identifying Maitland’s if the ones highlighted above do not go down well with you.

There are antique professionals and masters all over with a library of antiquities.

Together with you, they will help you learn how to identify Matland’s furniture by providing materials with precise data and information for you to access, research, and make comparisons.

Tip: You can also find these antique professionals by browsing the internet to find any near you. Settle for the one you trust the most, or ask friends to refer you to one.

Conclusion

How to identify Maitland Smith furniture could be a walk in the park if you approach it with the correct information to guide you through identifying which furniture really is Maitland’s.

Maitland’s furniture is to date the most treasured furniture with amazing quality of all times and undisputedly the best for the creativity used in designing them.

Maitland's collection of furniture is a symbol of pure work of art. Sworn professionals attended to them with superb craftsmanship innate only to them.

The fashion with which their furniture was built without the touch of any modern facilities to decorate them makes them outstanding, highly innovative, and decorative.

The way they carved the timber with hand tools and made the joineries so pretty and stunning actually could be measured as pure magic, but it’s not. That was craftsmanship a top-notch higher.