Please help Identify

My aunt passed away in July and left me a few wooden furniture pieces, along with a set of China which I cannot ide ntify to save my life. I have recently been displaced and am trying to learn about how old these things are and what their values may be if any at all. Can anyone help me?

 

my guess would be 1970 ish

 

I also think pretty recent. These look like pieces cobbled together from older wood.

 

The bench with the heart cut out is definitely 70s,the stool with the hole in the top could be a little older. The very plain bench looks like it might be a homemade job,but I really like the lines and proportions on it. Perfect coffee table for a tiny apartment.

 

The stool thingie was made so you could stick your fingers in the hole and move it about. I'd guess high school shop class as the origin; they used to make small furniture items in those high school classes. The piece with the hearts cut out is a homebrew, odds are. I'd have guessed "country primitive" from the 80s. Brad's the furniture expert here, so odds are he knows more.

 

The one with the hole could be a milking stool.

 

I remember one with the hand hole from my childhood. Used for us little kids to stand on at the bathroom sink. But I think Mom probably also used it to reach the upper shelves in the kitchen cabinets.

 

Hi Komo,
Milking stools are three legged so they sit firmly. If you have a four legged one and it does not sit firm it will rock and mess up your milking. I only had trouble with one cow and she HATED me. When I had to milk her she would try and kick the pail or the stool and me. She blackened my shins and toes so many times. Only once did she kick the pail and spill the milk. She was NOT punished but I was. I made sure that never happened again.
greg

 

I stand corrected..........yet again !!

 

Hi Greg.....
I guess your right....but in some cases I guess the stool may only have one leg....or this cowboy is steadying himself on something I'd rather not guess at !!

 

When I was young, nearly every home had a stool like that. They were called crackets and miners used to take them down the mines with them. They must have been a real utilitarian little piece of furniture.

 

Nitro glycerine makers watch their retorts sitting on one legged stools. If they fall asleep they fall over, which is better than the vat overheating and the plant blowing up.

 

Greg!
The milking stools in Brazil just had 1 leg and you strapped the stool to your butt and moved from cow to cow.

 

Yup, here's one back when in Scotland:
http://lateralscience.blogspot.com/2014/10/scottish-nitroglycerin-one-legged-stools.html

Here are some:
https://www.google.com/search?q=1+l...VrxVQKHVrADNgQsAQIOQ&biw=1024&bih=581#imgrc=_

 

That is an interesting article. On a much smaller scale I produced various nitro-explosives in my garden shed when I was a teenager. Essentially the process was exactly the same, with temperature regulation from a bucket of cold water.

I feel the children of today miss so much fun in an overprotective society. Handling the stuff gives rise to headaches, due to the vaso-dilation effect that makes tiny amounts a useful heart medicine.

 

Hi AF,
I know what you mean. I used to make all kinds of useful stuff. Had lots of carbide pills from my great uncles mining hats. Had a wonderful uranium chemistry set. I still have a large piece of uranium ore from my rock collecting days. We used to do all kinds of things. Mothers today would have heart attacks thinking that their little ones might hurt himself. i can usually say one of the worst was standing on top of a natural gas pipeline that crossed a valley. It was perhaps 700 feet to the bottom. We used to play Robin Hood and had large sticks trying to knock each other off the pipe. Geesh we had to find things to do.
greg

 

Just saw this thread... The one with the heart cut out interests me because my grandfather made window shutters and a doll cradle with hearts cut into them, kind of like that. He made them in the 1960s, and my mother still has them in her house.