Some one has estimated that every collection which does not go into a museum changes hands every twenty years on an average. It is a fact that collecting in America to-day is infinitely more easy of accomplishment than it was a century ago. In New York, for instance, the auction sales of a single recent season presented to the collector more opportunities than could have come his way in six seasons years ago. It is a mistake to suppose that all good “chances” have passed; they are, as a matter of fact, just about beginning in America. We are told that collectors have ransacked farmhouses and old houses in the East for interesting pieces of antique furniture. That is true, but the process means only a change of location and not an elimination of possibilities. The collector of old chairs can easily become familiar with the various forms of peculiarities of design which mark the different styles and periods, as may be seen by even a passing glance at the accompanying illustrations. Indeed, the ear-marks that distinguish certain pieces of furniture of the historic periods and distinct styles from others are, happily, so numerous that the art of identification becomes comparatively an easy one. Beginners will, to be sure, often come across modern reproductions of genuine old chairs. Not all of these--in fact, comparatively few of them--were made with intent to defraud. Occasionally some unscrupulous or ignorant person will offer a modern piece as genuine, but your true collector need hardly be deceived, except in rare instances, by attempted impositions. The form of the master furniture designers of yesterday has never been surpassed. There is nothing in modern design more beautiful or so beautiful as many of the old chairs of Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite, and likewise of the early English and the French periods. Realizing this, the furniture-makers of to-day at home and abroad have sought to reproduce the best of these antique pieces for the service and the benefit of the modern home-maker, obviously as undisguised reproductions. The collector who studies old chairs will glean many a helpful hint from these modern reproductions. The fine ones faithfully carried out are really worth collecting in themselves, as accessory to a collection of other pieces which the collector has been fortunate in obtaining in the originals. If you [Illustration: Chippendale Mahogany Arm-Chair 1760-1780] [Illustration: Shield-Back Hepplewhite Arm-Chair] [Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_ Louis XIV Arm-Chair] [Illustration: Louis XV Arm-Chair] [Illustration: _Courtesy Brooklyn Museum of Art_ Three Rare Williamite Glasses. Two English Glass Rummers Engraved with Nelson Subjects, and a smaller Jacobite Arms Rummer. Centre Tumbler Commemorates Coronation of George IV of England. Two 18th Century Tumblers]