Types of 19th Century Chairs: Common Part One

Video Transcript

"So collecting 19th century chairs. I want to show you an arrangement on very common inexpensive chairs with varying degrees of condition problems on them and give you an idea. These are the kind of chairs that you'll find at tag sales or flea markets, auctions. These chairs are out there really inexpensive and a lot of places you can't even give them away. This is a really typical cottage pine a late 1800's, 1890's. This has a cane seat on it. It came with bedroom set that were made for common use. People would buy the bed, side chairs like this and be sets of 4-5 6 pieces so this is a pretty common chair. A lot of times they have stenciling and paint on them. This one doesn't have much on it but you'll find them out there in mustards and stencil and strawberries, stencils and leaves, and flower patterns. But a chair just like this individually is about $35-$45 chair. Something to think about is when your talking about buying a chair like this in cane, these cane seats are going to cost you $40-$50. So consider that the chair is not that much in this area. I'm talking about New England, and western part of Massachusetts. You'll find that you can pick up these chairs in that price range $40-50. In different areas they may be more expensive. A thing to consider when you buy a chair like this, if you pay $10 for it you have to remember for $20 your going to have to put a cane seat in it. It's going to cost you $50 and it's going to more than the chair's worth. If it's a piece that belonged to your family and you want to invest the money into it by putting the seat in it, then it would be a reasonable thing to do. But it is something to consider when you're buying these common chairs with all kinds of condition problems. That's just one example of the variety of chairs. You need to think about cost."