Antique church bench/pew help!

Hoping someone could help me on this history of these and maybe what they are worth. Thank you!

 

Thank you

 

You are welcome.

 

They appear to be 19th C Gothic in style, but the condition looks poor at least in some places, and with the decline of the churches, more are being pulled down or 're-purposed' so quite a few benches come on the architectural salvage market.

Check a few architectural salvage websites/sellers for typical prices near where you are, but do not expect to sell for anything like the prices they ask, these things are expensive to ship anywhere and the specialists are where the buyers go first.

Sometimes they are simply a source of old timber for some other job.

 

There were about 15 pews in front of my local St. Vincent de pauls thrift recently with a big sign saying " free if you take them now ! " . They were lovely things , but huge and Im sure weighed a ton . Someone took them though because the last time I was there they only had 2 left .

 

they'd make nice lawn ornaments.
I coat of sealant , & you could sit out in the yard sippin mint juleps !

 

Give them a light sanding and coat them with 4-5 of coats of clear urethane if you are going to keep it outside (lightly sanding with at least 100 to 200 grit paper between coats) - Looks like some kind of pine so soft wood which will rot outside if not sealed.

Glued together pieces then cut out on a band saw, each line you see is a glue joint, maybe somebodey's wood working project to get rid of scrap pieces.

 

Church benches were usually made from Maple or Oak and the pieces are cut from a solid, single piece of wood. And are heavy as heck!

 

I'm in the home remodeling business and the homeowners that I'm doing a job for gave these to me for free...they were just going to throw them away. Most likely won't keep them just thought I might be able to resell.

 

As said above, 19th century gothic in style but hard to say how old exactly. These are pine and probably made by a carpenter for a country church. The gothic style persisted in churches long after it fell out of fashion elsewhere and country churches probably hung on to it even longer.

These would sell as primitives today and their relatively short length is a plus (about 4 ft. ?) Long pews are hard to sell and, those that do buy them, tend to cut them down for resale. These would sell readily in my semi-rural Midwest location in the $100-200.00 range at retail. I suspect at auction they would go in the $50.00 range around here. Hard saying what kind of demand there is in other locations. I wouldn't do anything to them other than clean them and put a coat of paste wax on them.

 

Never though of having them for sale - I have a bad habit of keeping everything I find!!