Ever "found" valuable vintage furniture?

Richard, you could charge admission to that place! :open_mouth:
Quite the nice collection.

A couple of years back I found this great chair at the Salvation Army for a buck-fifty. I swore up and down it was one of those diamond in the rough scenarios… after much research I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a knock off of a Peter Hvidt dining chair.

Oh well. I still have a nice chair that I bought for less than box of pop tarts!

…on another note, I still can’t decide whether I HATE or LOVE the upholstery…

-JK
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I bought a set of white Herman Miller Eames fiberglass shell chairs for $5 each back in '97 in Providence. I think that was just before mid-century got soooo popular…

They had 3 more chairs for the same price and I still regret not buying all 5. I just didn’t have the room at the time, plus I could only fit 2 in my Jeep…

An old girlfriend of mine found a Victorian-style velvet red chaise lounge in mint condition, just sitting on the sidewalk in Savannah, GA. It moved into my apartment with her for a while. She moved to Kansas, and that’s when I lost track of it.

I wonder what ever happened to that old red chaise.

We saw a the noguchi coffee table at an antique store in stillwater mn for 500 once, I figured they didn’t know what it was because the label said “biomorphic coffee table” and I imagined even 500 was too cheap for it if it was indeed real. Later I checked ebay only to see hundreds of knock offs for about that price.

sometimes I think even as a knock off it is a very nice table

I bought a 74 Fender Telecaster in fairly mint condition, with the original case and documents, at a tag sale 3-4 years ago for $150. It is awesome and after having it set up for another $150 it plays like brand new. It’s worth about $2400 or so!

the big cabinet stereo or the pedastal stereo? both i found at a salvation army shop of other second hand kinda store.

i think both cabinets were actually designed here in canada as ive seen them in several design in canada book. the big unit i still had (the other i sold) and the cabinet i believe was produced by delicraft for electrohome. the model is called Circa 701. I was actually in touch with electrohome as while back as they were looking for a unit for there museum but decided not to sell it off. i still use it almost daily and the sound is excellent. warm, full and much better than most off the shelf modern units. im in a hunt now though for a new stylus for the record player as the original got damaged in the shipping back from denmark to toronto recently.

its a beautiful piece and you cant see in the pics but also has a roll top type of cover like some of the george nelson herman miller desks of the 60’s.

R

thanks. that thing is beatiful.

some more pics for your viewing pleasure.

R



Oh thats great… im drooling right now… i know the chances of such an awesome find are rare, but im keeping my eyes open for that one.

I have some nice Herman Miller Eames chairs shell type, and I had a DAR also. If everybody wants to cringe, when my grandmother moved to a nursing home my cousins had a yard sale for most of her furniture and other thing that she did not need any longer. Like, real Arco lamp-$45!!!( AHHHHHHHH!!!), Nelson clocks (two ,don’t know how much they went for but it is safe to say it was well below market). And a LOT of original Knoll and other random Danish modern/mid-cent. furniture. My grandfather was a salesman at a furniture store in Chicago whilst in grad school and then was in college administration. I did get a nice walnut coffee table that is unlabeled but really well made.

This is a bit of a bump, but hey, I’ll make my very own thread just for this if people don’t like old threads coming back like zombies. :smiley:

Found two maybe-eames chairs in a utility room at one job. I’m having trouble figuring out of they’re real, or knockoffs since I haven’t been able to find good info on what to look for yet, but:
*Legs form an H shape under the seat, bolted to four rubber pads.
*Are the “seafoam green” type with visible fibres
*Legs are silver, no finish
*White plastic feet
*Rectangular label with patents but no Herman Miller logo anything like the images I’ve seen with embossing or metal labels, etc.

Found out more. This is one of the more common bases, but apparently an earlier/more sought-after shell. People take these things and sell just the shell or tack on the more rare legs and jack up the price!

I was back there today to finish something off, and took a seat in one of them. For a nonadjustable formed fibreglass chair these are pretty comfy! I wouldn’t want to be in them for hours on end, but much more supporting than I expected. I just might try and get one of these off them.


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I like a good bump. Keeps these old threads active!

Nice score. Looks like it might be real just judging by that underside. If the shell is in good shape that is a nice find. My brother found a great example of a fiberglass shell one in Orange just in a janitors closet at his school a few years back. Like any good student, he stole it, but unfortunately at some point someone drilled a hole through the seat of the shell (probably to drain water for outdoor use) totally ruining the value of it.

when I first moved to Southwest Michigan I started hearing the stories, one co-worker who had worked in the furniture industry years prior seemingly couldn’t leave the house without someone giving him a piece of design history, but had no luck no matter where I looked. Finally one day last year I was taking my son to the park and saw an Eames shell in a driveway out of the corner of my eye, so I whipped the van around and checked out this garage sale and found there were 3 chairs and took them all home for $28.

Here’s a pic I took while cleaning them up in the drive way

Actually, the way I found it was on horrid condition. Someone painted on top of the fiberglass shell with a thick, off-white, industrial paint. Using a large brush with very noticeable strokes. So with the help of Kate’s (my girlfriend’s) dad, the outer coat of paint was sanded down and coated with a classic orange. The rust from the eiffel legs was also blasted off. I then ordered feet/coasters from a reseller of Herman Miller parts from the UK to complete the chair.

A magic eraser has taken dirt, splatters, and paint splatter off of it as well as most of the permanent marker, but it looks like some of the dye has soaked into fibres below the surface. I’m not sure what will remove/break down the dye that wouldn’t also harm the color of the shell or the material itself.
Funny how much dirt and dust can be on something that you don’t even notice, though, and I already went over it with a soapy cloth.

Found the manufacturing logo, this one has the overlapping triangles from Summit Plastics.

When I lived on the West side of Michigan during my internship and after school I purchased many Herman Miller and Knoll products. There are a ton of antique stops along US 31 and they have vintage pieces. As most of you know the West side of the state is home to Herman MIller, Steelcase, and Knoll so that kind of stuff is pretty norm if you come across it in antique shops.

knoll is in PA, john.

I love that my brother posts in here sometimes, back to the topic…

I like a good bump. Keeps these old threads active!

Eleven months seems long enough… .

I blundered into two Knoll Eero Saarinen “Tulip” Ashtrays at a yard sale earlier in the year. I got them both for $25 and sold them on eBay to a gentleman in Manilla for $1,000 … I feel so, dirty.

When was the last time you encountered an ash tray in a conference room?
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