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whitespike
(@whitespike)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 3499
23/05/2006 12:18 am  

A friend of mine recently finished a house he was rennovating for someone. Along with the house came two Bertoia side chairs and one Diamond.

Although the original owners claim to have bought the chairs as a set a long time ago from Knoll there are some design issues that lead me to believe that these might be knock-offs. They powder coated them and are using them as patio furniture (they were used like this to begin with and were rusty) so I am not concerned for value sake, but I am curious.

All in all they look exactly right, down to the pad. The base looks no different than my Bertoias. The weird thing is that the side chairs have a double-wire rim. The Diamond has a single wire rim, making me think the sides were purchased separately and possibly from someone other than Knoll. I think someone on this forum has said that double-wire rims indidcate a knock-off (they possibly could have been reffering to contemporary versions), which I would agree, but these seem exactly to spec otherwise (with design and quality). Also, isn't the outside single wire usually thicker that the rest? The outside wire on the Diamond seems to be about as thin as the rest of the wire mesh. Maybe all of them are knock-offs? Perhaps there was a brief time that had a slightly different manufacturing process? This doesn't seem too hard to believe. I have seen some pretty obvious manufacturing details that were left out of the design history books. Has anyone here come across this?


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sharplinesoldtimes
(@sharplinesoldtimes)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 522
23/05/2006 1:02 am  

You're in luck, whitespike....
You're in luck, whitespike. The Bertoia side chairs with the double-wire rim is actually the org. design for these chairs. However Bertoia and Knoll had to change the design to a single-wire rim as Herman Miller already had a pat. on Eames' wire seat which had a double-wire rim too. I don't know how many of these Bertoia side chairs that were produced before the design was changed but during the last 6 years, I've only come across two. I've never seen or heard of a Bertoia Diamon chair with double-wire rim. Perhaps someone can provide more details reg. this matter?


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whitespike
(@whitespike)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 3499
23/05/2006 1:38 am  

interesting
so obviously the chairs are very early. good, glad to know my judgement is intact. the quality and design is obviously Knoll, i just wasn't aware of this issue. as for the diamonds, why wouldn't they be double-wired during the same manufacturing years of the double-wired side chairs? Could it be that because the side chair's rim is bent at sharper angles it needs more structural bracing, whereas the diamond's curves are very gradual? just a thought ... Also, has nyone seen the diamond chair with a rim just as thin as the rest of the wire?
thanks for the info. the gradual change in manufacturing processes is very interesting to me.


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