Search result for: the-last-thing-you-aquired-
| # | Post Title | Result Info | Date | User | Forum |
| The market in California an... | 1 Relevance | 12 years ago | keewee | General discussion | |
| The market in California an... The market in California and New York will remain strong for a while because there was more inventory in those places to begin with. But inventory in dwindling everywhere. The 40 year olds that bought it five years ago won't be getting rid of it for a while. People will refine and move up the ladder on the scale of condition and rarity, so we will see people getting rid of things they got at the beginning of their decorating/collecting and acquiring more expensive things. So if you think in terms of your repeat customers "refining" and what they will need, you will find sales there. Another positive thing for the market is the rebirth of downtowns/high density housing. People are moving into smaller urban spaces. MCM suits that style of residence better than any other. There are A LOT of those "new urban" units going up everywhere. That's a lot of potential customers. I kind of have this theory that people with money that bought the good MCM to begin with also had enough money to redecorate in the 80's and 90's so their stuff is gone. Baby boomers also redecorated more than their parents. So a lot of the stuff the 60 year olds collected has already been set free so to speak. The less wealthy folks and people who weren't 30 when Martha Stewart became a public name, were our grandparents or great grandparents. Most of them bought American mass modern and it stayed in their home until they died. People from that era are in their 80's now so their stuff might have been set free about five ten years ago when they died or moved into nursing homes. That is what is working against inventory. The customers are going to be there. But even with increased demand and dwindling inventory, prices can only go so high before people give up and go to C&B. You've got to find that price point for the newbies entering the field. It's a lot of hand holding which many pickers aren't used to. | |||||
| On *really* old Knoll Saarinen stools | 1 Relevance | 16 years ago | gene | General discussion | |
| This is nothing earth-shattering, and maybe folks already know this (or maybe I'm wrong), but I had a hard time trying to find this information out and basically pieced it together by looking at photos I found online of lots of vintage tulip stools. So I thought I'd share it with the forum. I have a matched pair of tulip stools. One had the old 50s Knoll sticker on the underside of the cushion and one had the HG Knoll Products upholstery tag (which I was surprised at because I thought that tag was no longer in use by the time the tulip series went into production, but apparently it was). These stools were obviously "kosher" but I was wondering why they didn't have the BR-51 and three protruding cylindrical shapes on the underside of the base (instead, mine have a some numbers and "ALCOA" and a bunch of very slightly raised circle shapes). The other thing is that the underside of the base is partially painted white (not all the way into the stem though) and it looks like original paint, and I was under the impression that Knoll never painted the undersides at all. So I did a lot of looking and I found that these features on my stools are consistent with other very early examples, and that the BR-51 and three prongs and the unpainted underside may have come a little later. So, I think it might be the case that if you find a stool (or chair, I guess) with the Alcoa and numbers instead of the BR-51 and three prongs, and it is partially painted underneath, you've found yourself a very early production example, and there don't seem to be that many out there because I had too look at a whole lot of these to come up with just a few examples that are exactly like the ones I found: http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/saarinen-stool-with-knoll-fabric-1 http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/saarinen-stool-with-knoll-fabric http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1950s-saarinen-stool-knoll-eames-era-modern-vintage | |||||
| I'm not experienced in | 1 Relevance | 11 years ago | Watsonette | General discussion | |
