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Crappy Old Furniture / If Chairs Could Talk

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As you know, we have a lot of crappy old stuff here at the Farm.*

Years & years ago, before I began collecting crappy old books in earnest, I collected crappy old chairs. One of my greatest finds was at a yard sale in New Bern, North Carolina– a set of four caned chairs. The cane was broken on more than one, and they were going for the gawdawful price of $100– that’s $25/chair!– well more than I had ever paid for a crappy old chair, but I bought them. 

They have lived in the dining room in New Bern, in various corners of other towns in NC, in the sunroom in Cincy (is there such a thing as a “sun”room in Cincy?) and now they are in the corner of the living room, here on the Farm, busted cane & all.  

From time to time over the years, I’ve devoted 30 minutes or so and 1/4 can of Scott’s Liquid Gold at a single setting to caring for them. They seem none the worse for wear.  

What caught my attention at the time– more than 20 years ago– and what (in part) made them worth $100, was the stamp on the underside: 



Some dude in New Bern made these chairs. That’s cool. 

Suter, John, furniture, 63 Middle

I dare you to tell me that’s not cool. From the

Business Directory of the City of New Berne, N.C.: To Which is Added Historical and Statistical Matter of Interest (Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards and Broughton, 1893), 91 p.

One of New Bern’s earlier city directories, this volume includes detailed information about the city’s businesses and citizens. With the absence of the 1890 federal census, this book constitutes the largest printed listing of the residents of New Bern for that period.

And now, after all these years of faithful service– of late holding piles of “Cotton Farming” and assorted pillows– it might be time to re-cane these chairs so they can fulfill their proper function. 

If chairs could talk. 
~~

*What I really need to do is represent all of this crappy old stuff in two-dimensional space: one axis for crappy (vs not crappy), one for old (vs new).  Tada! Four quadrants– each with its own space. Every crappy old item belongs in some part of one of those four quadrants. For the politically minded– think about the space defined by social conservative/liberal issues on one axis plotted against economic free market/planned issues on the other.  (See this recent post about a book published in 1975 to understand the dilemma with respect to crappy semi-old books.)

2 Responses

  1. Let me know if you want some more crappy old chairs…and if you’re planning a trip to Ca anytime – not even in the near future!

    I have a few. Along with some old (antique??) furniture. I have a couple of bedroom sets that my kids aren’t interested in…both were part of my mother’s trousseau when she married, and were bought at Barker Brothers in Boston. The problem is that they don’t have the now standard rail – or measurements – for the foundation. They require a T foundation – the foundation actually rests on the arms of the T which rest on the bed side rails. The foundation then takes a standard mattress. In this day and age, that means that the foundation has to be custom made. The “children’s” set has twin beds, dresser, night stand, desk and chair (rush seat now absent). The adult set (which was always in the guest room) has two twin beds, two dressers – a “high boy” with about 8 drawers, a “low” boy with the standard 4 drawers, a night stand and a mirror. No chair. I need to replace some drawer pulls.

    There seems to be no market for antique bed sets.

    Then there’s the high back chair with a rush seat – still good – an office chair with a leather seat and back…unique because the seat is _very_ supported by springs – you almost feel bouncy in it! And I still have my mother’s bed set from when she was a girl – double bed – birdseye maple laminate – with a make-up table and caned chair. Also a dresser – tall and narrow – which we had refinished and which my son now has. I don’t think he wants the rest of the set. The head and foot boards are birdseye maple laminate – the side boards were solid – and lost by movers on one of our moves. They lost a total of six bed sides in that move…the sides to my Mom’s maple bed and the sides to the kid’s bunk beds. I should have been more diligent in getting them valued and replaced. We just ended up replacing them with metal side pieces. Good thing it wasn’t the other two sets! The guest bed set has sides that have to be bolted in from the ends. Good luck replacing _those_!

  2. I’m not planning on coming to California any time. But if I were– I’d be more than happy to take those off your hands.

    I do know what you’re saying about the differences. My old bed– seriously, my first bed which is really really old– is a “double.” Mom has it as one of the guest beds. The mattress is awful. And cannot be replaced with an off the shelf one. It’s so bad that at Christmas Kat & her husband opted to sleep on the floor rather than in the bed. Nice to look at, though.

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