ID help please - stool & lamp (Brit?)  

I would put...
it 10 years later. Not that I would be able to link it to one particular manufacturer or designer but it reminds me of the very early designs of (now Sir) Terence Conran. Low investment cost wire structures for small pieces of furniture...which would put it in the sixties. Good luck with your search.

Thx Koen. Funny you should...
Thx Koen. Funny you should mention Conran - its become a bit of a standing joke at home over the last few weeks that every time I go out I come back with an old Terence Conran piece! (table, 2 chairs, 2 lamps) His stuff is quite scarce normally - the cane he liked to use rarely stands the test of time. Unfortunately for such an important design figure (as opposed to designer) his own early designs don't yet have great commercial appeal. I have one of his garden planters though, apparently done when he was sharing a railway arch with Eduardo Paolozzi. Lovely thing (very similar to some Architectural Pottery pieces) but the cone is apparently made of some kind of cement/asbestos mix which probably makes it unsaleable!

Stool
Nice stool - I really like it. I'm sure i've seen that stool without the adjustable height attributed to Dutch company Tomado. Can't find anything exactly the same via Google but a similar one on this page:
http://www.vervlogenjaren.nl/engels/stoelen/seating-0.html

The name Tomado...
crossed my mind but I knoe they were always keep on avoiding open wire ends, so the would not havewelded three separate straight wires to link the lower part of the legs. (my dad used to be on and off subcontarctor for Tomado, so I have seen a lot of them) Your picture Ben would confirm that.
I can understand why early Conran's would not have much market value...history makes some kind of selection and being fronm that period is not enough. But one of these days paulanna we should have a thread on the difference between a "designer" and a "design figure".

Thanks Ben - you're a star!...
Thanks Ben - you're a star! Certainly they're similar enough that one would think they came out of the same stable. I'll email the dealer and see if the seats are the same dimensions (the one on mine has been repainted with some gloopy brown muck)which may e instructive. Koen's point about the resolution of the stretchers is interesting tho'. On the Conran point, yeah, he's probably the most famous Briton who's ever appended his name with the title of 'designer' yet I doubt one in a thousand people would recognise one of his designs....I suspect that one reason he's never really caught on is that his 50s furniture is almost too 'of its time' (Espresso Bongo!), a little self consciously populist and by today's standards un-intellectual - all qualities which have contributed to his success as a retailer.....

I thought of...
a real discussion with pro's and con's etc. not something limited to Sir Terence Conran...but this being said, why would you use a public opinion poll to decide who is and who is not a designer? Especially a poll that would probably eliminate most British designers with the exception of Dyson. There are of course many visions and hundreds of definitions but Terence Conran himself says that he is first and foremost a designer, he has done hundreds and hundreds of products, graphic design, textiles etc. so why not??
It raises at least the question, who is served by a narrow and excluding vision of design? and why would one promote that kind of exclusive vision?
One of the many visons on design was formulated by R. Loewy as: Most advanced, yet acceptable. Many of Conran's products (Crayonne etc.) fitted that formula...or as he said himself: "I have never tried to produce fashionable or ground-breaking design" would that lead to: "not being a designer?" and if so why?? I am sure you want to hold on to your opinion...which is fine with me.
Maybe we could start a thread about what makes contemporary design "more intellectual" when we live obviously through a period in which so little is said, written etc. about design by designers.

Hi Koen
I think there's possibly some misunderstanding, presumably because I used inverted commas around the word designer when talking about Conran - it was meant to signify a title (as in the days when one listed one's occupation on a passport)- rather than in the pejorative sceptical sense.....and certainly not to belittle Conran's unique achievement. My point was simply that, from the point of view of the dealer/collector, there is little cachet to the words "early Conran". ...

Hi Paulanna
You are probably right. I have very little insight in the minds of collectors, but it seems very likely that there is little interest in collecting early Conrans. Most of his early work was more driven by getting something produced and get it to the market, rather than by identifying a particular need and responding to it in an innovative way....than again people collect everything.