| I'm not experienced in restoring these types of furnishings. I've just done the 4 Moller chairs and really enjoyed learning how to do the weave. I went back and redid the first chair since I improved as I went further into the project. However, it's not something I'm aspiring to do as a business. Over here in the Netherlands the market is saturated with MCM buyers/dealers and I find it very difficult to get around them. In fact I'm finding it nearly impossible to sell anything over here for a decent price via non-dealer-centric websites. Regarding the chair debacle - I've spoken to the person and the chairs are out. I sent her links to several different Moller and Wegner chairs for sale in various states and price-points so that is a closed case. She still wants me to do the trolley that I posted pics of above in the thread (speaking about the bottom where these 2 trays are sitting). She wants to remove the trays and convert the rack that holds them to a woven shelf. .......................................................I admire her imagination................................................................. 🙂 As a glutton for punishment, I think it should be doable to glue a thick hardwood base along the inside of the 4 horizontal slats - thereby eliminating the need to nail into the delicate wood. Since you wouldn't see the bottom-side I don't think it would be an issue to do this... plus it's not a seat so won't have to sustain the weight of a human body. So - I'm looking at this as a one-off request by a friend-of-a-friend and I have suggested a rate for 2 days of work, plus cost for the materials and VAT on top. I've also told her that I've checked with a local professional and my forum and both have poo-pood the idea. I said that it might not work, that it might end in a disaster and that I can't guarantee anything but I can try. Even with my foreboding reply she still seems keen to move forward. It would be a fun challenge I think. (and maybe a horrible learning experience?) But then I seem to get myself into these situations and there's that glutton for punishment thing. Hey if I do it, either way, I'll let you all know how it goes! (So please wish me luck whilst wagging your fingers at me in disapproval!) | |||||
| Thanks for all of those obser... | 1 Relevance | 17 years ago | tchp | General discussion | |
| Thanks for all of those obser... Thanks for all of those observations. I think the thing that intrigues me the most about my chair at this point is the unknown circumstances of its creation, although I admit I would not mind knowing. Probably the biggest difference between my chair and a Lamino is how the armrests are attached to the chair legs (the legs are made of about 18+ layers of veneer). The red arrows show how the joints on my chair armrest components are sort of half-dovetail joints. For a veneer/plywood chair, this kind of joint might actually be seen as disconcerting, since it creates a sort of inherent "wedge" that could be seen as threatening to help split the laminated veneer apart (and Lamino's can suffer from delamination problems). So, I can see why Swedese might opt to not produce the chair with that kind of joint. On an actual Lamino (yellow arrows), the joints are a scalloped sort of inlay cut, and without the dovetail/wedge shaped joint. I have considered that the chair might be the result of an ambitious home woodworking project, or perhaps the product of a furniture making class that was stressing the use of laminate veneer construction. In any case, the person who made it was pretty skillful and paid a lot of attention to detail, and did not really leave any clues that would say it was done by an amateur or in a home workshop. In the end, it is hard for me to believe that someone would be able to remain so faithful to the form and profile of the Lamino by doing everything from scratch, especially making all the laminate components. It would just be so difficult to accomplish, and for what reason? It all just makes it seem more bizarre. I have no way of knowing if my chair is a prototype, but it does seem to fit neatly between Ekstrom's Kurva chair and the Lamino, since the main difference between a Kurva and the Lamino is how the armrests are applied to the chair. | |||||
| Why vs. How gets to the heart of it...Pt. 1 | 1 Relevance | 20 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Why vs. How gets to the heart of it...Pt. 1 and tracing it to Descarte helps me put it into a historical legacy that drives the point home with resonance. The duality precipitated by Descarte and other philosophers of his time and the ensuing divergence of thought and action that haunts epistemological underpinnings of most fields to this day, as a result, should quite logically apply to design, shouldn't it? It is quite logical to me now that you describe it. Design as a field came along relatively recently, but still it bears in its philosophical dna the same haunting of why vs. how? Speaking from my own educational experience in a very middle class American school system of 1960s and early 1970s, I can say that the why of things was practically never touched upon, except in some existential sense of why do things have to be this way? What can be done and how can it be done dominated all curricula that I experienced. Even my philosophy courses in early undergraduate