This wonderful Philadelphia secretary was in very poor condition when it arrived at my shop. It showed the wear and tear of 200+ years of use, and had suffered several rather clumsy repairs, most notably to the interior of the desk.

It was necessary to carefully patch the areas where two later pairs of hinges had been added and to deal with some serious discoloration. Fortunately the original prospect door mirror and the gilded scalloping surrounding it had survived.

The bookcase section was missing some of the glass panes and the blind fretwork around the top was damaged in several places. Upon close examination the outline of the missing scroll top was clearly visible. I constructed the missing scrolls, rosettes, return moldings, open fretwork and central carving as a separate unit and used screws to attach it to the top of the case, thus not disturbing the evidence of the original scroll top.