Wednesday, October 21, 2009

STICKLEY QUAINT CHAIRS

STICKLEY QUAINT CHAIRSQ: My neighbor died recently and after her children cleaned out her house, they told us we could have whatever was left. We found these two Stickley chairs covered up with an old tarp at the back of the barn. Are they valuable? The metal tag says "Quaint Furniture, Grand Rapids."

A: Five Stickley brothers made furniture, Gustav, Albert, Charles, John George, and Leopold. Gustav is the most famous and his furniture brings the highest prices. Albert and John George established Stickley Brothers Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1891. Their Quaint Line of furniture was introduced in 1902. Quaint Mission was made first. In 1904 Quaint Arts & Crafts was made and in 1914 Quaint Tudor and Quaint Manor were made. In the 1920s Quaint American and Quaint Colonial were made. John George left the firm in 1902 and Albert retired in 1927. The company was in business until about 1947. The furniture was marked with a paper label or a brass tag like yours. The seat covering on your chair looks like a replacement. The chairs, as is, are worth about $175 each.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you think that for Stickley shoppers, the comment that the Company closed in the 1940's may cause them to mistakenly assume that their Stickley furniture (produced from the 40's to now) is antique? This is already a problem since Stickley has reproduced the Company's original Mission & Arts & Crafts designs rather extensively for many years.

Anonymous said...

First of all, no items from the
40's forward are antiques. To be considered an antique, items must be at least 100 years old. That standard was set in the 1930's by the US Customs Ofc.