school really did not examine or contemplate the why of anything? Imagine that! They focused instead on comparison of philosophical systems and on logic and on what exactly was the nature of consciousness and whether the human mind was or was not capable of certain transformations (could it be transmogrified into computer intelligence, what would it mean to have machine based or augmented intelligence, etc.). It did not ask the most basic question of truthful inquiry: why? why are we here? why is this thing where it is? why is it configured in the way that it is? why should we or it exist? why are we doing this? This omission of this question, or at least the teaching of persons to ask this question, really annihilates the sovereignty of the individual. If I never ask why I am buying something, why I exist, or why things are as they are and not another way, then I am not so much a person as a receptacle for whatever others would wish to put in me, or inform me with, or make me consume. Come to think of it this absense of asking why probably had an equally dehumanizing ancillary effect? Without asking why it hardly occurs to ask who? Who am I? And so the great question of art, who am I, is diluted and so the healing and transformative powers of the arts are diluted too. Why am I is pretext to who am I? Without "why does this product exist the way it does," it hardly occurs to ask who it exists for in any humane way? | |||||
| I think 300,000 | 1 Relevance | 13 years ago | Spanky | General discussion | |
| I think 300,000 is way, way overkill for home upholstery. It's probably overkill even for most offices and public spaces. Tonus is the one I was talking about, I think---it has a wear rating of 50,000 which is considered heavy duty in the industry. Tonica is 45,000, I think. It's thinner and has smaller diameter yarns than Tonus. It's really nice fabric but Tonus has a little bit extra give for curvy pieces. I have seen 50-year-old Swan chairs with the original Tonus on them and it was worn but not to the point of having holes in it. I wouldn't hesitate to put it on a chair for home use, especially a valuable chair. The Milestone has less give, not because it's durable but because it's a polyester with a kind of a tight weave. Wool is a much more malleable fiber. The fiber just by itself has a lot more give to it than strands of polyester. High end men's suits are all wool. Cheap men's suits are polyester! Not that Milestone is cheap quality, it's just made for certain applications that require extreme durablity and probably lower costs. It's fine for that kind of thing. It's also hard to get a nice curved seam with a thin polyester fabric. Wool is much more forgiving; stitches tend to disappear in it. photo of the actual Wyzenbeek machine here: http://kravet.typepad.com/inspiredtalk/2009/12/selecting-fabric-for-upho... And at the link below (and at other sites I've seen), they mention that 3,000 double rubs is equal to one year's use, which I guess makes sense if one double rub is like a person sitting down and getting up again. If that's really the case, then a fabric with a 300,000 wear rating will last a hundred years! So, yeah. Overkill. http://www.furnituremagazine.com/id/080210.cfm | |||||
| Thanks for the picture | 1 Relevance | 12 years ago | Peter Dalsgaard | General discussion | |
| Thanks for the picture Hoopsie The lettertype (font?) and the fact that it's all written in small letters could suggest that it's France & Søn/France & Daverkosen. Of course it's only an indication, as several manufacturers could use this font type. The obvious thing missng in the picture is of course the emblem/logo. As far as I can tell from the picture, it has never been there. As far as I recall (I could be wrong) Fr./Daverkosen Fr./Søn always had a logo as part of their imprint/emblem. But I have found out that CADO, (who took over France & Søn 1966), as opposed to earlier marking, used paper stickers for some of their furniture. I got this information from a danish book "Den store danske møbelguide". I don't recall actually ever seeing these paper stickers. CADO used the same type of font for their "made in denmark" imprints as in the France days. If a paper sticker was used for the CADO logo, it might simply have fallen of. Of course, none of this is any definite proof of origin. EDIT Almost forgot. The gold letters. Was also often used in the imprints on the France/CADO furniture. (first pic. below) | |||||
| Hats off to you, Olive. What... | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | finch | General discussion | |
