Side by side secretary bookcase

Any help on placing a value on this piece will be greatly appreciated. I will have better quality pics next wk when we bring it home from my parents’ house.

 

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1880s or so Victorian. No idea what to call the design, but it was in all the bedrooms for a while.

 

I used to know but have forgotten the name for this arrangement.

 

Any idea on how we should price it?

 

$ 175 for a quick sale !

 

Called a side-by-side. This one looks like it's faced in mahogany with a mixture of neo-Renaissance and Art Nouveau elements. Guessing ca. 1895-1905.

Despite their solid appearance these were less than $100 until recently, and quite a few of the less ornate examples were giveaways.

 

VERY tough to enlarge with SUCH A TINY image.....program loses SO much definition..........

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I can see the design being very useful in a small apartment, but the "artistic" part of it wouldn't endear it to many people.

 

Also,to add to what the others said,it was mass produced so theres like a zillion out there. I keep hearing the market for this kind of thing is slowly changing,but darned if I see it happening. Here in N. FL you'd be lucky to see $100.That all being said,I love it and would gladly house it.

 

I am pretty sure there is another name for this style. Maybe it was British?

 

Indeed, in every antique mall in America you see this form, it must have been VERY popular in its day.
A combo display cabinet/ writing desk, I notice OP cabinet has Chippendale ogee bracket feet, a nice touch!

 

Ghopper is spot-on with date and description. I like the $175.00 as a starting point for sale but you may need to come down. Hard to tell for sure from these pics but the finish on this looks like it needs some sprucing or to be refinished to think about getting more.

 

Not British, but definitely American. Most commonly called a “Larkin desk”, named after the soap company that gave them for free when you bought enough of their soap. Pics suck so can’t even tell what kind of wood this is, but if oak not mahogany more likely to be from that company. Though other companies made this same popular style in the very late 19th and early 20th century. Look for a label inside or on back, but labels fall off. More info on Larkin desk by searching here on board or google. Here’s a description of this exact form:

“One of the most popular items in Larkin’s inventory was the drop front combination bookcase/desk. Variations included a glass front case with a drop front desk attached to the side, two glass front cases with a desk in the middle or simply a drop front desk with a small open bookcase below the drop and candle stands above it, with a mirror in the high splashboard.”
https://www.worthpoint.com/articles/collectibles/everymans-desk-history-of-the-larkin-desk

 

Larkin definitely had side-by-sides but the ubiquitous Larkin Desk is a single drop-front. Like this.



You had to buy a lot more soap to get a side-by-side than you did for these. If you google Larkin Desk, most of what you will see is the single drop-front.

 

I was not suggesting that this particular side by side was British. But it's possible that the name I was unable to drag up from my memory bank was a British term.

 

True, a lot of soap, $20 worth in 1910 in this Larkin catalogue. But as Larkin was the first to exploit (like Netflix et al today), an expendable product that constantly needs to be repurchased builds brand loyalty and makes for massive sales.

For anyone interested in going down this rabbit hole, I found their online catalogue from 1910 quite interesting. Not just desks and not just furniture by a long shot. And useful in the same way as the early 20th century catalogue reprints from Sears, to see how most of America was furnishing their houses. https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/494951