I'm curious what petina is and how it effects us. I've noticed since switching to water-base bonaseal and mega combination that 70-80 year old floors tend to darken up alot on refinish jobs and the newer floors say 30-40 yrs. tend to not take the sealer the same way. At first I thought it was inconsistency in the Bona Seal but now I've noticed that the age of the floor seems to be the difference is this due to petina if so what is petina or is this just aging or do the two go hand in hand. I'm really enjoyin this site and message board alot of useful info.

From Antiques Roadshow:



Patina

"Listen to our appraisers talk, and more likely than not you will hear them speak of an object's "pa-grown-uh." That's the way we've always heard it, and the way Baltimore antiques dealer Michael Flanigan pronounces the word as well. You can imagine our surprise when we received an email from an ANTIQUES ROADSHOW fan informing us that the preferred pronunciation was PAT-ina. We checked the dictionary, and lo and behold, she was right.

However you pronounce it, the word is as rich as the objects it describes. Michael tells a story about Israel Sack, the famous New York antiques dealer who lived in the first part of the 20th century. Sack is said to have used the following metaphor to help define "patina" for one of his senior female patrons: "Today you are a lovely woman of 60. However, who you are today is not who you were when you were 20. The difference is patina."

Sack's analogy is a poetic way of describing the changes that any object (with all due respect to Sack, it usually does not refer to a person, well-preserved or otherwise) goes through over the course of time. For collected pieces, the change in appearance is usually caused by the build-up of dirt, grease, polish or chemical changes in the finish or the object itself. That "old look" usually gives an object a rich and attractive appearance.

"Patina is everything that happens to an object over the course of time," Michael says. "The nick in the leg of a table, a scratch on a table top, the loss of moisture in the paint, the crackling of a finish or a glaze in ceramics, the gentle wear patterns on the edge of a plate. All these things add up to create a softer look, subtle color changes, a character. Patina is built from all the effects, natural and man-made, that create a true antique."

Michael notes that if an object is described as having a "fine patina" it's usually meant as a compliment. If something is said to "lack patina," it usually means the object lacks character.

The word also has a second and related, thought less common, meaning. In the world of metals, patina refers to the finish put on a metal to give it a more three-dimensional feel and the look of an antiquity. "When you patinate a bronze, for example," says Michael, "you are creating highlights, mattes, glossy surfaces and color variations. Patinating something gives it a feeling of age."

Michael points out that patinating metals is an attempt to give objects an ancient feel that metal objects from antiquity often exhibit. He notes, "To some degree, adding patina is an attempt to capture the true patina of those ancient treasures."

very interesting, so in wood the patina is why you can't match new floor to old floor even with a palette of stains and make it match perfect. and I do agree that it is a very nice detail in flooring. the job I finished today was a 80 yr old home that I had posted on patching a floor furnace. It turned out acceptable and the rest of the floor looked awesome. The patina i guess is what made it look so good. It had some little worm holes over a little area, they gave a ton of character. The newer floors just don't have that natural patina I suppose. So another question is when you sand them down do you stop the natural aging process on the newer floors that don't have that much character yet or does it proceed to gain that patina under the finishes of today??