| Hats off to you, Olive. What... Hats off to you, Olive. What a refreshingly sincere and rich train of thought. I wish more people would allow time for such introspection -- you may be surprised how shameless folks are about keeping the noise to signal ratio intentionally high in their lives. And I know whereof you speak. The depressing thing to me is that it seems like few American's really care enough about pride-in-craftmanship, or even quality-control these days. They want NEWNESS. Fresh junk, that, once it ceases to be new, becomes old junk. Once upon a time, you could depend on QC, esp. from stateside goods. It was America's undisputed strong suit. Now, that level of attention is reserved mostly for boutique goods. Years ago, I started stocking up on old Levi's when I started to notice their quality flagging. This is even before they shipped 100% of their manufacturing overseas. I had stockpiles -- which I never really wanted to have to house. Once upon a time, you could run down to Sears Roebuck when your 501s blew out, and replace with a trusted standard as needed. I cared about the quality, and caring complicates your life -- in this instance, with girth. As for economizing on space and possessions -- I've moved around more in the last five yeras than in the ten before that and there's something about seeing your possessions in numerous boxes every other year, and hoisting said boxes...it certainly puts you in touch with yourself (see George Carlin's Stuff skit). My attitude has evolved thusly; if I am paying for square footage to house something more than myself and the basic vestiges of survival, then every last article beyond that must be something worth housing...must be worth preventing me from being the nomad that I wish I could be. No nostalgia, no sentimental bits, and minimal ornamentation. I sense that a lot of folks are getting on board with this idea these days. | |||||
| It's totally Rosie from the Jetsons | 1 Relevance | 18 years ago | Big Television Man | General discussion | |
| It's totally Rosie from the Jetsons I'm still waiting for the Jet Pack they promised us though. It's tough to tell if the link you provided is the same unit as they constantly seem to redesign the look and upgrade the capabilities. My unit is three years old and was the full featured top unit in the line back then. I think we paid about $380.00 or thereabouts. All of those items that they show on that link as options, 2 virtual wall units, scheduler, automatic charging station, etc were all included with ours. I hear that the latest generation units make the units of even a few years ago look like the Flintstone vacuum, which as I'm sure you are aware was a baby Mastodon on wheels. The one thing I did not mention in the earlier post is that, like a conventional vacuum with a powered (beater bars) head they do not do well with carpet fringe or strings on area rugs. We simply lift the small fringe rug in one of the bathrooms up, give it a gentle shake in place and the Roomba comes in and vacuums up the shake out, while the rug rests on the toilet lid. The unit will also alert you with and audible sound if it should get hung up or stuck somewhere and need rescuing. This has only happened to us twice. Battery life for us was about 18 months and then needed replacement for approximately $65.00. From a pure dollars and sense point of view, it is a great play. $380 buy in, 78 weeks of vacuuming on original battery or 468 hours of vacuuming at .81 cents an hour. As Joe Strummer said, "I don't want to sound like some kind of F***ing evangelist", but it is great not to have followed a housekeeper's vacuuming efforts with 468 hours of my time. As if I really would have vacuumed 468 hours in the last 18 months Ha! 🙂 Go out for drinks and you can be vacuuming your house at the same time, ditto the movies. | |||||
| Finish for wenge table top? | 1 Relevance | 16 years ago | NULL NULL | General discussion | |
| So I'm finally getting a the wenge coffee table top that I've wanted forever for my brushed steel base (very much like the Florence Knoll coffee table). It'll be bare wood and I've been researching how to finish it and getting conflicting info right and left. Some say oil finish is best, others say lacquer, and still others say shellac and then oil (?!). One guy says that all these options will fail and that the oil in the wood must be stripped out with a fast-drying solvent, then quickly do a coat of shellac, then another coat of shellac, then a couple of coats of a certain type of varnish. He says this is the only thing that will adhere well to the naturally-oily wood. The guys at the wood shop recommended polyurethane. And then there's the question of whether to fill the grain, and if so, with clear or tinted filler...? Gah! I want something that will protect the wood but I don't want a high gloss finish and I don't want a plasticky look. I'm getting a plain sawn cut (bookmatched! woohoo)--dunno if this means a more open grain than quarter sawn. I like the look of plain sawn wenge. I'm inclined to go with oil at this point and just be really vigilant with coaster use. But the guy who recommended shellac and varnish said that oil finishes will never really dry on wenge because the wood is so oily itself. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but then I'm just an amateur at this stuff. Any ideas? Opinions? Hard facts? This is the table with the first top I had made, which is jatoba. It's nice but it's gotten more burgundy in color since this was taken and it just doesn't look very good with my other stuff. I didn't have the money for wenge at the time and settled for this instead. | |||||
