I got this chair about six months (?) ago at a local thrift store and did nothing to it except for making new cushions, which I'm very happy with. But the finish on the wood has always bothered me. I know a lot of them have a stained look to them and I'm not even sure what the wood is--the hoop and seat are plywood but the spindles and base...?? Maybe birch? There's not much grain pattern at all.Anyway, it looks to me like someone added stain to it after the chair was already finished. There are areas on the underside that have much less color than the rest of it, and some areas where you can see obviously that stain was applied later. Like around the Danish Control button (which is gold--is that odd or what? I've only ever seen red, maybe black---i should probably look at it more closely to see if it was painted but that seems just as weird). Anyway, the wood has no sheet whatsoever. I finally got around to testing the finish with #0000 steel wool and a little oil and nothing at all came off--no pigment from the stain, no pigment from the wood. There was a faint pale grayish tint to the oil that I rubbed off, which was odd. The parts that I oiled now look very glossy. Does anyone here have one of these now or had one in the past? Does this finish look typical or did someone mess with it? It looks like bare wood stained with Minwax stain but I would think that some pigment would come off if that was the case. The underside of the seat feels almost rough in places, as if it had never been finish sanded. Seems strange in a chair of this quality.(the seat also has five angled holes in it that don't seem to have anything to do with anything. I know the webbing is a replacment. The holes are the same diameter as the post for the snap that is on the underside of the seat. The seat cushion snaps to the frame.)
<img class="wpforo-default-image-attachment wpforoimg" src=" http://old.designaddict.com/sites/default/files/forum/photo 
I am reasonably confident that the wood is beech. I believe I can see the ray flecks at the right spacing.
The medallion has the cross of a Selig medallion, not the arched lettering of the Danish Furniture Control. I have never seen that Selig medallion before though. Perhaps it is a very rare transitional medallion from after they stopped just stamping "MADE IN DENMARK". Perhaps it wasn't popular because it is nearly impossible to read? Or perhaps it was from a short period at the end?
It sure looks like it got terribly refinished at some time. I have a couple of other Selig chairs (one is a Z chair, so definitely from Chr Jensen's Møbelsnedkeri, one is a rare Ib Kofod Larsen sharing many Z chair parts, so reasonable to assume the same) and they have a very, very thick finish on them. I would guess that the refinisher did not want to sand the medallion so it was avoided, leaving a halo around it where the stain didn't soak through. And both chairs I have were finished everywhere, i.e. finished on the bottom side. Maybe this chair came from another maker who didn't finish on the bottom and left it a bit rough; hard to know with Selig.
If it was an oil based stain refinish (perhaps something similar to linseed oil mixed with artist's oil paint), you wouldn't really pull pigment off the surface with a light steel wooling. Especially with a fairly light stain like that.
The holes are for these straps. They were from your same hoop chair.
http://mobile.designaddict.com/forum/General-discussion/Fagas-straps
I agree with Leif that it is likely beech, though the plywood seat might be birch, and that the chair has suffered from a poor attempt at tarting up the finish. It almost looks as if someone started to strip it, got frustrated, and then tried to even out the mess by applying an "all-in-one" wipe-on product containing stain and varnish. Possibly a satin polyurethane product. The grayish tint to the oil residue that you tried may have been caused by the steel wool.
Jdip, THANK YOU!! I have never seen those Fagas straps before and would never have guessed that there were such tabs. Big mystery solved!
Leif, I looked at the legs more closely last night and you're right, they are indeed beech. The wood on one of the rear ones was sawn so that the characteristic grain marks were easily identifiable. The rest of it was sawn so that they look longer not what I look for in beech---but now I know that it can look like that, too.
Woodywood and tktoo---thanks, i'm sure you're right about the seat being birch. I've used a lot of birch plywood in projects and it definitely has this feel and look. I think the added finish is poly, too, and the explanation about the gray coming from the steel wool makes sense.
I just took a better photo of the button. In good light it looks clean, like they didn't put any finish over it. The finish around it looks kind of gunky, though--except that may be original..??
I don't know if I'll strip the chair or not...just gonna leave it for now. The parts that show don't look too horrible. Thanks for all your help!
Aha! that's it! I got out a flashlight and magnifying glass and yes, there are a couple of specks of red. And now i realize what happened here---whoever did the tinted varnish/polyurethane got it on the button, which looked bad so he rubbed a little chemical stripper on the area which is what the halo around the button is. I had thought the halo was just where he brushed the finish around hte button (but it didn't quite make sense that it had faded margin).
Mysteries solved! Thank you all for your input!
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