My husband bought an antique mahogany coffee table?

it is highly polished but he set a coffe cup on it with out a coaster... how do i get this water marked stain out now?

*note: furniture polish did NOt do the trick!

OK...is this a white or light colored water stain? If so...here is what you do.

Get a soft cloth ( not terry cloth ) and some regular rubbing alcohol. Bunch up the cloth so you can use it to buff the spot. Take the alcohol and pour a small amount in the palm of your hand....dab the cloth to this...make sure it's not too wet. You want just a little bit of moisture on cloth. Now....buff over the spot very lightly back and forth. Kind of like you are polishing some shoes. The alcohol will loosen or soften the finish enough to let the moisture escape that is trapped under the old finish. Buff back and forth until it's gone....after that you can use some furniture polish to make it shine. Be careful not to use too much alcohol or buff it too hard....that could remove all the finish in that area.

Fool proof product called Howards Restore a Finish. There are several colors, so you should use one that closely matches your finish. At about $8.00/ qt. a little goes a long way, too. It comes with explicit instructions that I won't bore you with, but it is easy. I had used it for years with much success on new and antique furniture. But when my house burned down and left me with one set of bedroom furniture that we had only purchased the year before, we needed to try to rescue it. This was the true test. The heat and water damage was terrible. The finish was almost frosty white. A lace topper had virtually melted the pattern of the lace into the finish of the two night stands. I used Howards and never expected to see much change. After cleaning and a stay in a room with an ionizer to remove any smoke odor, you would never know it had been in a fire. If it can do that much of a miracle...think what it can do for your water mark.

Lay a dry tea towel over the white mark. Iron on the towel with an iron set on medium. Go over area a few times, lift towel. Repeat until mark is gone. I've done this to remove water stains from spilled vases and white steam stains on cupboard doors. It really does work.