| To answer the | 1 Relevance | 19 years ago | SDR | General discussion | |
| To answer the orignal queastion, veneers do not have to be heated or steamed to bend them, but thicker plies can use some help. The last thing I made that was curved was the edge to a living-room cabinet. It needed a Wenge nosing, 3/4" thick by 1 1/4" high with a big 1/2" radius top and bottom, wrapped around a 6" radius at the corner of the cabinet. I made this "hockey stick" loose, then glued it to the cabinet. To bend this very dense and firm wood, I sawed twelve veneers about 1/16" thick from a piece of Wenge, keeping them in order. I got a pretty good surface with the saw, so I chose not to plane or sand the strips. I made a flat form of 1" MDF copied from the shape of the cabinet, and peppered it with holes large enough to receive the heads of my clamps. I tried a dry clamp-up, using straight hardwood cauls and fewer clamps along the straight senctions, and as many clamps as I could squeeze side-by-side in the curved section (a little more that a 90-degree bend). I decided try polyurethane glue for this bent lamination; I knew it would be messy but I would have sufficient time to work and I thought it would hold well. If there was some spring-back after the glue was set I could deal with it in on this piece. The strips of wenge were stiff enough to fight the clamps but the trial showed I could get a tight piece, so I proceeded. I ruined a pair of old pants, but it was worth it (I had to use some "body English" to get the pieces around the curve). The result was completely satisfactory, and there was virtually NO spring-back ! Say what they will about this adhesive; I have been using it more and more, with good results. SDR U S A | |||||
| Read all the way down because I have a question (2/2) | 1 Relevance | 15 years ago | CanCan | General discussion | |
| Read all the way down because I have a question (2/2) 2/2 7. A combination of its iconic status, the pretty shape, comfort and easy to clean surface make it an ideal kitchen chair for me. My whole interior is a wide variety of both modern and classic furniture, industrial stuff and many many different colors. My DSX chairs belong here! 8. Can't name one thing specifically. It's the mix (see 7.) 9. Really well. For the fitting in part it all comes down to aesthetics if you ask me. Strangely, the DSX goes great with anything. Even my cats look good in it. 10. Sure, as a collector I feel very happy about owning such iconic pieces. Even though they were mass produced, they are special to me. I've put in some effort to lay my hand on two early produced chairs. Just for the fun of it. This however concerns my question... 11. The simplicity of a very basic shape makes it easy to blend in with any style or era. This is convenient for the manufacturer. The way I see it, it's not the people who decide what is trend and what not. It's manufacturers. And what is more beautiful than a very popular, cheap to make item? Nothing! The low production cost (Vitra manufactures it in plastic, super cheap and easy) make it interesting for Vitra to keep this baby on the market forever, and make its status even more iconic than it is. They are helped by almost every architect in the history of time, using pictures or scaled models of this chair to sell their designs. So, to answer the question: it's all marketing... 12. See all above. Here comes my super important question: all fiberglass shells produced by Herman Miller have a logo at the bottom (changed over the years), accompanied by other markings. Does anyone knows what these markings mean, and what logo was used during what era? Some of the markings I have seen are a big 'C' with a star in the middle, a 'V', an 'M', a 'B', a 'B' with a smaller 'A'... I'm guessing it has to do with production information, but I can't find anything on the internet that can translate it. Help! | |||||
| Help Eames Heads!! | 1 Relevance | 9 years ago | Redandyellowcametobe | Identification | |
