Here's a little reverse ID thread for a couple of Danish lounge chairs that I spotted locally online yesterday, and bought this morning. While these chairs are a fairly obscure design by a well known designer, there is a little twist to this quiz that I'll explain later.
Anyway the quiz is who is a) the designer, and b) the manufacturer?
Clues are available on the interwebs if you know where to look. This was (is) a fun one to do research on.
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I've only ever seen these in documentation--which conveniently answers your questions--but it is nice to see a real pair in photos.
I have no idea what the twist is yet.
According to my documentation I might have expected the arms to be teak, and these aren't. It is kind of rare to see documentation saying a piece is beech, oak, and teak. Usually there was no tertiary wood; certainly not one that got mentioned in an ad.
I figured leif would be one of the first to figure out part 1, which I assume he is currently withholding so that others can play.
The twist is that my pair have stickers of a well known manufacturer who is not the one listed in the archives or original ad. And I can find no online relationship between my listed chair manufacturer and either the documented designer or manufacturer. And if you think someone might have put stickers of this different manufacturer after the fact to increase value, I found an online photo which shows the same chair with same sticker.
Also nice call on the beech, as the original ad only lists oak.
It could be attributed in online documentation, but I have yet to find it. The only connection to the second manufacturer that I can find are the sticker labels on both my chairs and the other one online. Then again, my vintage catalog collection is very slim.
Once the second manufacturer has been IDed, I'll fill in a few more blanks, and maybe someone will have a vintage catalog for them.
I don't know the full details of this, but I do know that Danish designers--sometimes--owned their designs, like Hans Wegner, and as part of that the designer could control who made the furniture. I can't think of any examples where this happened aside when a manufacturer went under, but Hans Wegner threatened Getama with this at one point.
Perhaps this happened with your chairs. I am curious what the other company is, but I will wait for you to post it.
My danish isn't so great, but from what I gather the factory moved in 1960 into a larger facility. Then the ownership changed in 1962. And the new owner liked playing with fire a lot. The factory had a very large number of fires until it burned down completely in 1965. At which point the company ceased to exist. And the new owner was convicted of insurance fraud and arson.
At least I ink that is the gist of it.
It seems to me that the company was not very stable. It is strictly speculation, but I could imagine that the designer might have moved the designer to a new manufacturer anywhere through that, and certainly would have had to find a new manufacturer after 1965.
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