Ways of Living.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 380, 20 August 1903, Page 2

Ways of Living.

TRICKS OF THE FURNITURE TRADE. SKF you go to & furniture shop, select a <j|b euite of furniture, pay. for it, and 2gg have it sent home, you are naturally under the impression that you get what you pay for; but this is not necessarily the case. A large number of 'shady' furniture dealers keep in their showrooms 'decoy-ducks,' ia the phape of well-finished, elegant goods of the best quality, which are shown to prospective customers. When a deal is effected, and the purchaser decides to take a certain suite, sideboard, or whatever it maybe, the articles that are. Bent home,a.re .copies, similar in appearance, but vastly inferior in quality to those on view ia the showroom^ -Jfor instance, instead of being of. solid walnut, as the 'decoy-dack' is, the article I which arrives may have merely a walnut front with a stained deal back, so green that it will shrink and warp all to pieces in the.space of a few months, nailed or screwed together instead of being dovetailed, and really worth about half aB much as the suite originally shown. If the fraud is detected, complaint is generally useless, as upon returaing to the emporium the 'decoy-duck* has been shifted out of sight in anticipation of a visit. It jb rarely, however, that anything more is heasd of the matter, for generally the purchaser fails to perceive that anything is wrong. To avoid being swindled in this fashion a w&ty purchaser, on buying a suite, under the pretext of examining it closely, sometimes make a private mark with, a pencil or similar article, on Boma remote part of one of the articles, unperceived by the salesman. If, when the gooda are delivered and examined, the mark is found to be non-existent, the suite is net the suito he bought. Sometime?, however, this artifice fails to work. The cute salesman has detected the mar ce avre, and the the marked panel or drawer had been removed from the show suite and fitted into that which was Rent away. A novice should sever attempt to buy antique oak furniture, especially when the dealer offers to procure any article he may require which is not in stock. There are thousands of old oak articles in London at the present moment, apparently centuries old, but which have all in reality been manufactured during the current year. They are blackened by being exposed for day a to the fumes of ammonia in a sealed room, while the worm-holeß, which give them a genuine appearance, bav9 been made by firing: small shot at them fr.magun, The same of a great English firm upon a pianoforte is no guarantee that the instrument has been manufactured by them. There are mushroom firms in the North of Lindon who piece together the different parts of pianos which are turned out in thousands from Gernkn factories, stick a bogus label over the keyboard, and sell them to the public as 'slightly used' Brinsmeadls, Broadwoods, or whatever the case may be. To be sure of getting a piano of the make you desire, go direct to the headquarters of the manufacturers themselves, and put not your trust in agents of aDy description,