Chess, Anyone?

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Pictured, today's junk-shop pick up: a rather lovely if slightly knackered chess table [the chess set is my old boxwood set from the eighties, although it itself is much older, probably dating to the early twentieth century]. The table, I would guess, is at least a hundred and fifty years old, and was in its day a nice piece of furniture, with some tasty marquetry; which has suffered the travails of time, damp and heat by the look of it. Anyhow, it wears its scars with pride, and I like that in a piece of old furniture. My guess is that it was originally a tilt-top table meant to stand in a hall somewhere, but someone a very long time ago decided to fix the top in position. I'm tempted to reverse the process, and return it to its original status. But whatever I do, the first thing will be is to take off the weird - and very thin - layer of lacquer [?]  that someone deemed fit to spread all over the top, and reveal the faded wood underneath, so that I can get a good dose of beeswax polish on there. Keep you posted on progress, eh?

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