Very interesting stuff gentlemen. Leif, great find on that morgantown piece. It's possible that is indeed who made those cabinets being that my house is in North Carolina. If my internet search of Morgantown furniture found the same company that made that 1st dibs cabinet, then they were based out of NC. I don't think they had the internet in 1956 yet, and there was one modern furniture store near here back then he could have potentially ordered from. A few things that jumped out at me were that my cabinets had no stamp on the inside of the drawer, though I know that could vary depending on year of production. There are no staples in the drawer on the 1st dibs example. And the top back ridge/lip on the 1st dibs cabinet looks similar to the one on my cabinet that still has it. So maybe that is it.
I suspect the staples were added by the former owner. It is already a very strange thing to suppose that the factory did it, and to add that they did not do every drawer seems far too unlikely.
The drawers sides on that Morganton piece are also sycamore, which is a nice correlation.
The handles are close to the same, although I believe yours has more screws. Could any of the screws have been added by this same former owner?
The thing that makes me MOST question morganton is that the drawer slides are done in the scandinavian style on yours, and the American style on the morganton piece.
That makes sense that the staples were added by the owner. On the one cabinet that doesn't have the staples, the drawer is coming apart.
As for the drawer pulls, I don't think the original owner added any screws. They look pretty uniform to me. I could be wrong, but I think they're original. Good catch on the screw difference. I had to look close to see that the morgantown stuff only used two. I suppose they could have changed their design and manufacturing process over the years for the screws and drawer slides. Is that a common thing in furniture manufacturing?
Thanks powbum! The living room is great, but not what put it over the top for me. It's on a big lot with a lot of nice landscaping, brick patios and walkways, privacy fences, a nice detached carport with workshop/garage which the original owner used as an office for his architecture firm. The bathrooms are small and not my style. They're the pastel 50's look with bluish floor tiles, blue toilet, sink, and tub. The other one is more yellow looking. I'd like to redo those. We have a ton of storage though too. There is an entire kitchen wall of closet space from floor to ceiling, and same in the hallway. I'm seriously thinking about taking down the bookcases in the living room, which I believe came from Ikea, and replacing it with a CSS or Omni system, or something like it. We got lucky in scooping this up for a good deal in the middle of the very hot market we have going on here right now.
FWIW, those labels look like a custom kitchen cabinet maker to me, and not a furniture company. Custom cabinet makers were and still are numerous - mostly making kitchen cabinets in finish/legs/pulls/etc you choose. Your pieces could have been the original kitchen cabinets - moving them to the basement when the kitchen is updated happens all the time. The differences between yours and the Morganton piece are too many to draw any conclusions from, I think.
Thanks gropius! I'm pretty certain they aren't original kitchen cabinets tough. I have seen a few pictures of the pre renovated kitchen and they were large cabinets with two sliding doors on them in most places. Though I can see where you're coming from as far as a custom cabinet maker. Either way, they're all pretty beat and need refinishing. I didn't know if they were obviously something nice like Paul McCobb or Knoll or something that I was missing.
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