I was surprised to see that the tables come pre-distressed. The top of one table had a big bump that we had to hammer so it didn't look damaged. There were also several black areas where the gold paint looks to be chipped off or not applied. At first we thought our set was just defective from the factory, but when we zoomed in all the way on the product photo we could see it was similar. Overall the tables do look good and I'm happy with them, but it wasn't exactly what I was expecting.