1880s Apholstered Rocking Chair
 

Hello everyone today at work I spotted out on the floor a nice 1880s vintage aphosltered rocking chair for sale on the floor and so when I got off work it was still there on the floor so I went and bought it and brought it home with me. It is made of quarter-sawn oak and is in near mint condition except for a small chip in the leg, which I think happened from years of rocking back and forth on the floor.
Pictures posted below.
Thanks for viewing and commenting.

-Levi

IMHO, the style may resemble a piece from the 1880s, but it was likely made much later than that, perhaps 100 years later.
Nice looking rocker, anyway.

jr

Hmm, actually I believe it is an authentic 1880s Rocker because of how the upholstery is done, I took a look at the underneath and it had the old coil-springs without any batting material (if the rocker would of truly been made in the 1980s it would of had batting material between the coil springs and under the upholstery) which this chair does not have which is why I believe this to be an authentic 1880s rocking chair.
The upholstery work on this chair is very similar to my 1880s Eastlake Platform Rocker that I had also picked up from Goodwill.
I'll try and get a better picture of the undercarriage of this rocking chair so you can see what I'm talking about.

I would have guessed that also. It looks a lot like the stuff that was sold in the 1960's through early 1980's.

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It looks very 1960s to me. Maybe it was refinished?

nah, the upholstery doesn't look right plus like I said the way the upholstery was done reminds me more of how stuff was done in the 1880s.

Posted below are close-up shots of the upholstery work on this and you'll see that this is clearly 1880s upholstery work and not 1960s upholstery work. The Cushioning on this chair is nothing but 5 carbon-steel coil-springs that are attached to an X-shaped grid underneath the chair, nothing else, no batting, no foam padding, nothing, if it would of been made in the 1960s or 1980s it would of had foam padding or batting material underneath, but it doesn't have that. plus the pattern used on the upholstery itself is not a pattern that they used during the 1960s or the 1980s, they usually used more "rustic" patterns, and I know because I've seen my fair share of 1960s-1980s furniture in church youth rooms over the years.

Wow, that's a broad base of knowledge. (That was sarcasm, of course.)

And where did you get your extensive knowledge of 1880's furniture? I think you ought to ask on a furniture forum, as your experience in minimal at best.

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Pretty amazing condition for 140 year old upholstery.

Its called Antiques Roadshow and the Internet, its not that hard to acquire a knowledge of vintage and antique furniture from watching shows like Antiques Roadshow or looking things up on the internet!

Man, talk about being closed minded!
Besides in the 1950s-1970s they were doing what was called Midcentury Modern Furniture styles and the style of this Rocking chair would NOT of been one of the styles done during that time period because during that time period they weren't interested in building Victorian style furniture because they felt it was too "stiff" and outdated style wise, and they wanted something more Modern and comfortable. Victorian style furniture had its hayday in the 1800s and early 1900s, after that you had styles like Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Midcentury Modern, but no Victorian era styles, if you don't believe me, look it up!

1880s would be 130 year old Upholstery, you're off by a decade.
Also its not that unheard of for upholstered furniture from the 19th century to survive in really good well preserved condition, I see it all the time at a lot of the local antique malls, unless you want to claim that the antique malls are selling "1980s reproductions" of Eastlake Furniture for $500-$800! Which if you do, I'm gonna call you're bluff on that.

Nothing about this Rocking Chair's style is Midcentury Modern its purely Victorian in style, which would put the chair in the 1880s or 1890s, They weren't interested in producing (or reproucing for that matter) Victorian furniture during the Midcentury Modern Furniture Era!

I take it most of you on here wouldn't know a good piece of Victorian Furniture if it bit you in the leg.

Me thinks you take yourself far too seriously. Take a 3 day vacation and enjoy the sunshine :)

Reproduction antique furniture of various times' styles had various periods of resurgence. In the 60's 'Early American' (which was sort of a mixture of colonial, victorian and country styles), and 'French Provincial' (a knock off of even then antique french furniture) were both VERY popular...The 60's was FAR from a mono-culture of MCM in the furniture stores. Around that time (50's-80's) the living old folks had grown up about the vintage that that chair is styled in...It is quite possible there was a niche nostalgia furniture market for repros of that era back then.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...0this%20up.PNG

lul 3 day ban.
He was kind of butthurt.

I have pictures of other furniture that IS actual antique furniture that I can show you to prove to you that I am not lying about this rocking chair being an actual 1880s rocking chair.

The following pictures are of an 1880s Eastlake Platform Rocker, an 1870s Upholstered Parlor Chair with ceramic castors on the front legs for easy moving, and a set of 4 1880s Eastlake Upholstered dining chairs, and then there's a picture of the coil-spring arrangement under the Eastlake Platform Rocker to show you how similar the coil-spring arrangement is to the coil-spring arrangement on the Rocking Chair that was posted in this thread originally.