It’s bargain week with the latest installment of a few things that caught my eye this week in our MCM Facebook Group! Enjoy and tell me what you think in the comment section below! Links to the original post on Facebook have been included in the caption of each photo if you would like to add a comment there.
Seriously how can you not hate someone a little bit when they got this for free? Greg Jones got one hell of a bargain this week with this free, authentic Arne Jacobsen egg chair. A lot of things get posted to the group that were free and – to be frank – sometimes even if an item is free it’s still overpriced. But when you get a Fritz Hansen made egg chair for free I’m comfortable calling it deal of the week!
I love this post. Not just because Gina Campbell found a Steelframe Case chest designed by John Pile, Irving Harper, and Gerald Gulotta of George Nelson & Associates (1950). But because she bought it and invested a ton of effort – three days just to remove dried out, brittle contact paper from the drawer fronts – not knowing what it was. She bought it because she liked it and felt it was worth the effort. When she found out what it was she was quite pleased, and when I found out she only paid 15 dollars for it, well, I was quite jealous! 😉 Great find Gina!
Sometimes a post appears on the MCM group timeline and when you read the caption you think, “Oh, joker.” But then you read the comments and discover the post is serious and your thought changes from, “Oh, joker”, to “Are you kidding me?” This was the case when Julee Taylor posted these four upholstered Eames office chairs with the caption, “They were $35. Total.” These chairs, in a great 1960’s green, are quite a deal. You can’t even get one decent chair, especially a new one, for 35 dollars. And in an age when every seller has a smart phone bookmarked to 1stdibs you can still get a fantastic deal! These chairs are great bargain and they really look awesome on that black floor!
Karen Marquis posted this light fixture she found buried in the garage while at an estate sale. The comments on this post generated some healthy (and civilized) debate with the general consensus being she had found a rather beautiful ‘Dandelion’ light fixture by Emil Stejna for Nikoll. Proper collectors and pickers know it’s about digging in the dusty areas, poking around musty basements, and looking under the tables. Proper collectors get dirty. But in the dust and dirt something incredibly elegant can sometimes be found. It’s what drives us as collectors. Great find Karen!
Sad, broken down table, plant stand, and light abandoned on the sidewalk of New York City. Laurie Fried Farina posted this ‘Chairside Table’ designed by George Nelson (first produced by Herman Miller in 1946) and it’s a rather forlorn sight with paper stuck to the surface, a missing shade, and, not to mention, the large pile of garbage in the background. The post stirred up some debate about the possibility of the piece being infested with bedbugs or other crawlies but would I have grabbed this one off the street? In a heartbeat. And while it’s sad to know that there is a good chance this table ended up in a landfill somewhere (Laurie was only visiting and had no way of transporting it if she wanted it) it’s still reassuring to know that original, classic, Mid Century Modern design can be found on the curb.
Another great bargain this week was this Eames RAR chair. In the past few years the rocking chair version of these chairs have become quite popular. Older, original ones can sell for over 1000 dollars with the ‘rope edge’ version seller for twice that. So when you come across one of these for a few hundred dollars it a good deal. When you find one for 55 dollars, as Jenessa Stewart did, that’s a steal. Lovely find Jenessa and you can be added to the people I hate just a little this week! 😉
As said before these days every seller has a smart phone and knows the dealer price of everything. Top of their reference list is often the ‘imaginative’ prices found at first dibs. Austin Van Laar bucked the trend when he found this fabulous ‘Diamond’ chair designed by Harry Bertoia for Knoll. Complete with that great early Knoll fabric and label it’s the era of these chairs you really want. Because of their desirability the prices can run a bit high, especially if the fabric is reserviceable as it looks to be in this case. However, to find out he paid only 50 dollars, well, hard not to hate just a little! Seriously, great deal Austin.
Sometimes a seller’s ignorance can be a great bargain as demonstrated here with this beautiful terrazzo flooring in Craig Wheel’s home, a 1966 MCM house located in Dallas of which Craig is only the second owner. The estate agent had listed this as a ceramic floor and while I’m not sure if the original listing had, in fact, properly identified it terrazzo it would have upped the price, but if you’re in the business then you’ll know how much it would cost to put down one of these floors today. Yes, much more than ceramic tile. Wonderful save and polished it looks amazing. Nice one Craig!
And while not bargains per se, a couple of posts of note.
One can only imagine Shana Gorondy’s delight when she discovered the original blueprints of the 1956 home she’s buying hiding behind the air conditioning unit. Quite often these documents are lost and in the subsequent decades most of these MCM homes get altered beyond recognition. To have these blueprints is an incredible resource as they are the ideal guide to restoring a house to the intended original state. Beyond that they are simply beautiful things and one can tell that even rendered in simple line drawings that is one nice house! As a fan of all things Modernist architecture I’m quite envious!
A big congrats to Debra Zimmerman on buying this lovely Strauss Home built in the 1950’s. Being the home’s second owner I do hope the seller/original owner is still around as they must be very pleased to know that the ‘next generation’ to move in appreciates all that they saw in the house when they themselves first bought it 60 years ago. These are not superstar architectural homes. These are the everyday, raise the kids, barbeque with the neighbors homes. But they are elemental Mid Century Modern and too often given so little regard that new owners have no compunction of stripping them of their character with inconsiderate renovations. Glad to know this slice of MCM Americana will get the respect it deserves.
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