As on the preceding fake card table, the supposedly New York card table on the right consists of mostly new parts with an old rear rail and fly rail. Similarly the design copies a well-known published form, the table on the left. The authentic, and skillfully crafted table was first illustrated in Joseph Downs’ 1952 catalog of the Winterthur collection, a book published eight years before the Stones acquired their fake. The text and views shown in Downs’ catalogue, shown above, provided most of what the faker needed to know about the size, woods, and construction of the rear rail and drawer.

The knee acanthus is by the same hand that carved most of the fraudulent pieces in the Chipstone collection. The design of this individual’s work varies a great deal, but his techniques and lack of skill are relatively consistent. The leaves have excessively deep convex flutes and rounded edges that appear to have been finished with fine-grit sandpaper. Although a variety of abrasives were available in the eighteenth century, most woodworkers used them to removed irregularities from broad convex surfaces such as the gadrooned molding on the front rail. In contrast, the carved leaves on the antique table to the left shows no such abrasion. Instead, this eighteenth-century decoration was crafted with razor-sharp. carving tools.