Take a look at these pictures.  I have a client that wants a bookcase built to match his desk but I’m scratching my head at the species type.  The smooth straight grain looks like walnut or mahogany but it’s really light for walnut and not red enough for mahogany.  What do you folks think?  How do I match it. One picture is the end and the other is a writing pullout in the afternoon sun.

looks like Bubinga, to me.

Not all Mahogany is reddish in color.  This came from Google images.

 

 

 

Could it be Sapele?

I'm thinking the way Dan is indicating. 

 This piece of furniture was probably built in the fifties in the USA and back then they never heard of Bubinga or Sapele and why would they want to spend extra money above the cost of mahogany which was lots of it for sale in this country.

It's mahogany without a doubt. 

 

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it's a thin veneer too.  you can tell from the repeating grain patterns.

 

personally, i'd suggest to him to let you design and select the wood, since he has no idea what he currently has.  never going to match, but you can at least stay in the same color family with stains.

 

not a fan of slip matched veneer, it's like you weren't even trying to make it look pretty (and the factory wasn't, and it shows).  get it built, get is shipped, get it sold!!!

In the late fifties and sixties when I did all the refinishing on this type of furniture all had thick layers of veneer on the top of all the wood. Easy to sand out the surface scratches after I stripped the lacquer off and running a flat sander to keep the surface more or less the same tone was no problem back then. This thin crap they think they have to use now sure is not a refinishers friend.

 Never used a scraper to remove the softened finish for those would cause way more work than was wanted. Just keep applying the thin remover and everything would flow to the floor then dry the wood with soaked steel wool with lacquer thinner and when that dried you was ready to start preparing for the new finish.

  Also if anyone ever mentioned scraper when refinishing furniture forget all of what that person said for he never refinished anything in his life or at least not professionally.

Smallpatch has been there and done that.

I think it would be Mahogany also. It would be tough to find that much straight grain walnut. As to color walnut lightens with age. Mahogany darkens with age but if exposed to direct sunlight the color will fade.