Left a post a few weeks ago but was not able to get images until today.
To recap, inhereted this chair a few years ago and its heritage intrigues me. It’s clearly distinctive, in a Bauhaus industrial kind of way, and it’s clearly been “built”, but where’s it from and what’s the story behind it? For the record, it’s all stainless steel and leather and weighs a lot. Quite a lot.
Any members of the Interesting Chair Fanciers Association out there?
Thanks
Michael
I would say it is from stardate 9522.6
Could it be a rebuilt barber’s chair?
Hey, pretty cool chair! (That’s an extremely obscure reference absolutely no one will get.)
I can’t help you but maybe if you tell us what you know about its history/provenance? Where you got it from, where it was before?
It was given to me years ago. It had been left behind in an apartment when the tennant had moved out under dubious circumstances, and the building supervisor suggested I might like it. It was either that or it was to be discarded. The leather parts were worn so a few years ago I had it re-upholstered. Don’t know anything of the previous owner.
While it looks barber chair-esque, it’s not so industrial. The stainless steel construction is thick gauge but there doesn’t appear to be any cast iron anywhere - I think even the pedestel is stainless, although covered in leather.
I could almost pass for a stage prop, but it i so thoroughly constructed it was clearly intended to last.
Cheers
M
Have you checked it for any manufacturer’s marks? If it’s a custom piece, it might have the artist/maker’s signiature on the underside of the seat.
I don’t know but I think it’s pretty cool. If you can get it here (Chicago), I’ll give you $100US for it. The offer expires at midnight.
If that’s stainless he’s probably got half that in scrap value, and it’s not scrap.
Boats.
I think I remember seeing something like that on a sport fishing boat!
No makers marks or brands anywhere that I can find, including inside the pedestal. Sports fishing chair? Well, possibly, from the 30s perhaps. Nothing particularly functional about it apart from its use of industrial materials.
And the $100US - well, let’s not turn this into eBay, but shipping alone would be…I hate to think.
There don’t appear to be websites devoted to chairs, and there are litterally so many individual styles of chair out there, well I can’t see how you’d classify them to make them searchable.
Thanks for your interest and contributions to date though.
Michael
I hope it is a lot more comfortable than it looks.
It should have an interesting history if you can identify it.
I notice that there are no compound curves on it, which leads me to think it is a one-off or home-built project, not a manufactured item. It certainly seems inspired by Star Trek. Is it possible to find out anything at all about the tenant who abandoned it?
Good observation Commasense - I’d thought about that but I figured the gauge of stainless is to big to have been done in a less than serious kind of way. Expensive too, those materials. I imagine it would have required large stainless steel bending machines to get it done. Which does not preclude it from being a one off - maybe a prototype that never went into production. The back is a little too low and too far back to offer support and mechanism that holds the back in place isn’t super effective in holding the back rest in position. I’m not a Star Trek fan but I might Google some pictures of the set to see how closely it follows. As far as the fellow that left it, well, the apartments there were small and old, and he had something to do with clothing - owned a shop or was in the rag trade in some capacity.
Thanks to everyone for their continuing contributions!
Michael
Is Antiques Roadshow coming to Melbourne anytime soon? You might e-mail an auction house (there’s one in Boston called Skinner) or a retailer that handles furniture from that era and see if they can put you on the right track. Looks vaguely like an Eames, but they did most of their work in wood.
Have you tried Apartment Therapy? They have a feature where people email design questions - more than once someone has submitted a photo of furniture to get an idea of era or manufacturer. Although I don’t know how long it takes them to publish questions, this should be right up their alley.
I see that you’re in Melbourne, so another option might be to take those photos into Space Furniture or Living Edge to see if someone might recognise the style.
Keep us updated!
Now that you mention it, the clunky adjusting mechanism and the impression of less-than-ideal ergonomics are two more reasons why it strikes me as an amateur project, not something that a person or company that routinely designs and builds furniture would make.
Here are some good shots of an accurate replica of the captain’s chair from ST:TOS. Although your chair is not an attempt at a direct copy, the spacious blocky seat on a large cylindrical base are similarities that seem unlikely to be merely coincidental. (But I could be wrong about that.)
BTW, are you sure the metal is stainless steel, not aluminum?
You guys are the best! when I started this thread I figured that someone would say, “it’s a XXX from 19XX” and that would be it. The fact that 100s of learned folk have looked at it and don’t know what it is has only heightened my resolve to get it sorted!
Firstly - it might be made of aluminium, but the it’s so heavy and solid I really think it’s stainless. The pictures of the Star Trek chair are uncanny! I did a Google image search but the one that came up were much more fluid and futuristic. The one that commasense has come back with is eerily reminiscent! Thanks for that!
Antiques Roadshow was through here a year or so back, but the damned thing’s so heavy I don’t know if I could get it to them if and when they come back. But running it past a local auction house is a great idea.
Apartment Therapy is also a brilliant idea - going there now.
Thank again all for your interest and suggestions. More as it comes to hand…
M
Oh, and Kayeby - just sent my question to Apartment Therapy.
Great tip, thanks!
M
Test it with a magnet to be certain. 