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The Grasshopper Chair — Modernica's upholstery team has produced this iconic design for over two decades. It is made to order with a selection of 30 fabric choices and four wood finishes. The newest color in our Case Study® ceramics collection. Case Study® Stacking Powder Coat — A classic and highly practical icon.This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment. Short guide to spotting collectable and not so collectable mid-century items (self.Mid_Century)submitted by In a thread today I got into a discussion with some people about our differing furniture and design tastes and about what is collectable vs not so collectable. It got me thinking about how I choose what pieces to buy or pass up, so I started to write down a brief buyers guide to share my thoughts with you guys. The first thing I'd like to say is that not all mid-century designed furniture is created equal. This might be sacrilege around here, but, just like with anything collectable, some pieces made in the mid-century period were just plain ugly and other things were brilliantly designed.
As collectors and people with a design aesthetic I think we are in the constant process of training ourselves to tell the difference. I think the period gets it's highly touted design reputation from the best of that period though, and that is what I try to collect and post in this sub. The point is, there are better and worse designs, better and worse designers, better and worse materials, and better and worse construction methods. Because of this some pieces made during the mid-century modern period are collectable and rising in value while other pieces are not. If you are just starting to learn about mid-century modern design here is the thing to avoid buying: THIS PIECE OF S*** THESE PIECES OF S*** THIS JOKE OF S*** Remember, these are not strict rules; these are just guidelines to follow. In general, though, these things indicate low quality or poor design but were nonetheless popular during the mid-century period: Step-up side tables - Yes, they were very popular during the 50s and 60s in America and are immediately recognizable as being from the period but they are not good.
Almost any thrift store will have these but there aren't any good ones. As far as I am aware, no serious designer ever made a step-up side table. Brass capped spindle legs - For the most part, although there are notable exceptions, most furniture that you will find in America with brass feet on the end of spindle legs is low-end. It's not that the brass feet cause it to be low-end, it's just that this is not something that many respected designers did. Faux wood or faux marble laminate - Tables and credenzas with fake wood or marble plastic laminate tops are not good pieces. The laminate is a cheap material meant to cover up the fiberboard underneath, not to mention that it's just ugly. There is a place for laminate; Saarinen used it on many of his table tops, but it was just one solid color. Mixing styles - Notice that the handle in this photo is not a modernist handle. It looks like it is trying to be antique. This is a really ugly design. This also goes for sort-of-modernist furniture that has antique style beveled edges with more than one ridge, like molding.
Lane - Lane furniture is bad, just plain bad mid-century design. The quality isn't all bad, just the designs. They didn't have any legit designers working for them, ever. I wouldn't buy it at all. I also think Heywood Wakefield and American of Martinsville are bad too. Here are some things that you might think are signs of bad design, low-quality or just things you should avoid buying but which are not: Wood Veneer - Almost all high-end Danish furniture (besides chairs) is made with teak or rosewood veneer placed over cheaper wood like pine or plywood or wood composite material. I am not talking about a layer of plastic laminate, I am talking about a thinly sliced layer of real wood. Lots of good mid-century American furniture too has real walnut wood veneer. It is extremely rare for any Danish table, credenza, wall unit, bed etc. to be made from "solid wood." This is a very American concept that "solid wood" means quality. Naugahyde - Fake leather, naugahyde or "pleather" is not bad.
Real leather on a piece of mid-century furniture is almost a sure sign of it being high-end but naugahyde is not necessarily a sign of low quality. Plastics and Fiberglass - If you are collecting modernist furniture you shouldn't be afraid of buying plastics or fiberglass, they are not cheap materials. Eames, Saarinen, Panton, Starck and Begge all had their most iconic chairs made from plastic and fiberglass. Watch out though, there are lots of chairs made to look like these iconic designs. If you are unfamiliar with the originals just image search them and memorize their shape. Look up "Eames replica" and "Saarinen knockoff" to find out what not to buy. I'll do a post soon on telling originals from fakes. Unmarked items - most of the time you won't find tags on things. The tags were probably removed a long time ago by some kid picking at the underside of his family's dining table. This is a tough one but once you are familiar with the iconic designs or can identify the materials used in good furniture buying something with no markings won't mater much.
Signs of higher-end, collectable stuff I would probably buy are: Origin - If it is marked "Made in Denmark" I would probably buy it. This is because in America almost anything Danish is collectable these days. That goes for most modernist things made in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Italy and some stuff made in France. There is junk from all those places too, especially Danish teak stuff made in the 1980s but these are just general guidelines after all. There is a lot of good American furniture but I would never buy any modernist furniture just because it was marked "Made in USA." For American furniture it depends on the designer and the company that made it. I would not buy anything Danish "looking" that was marked "Made in Canada" or "Yugoslavia". This is because those two places (and then later on Thailand and Indonesia because of the abundance of teak wood) are basically considered to be where all of the knockoff Danish furniture was made. You might get a sturdy piece of furniture from there with a Danish looking design but it was not designed by a legit designer, is not collectable and will not retain its value over time.
It would be like owning a poster of a Babe Ruth baseball card rather than the card itself; sure they look similar but one is the real deal and one isn't. On this note I'll say that the American made stuff that is "Danish style" is generally not considered to be a "knockoff" per se, whereas the Danish looking stuff made in Canada and Yugoslavia are generally considered "knockoffs" and not just "in the style of." Maybe this is a useful distinction for later discussion. Materials - Leather on chairs, rosewood anything, solid teak legs on anything (chairs, tables, credenzas etc), brass lighting fixtures (especially American 1950s lighting and Italian 1970s lighting), marble topped tables or credenzas Brands - For American furniture there are some brands that are collectable and some that aren't. Mainly the American wood furniture like this and this that looks Danish isn't really collectable. It might look the part to most people but I don't think those pieces are going to be desirable antiques 50 years from now.