Tables

Table height, from the coffee table to the cocktail table:

height tells you what a table is for. A dining table stands at chair height and is chosen by how many people it seats; those are listed under dining tables. Coffee tables, end tables and nightstands sit well below that and go under side tables, while study and computer tables are under desks. What remains are the tables brought out for an occasion: folding tables, the tall cocktail table for a standing reception, low tables for a children’s party and heavy work tables for a workshop or a market stall.

The white folding table at every quinceaños:

no piece of furniture works harder in Panama. It carries the buffet at a family party, the goods at a roadside food stand and the whole stock of a party-rental business. Sizes go in feet and inches and are the same across brands: a short rectangle, the long one that carries a buffet, and the big round rental firms set out for a seated dinner. After size, the choice is how it folds. A fold-in-half table closes like a briefcase and fits in the back of a car, but leaves a seam down the middle that a tablecloth never quite hides. A one-piece top stays flat under a loaded buffet and needs a pickup to move. Brand counts for more than with most plastic goods: a Lifetime is built heavier than an unbranded table and sags less in the middle, which is what a buyer pays the extra for.

Buying folding tables against renting them for the party:

a 6 ft plastic folding table, the size that seats six to eight, runs from about $40 unbranded to around $80 for a Lifetime, new. Renting a 60-inch round, the one that takes eight to ten at a sit-down party, costs $8 to $10 a table for the night. For a single quinceaños renting is cheaper, but a church group or a family business that sets up every month has covered the cost of its own tables inside a year. A used one competes with the identical model sitting new in any hardware store, so the discount has to be real before anyone drives over for it. Condition decides the rest: one that still locks flat keeps most of its value, and a cracked blow-moulded top is close to worthless, since that plastic cannot be patched to carry weight again.

Locking rings, loose legs and tempered glass on a used table:

open a folding table all the way and slide the locking ring down over each leg joint; a ring that will not drop means a bent leg. On a fold-in-half model, work the centre hinge and the latch. Turn it over and look for hairline cracks running out from the screw points, where a top gives first. A chalky, faded surface has spent years in the sun and will be brittle. On wooden and glass tables, grab the top and rock it: if the play comes from loose leg bolts, a spanner sorts it in a minute, but if a corner block inside the frame has split, it is a job for a carpenter. On glass, look in one corner for the small etched mark of tempered glass, and run a finger round the edge for chips, where a pane starts to crack.

A dozen rental tables, or the spare one from the terrace:

give the length, the height and how many people it seats, what the top is made of and, for a folding table, the brand and model on the label underneath. Photograph it open from above, then upside down so the legs and latches show. If the dining chairs are going separately, they belong under sofas and chairs. For a lot, list how many there are of each size and whether they match. A rental company in David retiring part of its stock and a family in Chitré passing on a spare table face the same doubt from whoever comes to collect: whether every one still locks flat. Open each table before you list it, and say in the listing that you did.