Madsen and Schubell  

@lexi They are the same. 🙂 But I didn't know they were also produced and advertised in Denmark under the Madsen and Schubell brand.  

@herringbone. Well it was certainly worth your while to unearth those vintage adverts. 😊 

BTW,Thank you for posting them.

Hi 

Thank you for all the information about Madsen and Schubell.  I have two chairs and a footstool with Madsen and Schubell label on. The label is both on the fabric, and underneath the chair on the metal. I have not been able to find any pictures of the chair. I think it is called a lounge armchair with adjustable tilt with five wooden legs, and off white fabric.
I have only been able to find a picture of one like mine in a “before and after” picture, because someone posted it after putting new fabric in it. 
Maybe one of you know, if it’s been recycled, put together from direct chairs or maybe even an original. 

I have more fotos with the brand and one of the other chair with new fabric, the one I found a picture of on the Internet 

The chairs is so comfortable to sit in.

Best regards from Tina from Denmark

More pictures

And form underneath 

And the wooden foot and handel to adjust the tilt

The picture of the one I found just like mine on the Internet .

@tina-2, @varde Dear Tina, sorry for not replying sooner, I just didn't see that there were aditional posts to moderate and answer. I deleted the double posts. You should be able now to post as Tina-2. 

From what I see, your chair is a Madsen & Schubell production from the late 60s or later. It's from the second or even third phase of the company history, which is less well documented (Some say also less interesting). I haven't seen it before and know nothing about it. I can only give your background you maybe have read on the pages before.  

The second phase of the company began when Arnold Madsen and Henry Schubell split around 1965. The name remained the same but the product line shifted from chairs with a wooden construction towards chairs like yours with a svivel and tilting mechanism. For some years Arnold and his son Ib Madsen ran the company together, the Schubell family remained involved as suppliers. When Arnold retired in the mid 70s, Ib Madsen led the company on his own until it went bankrupt. The third phase began when Ib Madsen revived it in the late 80s and kept producing chairs on his own until his own retirement.

The maker's mark on your chair clearly is a later one from the time when Ib was in the company. The mechanism is the one Arnold invented and got a patent for. I wish I could narrow it down further for you but unfortunately I can't. I can only try to find out the time period in which the maker's mark was used.

Well, here it is:MS3, very much in the flesh.

@Kemnitzdk I've seen it on IG but could you repost the picture? Just edit your post and compress the picture so its smaller than 2MB. Thank you! Also for sharing it!

Hello everyone! I am coming back to this thread for some advice as I am currently restoring my MS5 chairs! They were in quite bad condition with broken frames around joints and so on. It took some work and patience to fix it. I am now at the sanding stage - picture attached - and am uncertain which finish to apply. I personally do not like the lacquer/shiny finish they used to have on them and tend to prefer more matte finishes. I was initially going for a tung oil finish with a small coat of bees was after, but I am now having some doubts, as it seems that the wood on the chair is birch and beech, and the result would be too light. I thought it could be useful to ask the M&S experts on this forum who already helped me ID these chairs. So if anyone has any suggestion on the type of finish for this chair, please feel free to share your thoughts 🙂

cheers everyone!

Photo attached here 

@babar Interesting problem, but unfortunately I can't contribute much to solving it. This would probably be more of a question for a woodworking forum. My feeling is that there are reasons why chairs made of beech wood were varnished in the past, unlike chairs made of oak, for example. If you don't want to do that and oil seems too light to you, you'll have to work with stain, which was also very common for beech wood back then. But for the exact colours, really consult experts. Or we can ask @tktoo and @cdsilva if they can contribute anything useful.

@babar

@herringbone

Birch and beech were often used as locally-sourced, less expensive alternatives to imported species to help keep retail prices more affordable. While acceptably sturdy, neither displays particularly attractive color or grain which explains the need for adding colorants as part of the finishing process. And, due to grain characteristics, both tend to not accept stains or oil finishes evenly. I suspect a lot of the vintage beech pieces we see were sprayed with toned lacquers rather than stained and then varnished, thereby eliminating a step of production.

I would probably color the bare wood with aniline dyes instead of pigment stains, seal with a coat of shellac, and finish with 2 or 3 coats of lacquer or traditional varnish such as Epifanes. Once fully cured, any of the harder film-forming finishes can be "rubbed out" to a satin sheen with fine (#0000) steel wool.

Thank you both, @herringbone and @tktoo for your responses. I will do some more research on what result I am looking for and how to get there, but this is very useful insights and suggestion you have shared @tktoo 

cheers