Genuine or not? NV45 by Niels Vodder  

The Niels Vodder 45 chair requires a lot of study. As a high volume production it was outsourced to multiple different workshops over the 20+ years Niels Vodder was making it. PP Møbler was one of the makers.  Niels Vodder just financed the production and stamped the chair, or did not depending on who the retailer was. In the very early years Niels Vodder made it but this was a miniscule amount of the production. Niels Vodder may have actually made it again towards the very ends, but I am not sure. 

Niels Vodder had multiple branding irons and they were used interchangeably except for one that tends to have been used on the earlier pieces, which tend to be the ones that are least frequently marked. 

The shape of the back rail with the seat frame touching at only certain points is an indication of which contractor was making it. 

First things first. The upholstery job is hideous. 

Second, there is an odd thing going on with the stamp. The double strike is not uncommon, but there appears to be the remnants of a third earlier strike, which you can barely see. This isn't necessarily a red flag, just odd. It could be that the branding iron was not hot enough on the first strike, and it make an imprint but no burn marks. So the iron was reheated and the next effort resulted in a slight double strike on the right side. 

As Zephyr said, there are a few different framing designs for the hidden rear rail; mostly likely differences between different framing sub-contractors. I don't see any glaring red flags for the legitimacy of this chair, but wouldn't make a definitive statement without being able to see it in person (or at least more and better photos)

Thank you both for your valuable input. Good spot with the third brand, I missed that!

I imagine it's quite a hard to say for sure but is there a good resource regarding the sub frame construction and who made it?

Up to this point I have been looking at past auctions, catalogues and other resources like the Danish Design Museum furniture index for studying - are you able to recommend any other good resources for me scrutinise please?

There is no resource for detailed info like that. The above statements were derived from years of 1) examining chairs online and in person, combined with 2) assembling bits and pieces of information from a wide variety of sources, vintage and recent.

In this specific case, there is a Danish language biography of Ejnar Pedersen, one of the co-founders of PP Mobler. In that biography, he clearly states that PP Mobler was a sub-contractor for Niels Vodder for the 45 chair. Other vintage documentation has identified other sub-contractors that Vodder used (at least one in Falster). 

Combine that info with observations that there are at least three different framing details for the rear rail of the 45 chair, and the theory arises that sub-contractors had a little bit of leeway to detail hidden framing details. There could also be technical reasons for changing that rear rail to improve durability or construction tolerance.

Having thought about this for a while the number one thing I would say is try to learn to assess a 45 or any piece really without paying attention to the mark. Looking at the mark is a huge crutch and a very dangerous one because it can be faked very easily and cheaply. ($100 for a branding iron).  Everything else is much harder to fake. And for Niels Vodder especially,  and the Danes in general, although this is a hugely complicated topic, the mark was not put on to prove authenticity (no matter how much one wants to believe it proves the piece is authentic, it does not, sorry). Niels Vodder would have thought that idea was absurd. It was an additional piece of marketing for Niels Vodder to get buyers to come to him directly and other people who sold his pieces did not like that. 

Thanks Zephyr and Cdsilva,

I took the stance some time ago not to pay (much) attention to the stamp, after reading other posts regarding forged brand - it might have even been from your social media. This topic wasn't ment to be about the brand, I am trying to seek advice regarding things to look for which might not be so obvious from self study of resource I have access to.

Any wisdom anyone is willing to pass on I would be most greatful.

Anyway, thanks again.

You really have to look at everything: the shapes, the geometry, the wood, the joints. Use vintage advertisements and catalogs as reference for absolutely known good examples.  And it is not easy to do.  This does not mean that it is not possible, just that the 45 is one of the harder chairs. And like cdsilva said, I also don’t see any glaring issues with this particular chair.  The photographs are notably not revealing, even to the point where wood grain is not visible and so I would be especially cautious in making definitive statements about that chair on the auctioneer’s photos. 

Thanks Zephyr, another question;

Was the 45 ever (mass) produced with buttons? I see that a guild booth chair had buttons - image 1 and this image from bottom. I don't see buttons anywhere else, but it does look nice.

Those were very early chairs that had buttons, so no the 45 was not produced in any significant volume with buttons.  It is really hard to find many photographic references for Finn Juhl’s furniture until probably 1952 to 1953. There are some, but back then Niels Vodder was basically a small bespoke cabinetmaker.  

One thing that is to be said about the buttons is that historically and in Denmark in 1945 they had a function. Finn Juhl may or may not have designed them in explicitly. But functionally in a fiber filled cushion (perhaps horsehair) the buttons kept the fiber isolated, not clumped into a ball. So on some level the button question was up to a contractor. 

There has historically been the idea the 4 button chieftains are early because the Guild Exhbition chair was a 4 buttons chair, and while I can’t prove why 4 buttons chieftains reappeared later in the 1950s and in through the 1960s simultaneously with 3 button chairs, I can state factually that the chieftain was originally drawn without buttons. So the 4 buttons originally were likely the upholsterers decision based on necessity of keeping the fiber fill in place. And I am guessing that the later 3 and 4 button chieftains had to do with some difference related to the upholstery or upholsterer.

Then by the mid 1960s Niels Vodder switched to foam padding and buttons were no longer a technical necessity but they had become an expected part of the design so, as best I can figure, so they were retained and this remains true today. By contrast the 45’s seat cushion did not retain those buttons for long and therefore we do not expect to see a tufted seat cushion on it. There were however multiple ways that the seat cushion was stitched over the years. 

Tufted 45 in Arizona!

My guess is that almost all early 45's still in existence have been re-upholsterered to buttonless, perhaps because the owner/upholsterer didn't realize that tufting was a marker of early 45 production.

If you ever come across one, try to grab it and don't reupholster.

... and here is an image from 1947, which gives a higher res view of what the original cushion looked like.

As Zephyr already noted, even these early chairs with tufted seat cushions have different seams.

Excellent knowledge! Thank you.

While we are at it, why not a third tufted seat cushion design. This one a little boxier. FJ seemed to tinker around with the 45 upholstering a lot in the early days until he just did away with all buttons at some point.