Can you help to identify these Mid Century plywood chairs?  

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http://www.designaddict.com/design_addict/forums/index.cfm/fuseaction/th...

Robin Day?
resembles a Robin Day, Royal Festival Hall Armchair, 1951

Chairs
Yes, Robin Day model 700 chair. If you are selling them I would be very interested in buying.

Chairs
If you are selling, please contact me on oysterpots at hotmail dot com
Thanks

Wow - thanks!!
Thanks for the all the info on the chairs. They do look like Robin Day chairs.
Does that mean they were ONLY made for the Royal Festival Hall or were they put into production and available to the public.
The chairs belong to a friend of mine and he might well be interested in selling them.
I'm trying to find out what similar chairs have sold for in the past.
Thanks again.
Baz

No, not made for festival of britain
Hi Baz,
No the chairs were not made for the Festival of Britain. Your friend's chairs are model 700, which was the successor to the 658 chair. The 658 chair was the commercial production of the chair that was used at the Festival, the 658 wasn't in production for long. The 700 was deemed more practical and sturdy.

Robin Day 700's
Hey Artie,
Thanks for the update. One thing I'm still confused about is how many of the 700's were made and were any made specifically for the US market.
I can't find any other examples over here and surprisingly few in the UK either.
I have a feeling that they must have been produced in fairly small numbers. Your thoughts?
Thx
Baz

Not sure
Not sure how long the 700 was in production, think maybe around 5 years, they are definitely much less rare than a 658. I believe the chairs were imported into the US by a company called John Stuart.

John Stuart
I have a Robin Day 658 lounge chair that was made for export and sold through John Stuart in the U.S. The chair has Hille and John Stuart badges underneath. Apparently a small run of the 658 lounge chairs were put into production after the Festival of Britain but due to the fragile nature of the design, the design altered to give the chair more stability and the result is the 700 series.
I think the 700 series was introduced around 1954/55 and it was produced into the early 1960's. You can check this out in Leslie Jackson's book "Robin and Lucienne Day" which includes pictures of Hille catalogues.
There appears to be little known about the Robin Day chairs for John Stuart, so it would be good if someone out there in the DA community could shed a little light on the subject. In the case of my 658 lounge chair, it is a custom piece without back upholstery. In the case of the 700 chairs above, cowhide has been added to what is usually a plain plywood back. Perhaps customers had the option of ordering in basic models through John Stuart and having them customized to their taste.