Featured Have a (Hunzinger) seat, the furniture doctor will see you shortly

Just picked this up at an auction on Memorial Day. Again, it was an auction for an old St. Louis family that obviously loved the good stuff. This is walnut with needlepoint fabric; the fabric is not original.

Unusual for a Victorian piece, this one has been stamped with a maker's mark: "Hunzinger/N.Y./PatMarch 30/1869," so that tells us the who, where, and when. Nice to have that! I don't know about the northeastern U.S., but this is the first and only Hunzinger chair I've seen in my part of the Midwest. George Hunzinger was a prolific NYC chair designer and builder, known these days for his radical Victorian-era designs. This one is solid, and though it appears to be a folding chair, it is not. Not terribly comfortable, either, but I didn't expect it to be.

Similar ones on E-Bray are priced at $600-$800, so I'd insure this for $1200. Sound realistic?

 

Very nice.

 

NEAT!!!! You've been a VERY BUSY BOY!!!!! Another Pristine piece!! Maybe you'd like to add a James Garfield Needlepoint folding Funeral Chair to your collection!!!! (Just kidding, but I still need to find it a home!!!)

 

BTW, HUNZINGER......SOUNDS an awful LOT like "HUMMDINGER"

 

Aqui I thought the same thing. Great minds think alike.

 

I looked up the thread on the James Garfield chair. Did you ever establish the how's and why's of the reason it was made? Was it a "souvenir?" It's kind of neat looking, with an interesting story.

 

Yeah, has a piece or 2 like that, not comfy at all but, pretty to look at.
Yes, it is always a plus getting an original label, it doesn't happen very often.

 

I’m going to try to post a sale of this chair this year. Well I didn’t take it sideways! Sorry. Nice score and awesome folding chair. Note the oval is going longways but I did see the same one you have also but this one has schematic of folding. I’m would think loosening one of the side knobs is how it may be done. Maybe another can read the plans

 

Very cool @Msalicia !!

 

That one looks all original, so your insurance valuation is probably dead on. Not sure I'd want to sit on it either, but it looks really cool.

 

Another great piece. I believe I’d like to take a tour of your house.

 

@Ghopper1924, not really.....I DID find out that it had NOTHING to do with BLOCK ISLAND, RI as I had thought there was a connection with a huge hotel owner there offering Pres. Garfield to come to the seaside to Rehab there(which if I'm remembering correctly) might have been based on an old letter DH & I had found in an old house or a very old B.I. newspaper article....which of course was never to happen! MUCH LATER AFTER I HAD POSTED THAT THREAD, I was digging through Mom's old "little black books" where she kept some 'haphazard' written records of her "buyings and sellings", that she'd picked up the chair somewhere in New Jersey.....I'd have to go digging again to find the when's and not sure she wrote the 'who from' or 'how much'.....the black bow that had been on the corner of it is still 'with' the chair, but fell of....deterioration....but have kept it in some acid free tissue paper..........I did offer it to the Garfield Museum, but they said they had to get some sort of permission, and after that I never heard back from them again!! Such is my luck!!!!

 

WOW!!! FANCY SALE price!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

HAHAHAHA!!! I think MANY of us would!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!