Eastern White Pine price per board foot
Plan on about $3.40 a board foot for 4/4 stock at U.S. retail (our 2026-08 estimate — your yard gets the final word). A typical board, 6″ wide and 8′ long, will run you around $13.60.
The tallest white pines in colonial New England were marked with the King's Broad Arrow — three hatchet slashes claiming them for Royal Navy masts — and colonists hated it enough to riot over trees three years before the Boston Tea Party. The same species then built two centuries of American country furniture and wide-plank floors, slowly ambering into the 'pumpkin pine' that antique dealers hunt. This is, more than any other, the wood American history was written on.
Soft, stable, forgiving — the beginner's friend and the historic wood of American country furniture. Dents easily; pitch gums blades.
Eastern White Pine at a glance
| Price per board foot | $3.40 (2026-08) |
| Weight, dry | 25 lb/ft³ · 2.1 lb per BF |
| Janka hardness | 380 lbf |
| Shrinkage, green → oven-dry | 6.1% tangential · 2.1% radial |
| Cost of 10 BF | $34.00 |
| Cost of 25 BF | $85.00 |
What common thicknesses cost
Same 6″ × 8′ board, priced by rough thickness (thicker stock often carries a small premium on top of this — figured on volume alone):
| Thickness | Board feet | Cost | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4/4 | 4.0 | $13.60 | 8 lb |
| 6/4 | 6.0 | $20.40 | 13 lb |
| 8/4 | 8.0 | $27.20 | 17 lb |
| 12/4 | 12.0 | $40.80 | 25 lb |
Will it stay flat?
White pine's great gift is wide boards that survive the seasons. A twenty-inch pine panel from 1780 is often still flat today, where hardwood that wide would have torn itself apart. Low, slow, even movement — the humble reason all those farmhouse tables lived so long.
The measured numbers: drying from green, eastern white pine shrinks about 6.1% across a flatsawn board's width (tangential) and 2.1% across quartersawn (radial) — that ratio is why the two cuts behave so differently in your house.
Buying eastern white pine without regrets
The 'select pine' at the home center is this wood at its most scrubbed and expensive; a local sawmill sells wider, knottier, honester boards for far less. For furniture with stories in it, the knots are the stories.
At the finishing bench
It dents if you look at it hard — country furniture makers call that patina-in-advance, and some distress it on purpose. It blotches under stain (washcoat first), but the real move is shellac or oil and patience: the amber glow arrives on its own schedule and can't be faked.
Sources & further reading
Plan a eastern white pine project
Prices vary with region, grade, width, and figure. Cheaper neighbor: Basswood ($3.25). A step up: Douglas Fir ($3.60).