90% chance it's oak under the paint....those tables usually were oak, particularly with the metal leaf support. Missing the 5th leg....as well as the leaves as you see....stripped it would be a nice small kitchen table....$90 seems a bit much for a clobbered antique though.

Thank you Linda never noticed missing 5 leg

lindac92 is probably right about it being Oak (Chestnut, etc); American-made tables from this period, 1900-ish, usually were. But that's a relatively recent paint job, and Oak has such an "open" grain that it's really difficult to strip and start over unless it had a fully intact sealing coat, probably shellac, in place before being painted. (And if it did, God forgive the person who painted it.)

Unless you're going to repaint it (something you can do without guilt feelings) just let it go by.

Maybe at $25-30 you could start to reconsider, but stripping it is just too much of a job to get involved for more of an investment than that, and IMHO even if you were to get one standing on the side of the street waiting for the trash truck to come by, before you were done you'd be asking yourself why you hadn't let that one go by too.

I have a Chestnut table that belonged to my grandmother. Was looking for another for Holidays. You learn something all the time here, very interesting that oak can be a nightmare to strip paint from. Thank You

I have stripped paint off of lots of oak, and most of it did have a pretty stable finish under the paint....notable exception is chair seats! But tables like you have often had a wood filler on the top, which filled in the grain and allowed for a smooth surface....so not too bad to strip. But since I don't like the look of wood filler, I have scrubbed lots of that out of smaller things. A tooth brush works very well...until the stripper melts the plastic!

As far as I'm concerned the secret to stripping paint off Oak/Chestnut is LYE. And an apron, a pair of long rubber gloves, eye protection, a water hose, and a place to work outside where it won't matter what ends up on the ground. And yes, a toothbrush to get out all that paint and filler that sunk deep into that open grain.

Ugh! No wonder it's been so long since I stripped Oak.