Featured Seeking Information Antique Rocking Chair

Hi All,

I was gifted an antique rocking chair and would like to k own more about it. There are examples online for $5000. I have seen it on three sites, but they all use the exact same picture and all the same price.

Local dealers have told me it's worth $75. Not sure who to believe.

Any information you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

 

Welcome to the forum.

In this case, your local dealer.

Brown furniture is not popular at the moment, and young mother's no longer buy rocking chairs.

Your chair is early 1900s. The seat has been redone. It was most likely caned originally, like the back.

Next time you post, if you hit Full Image your picture will show like this and people with phones will be able to see it.

 

Yep, I am goin with cluttered on this one.

 

So am I.
It is a nice rocker, Trevor, and welcome.

Looks like we are looking at a separate cushion, and there could be caning underneath.

 

I would pay less than $75, sadly, and would accept $75 with alacrity. Rockers are out of fashion, and so, sadly, is a lot of the furniture/old stuff I've collected.

 

Thank you all for your time and information. Its greatly appreciated.

 

Oh, so we are. Think you are correct.
I miss things when looking late at night.

 

Don't worry, you're not the only one.

 

This is a less common example of the "Lincoln" rocker form, so named because a similar but upholstered version was the chair President Lincoln was sitting in when assassinated at Ford's Theater. I find this one unusual for two reasons. The back has spindles AND a hand-woven cane panel, while the seat looks to have a routed channel and spline to hold a machine-woven piece of caning. I've never seen a chair that originally had both types of caning technique present. It's possible that the seat was modified after c. 1870 to accommodate the machine-caning, because it's faster, cheaper and doesn't require the weaving knowledge. The only way to tell is to look at the underside of the seat. This is a mystery!

 

Darkwing, is that the date machine-woven caning was invented?

 

Here is a picture of the bottom. Cane has all been removed.

 

Roughly, yes.

 

Looks like it was never drilled for hand-caning. Those would be a bunch of little round holes, as on the chair back. How odd. Can we see the seat without the cushion on it?

 

Unfortunately it is nailed in.

 

Instead of threading the cane, it looks like they used wood to secure the seat. Would they normally thread the seat as well as the back?

 

Now it looks like I shouldn't be so quick to admit I might be wrong.

 

Thank you Darkwing for solving a mystery for me. My Grandmother had a chair almost exactly like this. I think the spindles were a little different. I don't remember hers having a cane seat. Now I know why she called it a Lincoln rocker.
Patd

 

My sincere apologies for leading you astray.

 

I'm easily strayed.

 

Trevor, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you talking about the spline (a sort of flexible , chamfered reed) that runs around the edges of the cane piece? And yes, any piece I have seen has only one technique or the other, either hand-woven or machine-caned. But it's possible that is what happened here. It may be common, just not something I have run across before. It would be practical, as seats always blow out way before backs do.