| Hi guys and gals! Wanted to give you an honest thank you for all the awesomeness that goes on in these parts!! I'm sorry in advance as I'm sure "eames Id" threads have been created numorus times. :/ I recently picked up a pair of shell arm chairs in which I need a little help IDng and a rough estimate in value. I do know values can fluctuate with location, time, trends etc but don't need anything in stone. I originally bought them without much info/pics with the assumption they are the generation following the "rope edge" days. There is no Herman Miller logo as well as no Zenith sticker. Along with no residue from a old sticker. The odd thing is, is one of the chairs (the x-base) is a tad thicker than is Eiffel base counterpart. The fiberglass seems to be pretty much the same in both chairs. There is also more shine, sheen to the x-base chair along with a thicker edge. I do not see any rope edge tho, but is def thicker. I'm sure these can be easily identified/rough value to the talented peeps around here as I've only been interested in mid century design this past year. I've fallen in love and have been bitten by the bug! So any help would be amazing! Thanks again everyone!!! Have a nice weekend!! | |||||
| Stephen... | 1 Relevance | 17 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Stephen... The concrete, the basic, the fundamental, these are always the richest mine for thoughtful discourse in discourse. Why? Because each thing designed in civilization of a very basic nature--a faucet handle, a toilet, a knife, a cup, a hearth, a chair, a window--each of these items is an epic similie of a human tool evolved over centuries, or even thousands of years. Why do you think anthropologists and archeologists spend so much time on the artifacts of civilizations? It is not because they love the artifacts. It is rather, because the artifact, if rationally unpacked and understood, bears within it the sum total of human evolution up to the point of its creation, as well as the tastes and preferences of the people of that moment reconciled by a maker of things. Really and truly, an iPod is a pitifully young and insignificant artifact in comparison to a table knife in terms of the knowledge that in holds within itself about humanity. Your mention of a toaster is vastly younger than a knife, also, but it is in such universal use for three quarters of a century now that it has much to tell already. Look at a single, drop forged crescent wrench. It is an awesome device unsurpassed in its elegance of function and form. We are dreamers and tool makers with opposed thumbs, vocal chords, and a capacity to assign sounds to objects and processes. Outside of these traits almost all animals and plants are superior. What we do is make things and wish we could make things we don't yet know how to make. We make relationships. We make gods. We make leaders and followers. We make friends and we make enemies. We make wars. We make chairs and toasters and Guernicas. Nothing that we make cannot be unpacked to learn enormous amounts about ourselves. Thank you for your initial post. | |||||
| Koen Pt. 2 | 1 Relevance | 21 years ago | dcwilson | General discussion | |
| Koen Pt. 2 This does not mean that a 2CV was a bad car, or that it was not much beloved. It was a beloved car that was very good car for what it was created for. What it does mean is that no amount of tweaking could ever have made 2CVs competitive with contemporary cars. VW had to drop a bug's exoskeleton on a Golf to make the retro thing work not only cost effectively, but functionally as well. And though most people poo-poo the New Beetle as fake retro, I quite like it as a contemporary car with pleasing, if humble lines and a challenged trunk. And as an aside, I'll correct myself and add that the French ARE selling cars here these days (and have been for about five or so years now). They're called Nissans. The reason Nissan's look vaguely French these days, while driving positively Japanese, is that Renault bought Nissan and insisted on contemporary styling. So: Nissan is another case in point of how cultural hybridization works in design and products. The current Nissans, especially the delightfully weird proportions of the Nissan Quest minivan, evidences imho a combination of refined French and Japanese sensibilities working in strange concert (with a Spanish designer if I recall correctly) trying to figure out what an uncouth Americain consumer might like that they could lower themselves to make. I mean part of what I find so charming about current Nissans is that they exude the combined eccentricity and arrogance of Japanese and French culture towards American culture defracted through the rationality of cost/benefit and market research. "Oh, that lucky old sun, its got nothin' ta do/'cept roll around heaven all day." Would that it were the same for all of us and I would no doubt get to dwell on even more of Koen's thoughts and insights which, whether I agree (which I mostly do) or disagree, I find stimulating and enriching. | |||||
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