Patina - it's a small word.

posted 1 May 2009, 20:59 by Patrick Robinson   [ updated 15 May 2009, 03:57 ]
The word patina comes from the Latin "paten", meaning dish or pan, which is not much obvious help in defining its modern meaning, although you can imagine that a beaten metal roman dish did acquire a certain character after a generation or two.
Patina is the knocks, rubs, bruises, chips, dints, dents, scratches, and wear that a piece of (in our case) furniture acquires over time. It may also occur in the surface finish as colour fading, or surface congealing, or into the timber beneath as more obvious indentations, or most commonly, as both.
Many of the pieces on this site have patina.

In plain speak, it is the texture of age.
Traditional finishes such as wax and shellac  can be revived to enhance the patina of furniture, giving it a pleasing mellow and warm richness. This accentuates its character rather than disguising it. Traditional finishes react well to further polishing and revival which retains the original patina.
Modern finishes, like nitrocelulose laquer and the various oil based estapol finishes can be patinated too, but they do not revive well. When faded or worn through, these finishes can only be marginally coaxed back into life and usually require refinishing (starting again) which destroys all of the patina in the finish and a lot of the 'print through' patina in the timber. 

Some examples of patina...