Early 20th-Century Laptop

QUESTION: My aunt has an unusual box that opens out into what looks like a sloping writing service. I’d like to find out more information about it for her. Can you tell me anything about it?

ANSWER: Your aunt's box is what's known as a writing box. These date generally from the 19th century. Hers probably is from the last decade or two. Victorians carried these boxes with them on trips so they could write letters and postcards back home. When not traveling, many also used them in place of a desk. Essentially, they were the laptops of their day.


Writing boxes date back to the beginning of writing. Boxes in which writing materials were kept, called scriptoriums, were used by monks in the Middle Ages. Eventually, these were mounted on stands and later legs were added, creating the first desks for doing illuminated manuscripts. The writing box, itself, survived into the early 20th century.

People used traveling desks or writing boxes throughout the 19th century. When opened, they offered a leathered or velvet slope and rested on a table or over compartments for holding stationery. More luxurious versions included a removable pen tray under which spare nibs and holders could be kept, and screw-top inkwells, usually of glass, on each side. Others offered secret drawers or compartments. Though the origin of these remains obscure, they were most likely based on military dispatch boxes.

Towards the middle of the 19th century, manufacturers produced wooden writing boxes in enormous quantities to meet a growing demand. They came in all sizes and varieties of wood, including mahogany, burr walnut, rosewood and the more expensive ones in Coromandel wood. Less expensive ones, usually made of thin pine or fruitwood, were a step above an elaborate school pencil box and often decorated with cheaper decals instead of inlay..

Makers produced each to various specifications, depending on the intended type and amount of use. An army officer posted to the northwest frontier, for example, would want one robustly built, heavily brass bound, with brass mounted corners and edges to withstand rough treatment. A Victorian lady, on the other hand, might have one made in Tunbridgeware (a type of English marquetry decoration from the spa town of Tunbridge Wells, England) or even papier mache. The more expensive ones had serpentine lids, sometimes inlaid with intricate designs in brass or a mother of pearl or a shield for the owner's initials.

Simpler tourist writing cases in Moroccan leather and lined with satin came equipped with different sizes of stationery, pens, pencils, and a paperknife, but not an inkwell.

The utility of an easily portable box to provide storage for writing materials and a surface on which to write eventually led to the continuing usage of a smaller and more compact box that became very popular in the late 18th century. Known as lap desks or writing slopes, these writing boxes were quite portable, so they could be held on a lap or used at a table. They came with lids, hinged at the front, that slanted upwards towards the back, opening to form a writing surface with only one compartment underneath for storage.

Before the days of central heating, members of the family could gather by the fire and each work at his own small desk. A lap desk provided each individual with a private place in which to keep letters, paper and writing materials. In those days, ink, quills, paper, sand, wax wafers, and seals were all necessary equipment to use in writing a letter.

The writing box enjoyed its greatest popularity in days when ladies and gentlemen kept detailed diaries and wrote many letters. Imagine a romantic novelist or poet using just such a box while working in the warmth of a cozy fire. Today, cell phones, laptops, and tablets have made writing boxes and even stationery obsolete. However, as decorative boxes, they're more sought after than ever.

A Clock With Balls

QUESTION: When I was growing up in the 1950s, my parents had a colorful clock hanging on our living room wall. It had colored balls for the hours and stood out against the white wall. I had forgotten about it until recently when I discovered it, covered with dust, in the attic of my parents’ house as I was cleaning it out after my mother died. What can you tell me about this clock, and does it have any value or should I just give it the old heave ho?

ANSWER: Believe it or not, that dusty old clock is an icon of 1950s modern design. Often listed as being designed by George Nelson, the clock is shrouded in controversy. Yes, George Nelson did indeed play a part in its creation, but historians now believe that its actual designer was Irving Harper, who worked for George Nelson in his design studio.

The Ball Clock was the first of more than 150 clocks designed by George Nelson Associates for the Howard Miller Clock Company, which sold them from 1949 into the 1980s. Nelson Associates, first launched as a studio by George Nelson in 1947 in New York City, employed some of the most celebrated designers of the time, including Irving Harper, Don Chadwick and John Pile, all of whom contributed to the clocks.

George Nelson Associates, Inc., a leading home furnishings and accessories design studio, made modernism the most important driving force during the 1950s.  From his start in the mid-1940s until the mid-1980s,  George Nelson partnered with most of the modern designers of the time. His skill as a writer helped legitimize and stimulate the field of industrial design by contributing to the creation of Industrial Design Magazine in 1953.

Nelson became the Director of Design for Herman Miller, a leading industrial design firm, in 1947 and held the position until 1972. He used the money he earned in this position to open his own design studio in New York City. On October 26, 1955 he incorporated it into George Nelson Associates, Inc. and moved to 251 Park Avenue South. The studio brought together many of the top designers of the time, who were soon designing for Herman Miller under the George Nelson label. Among the noted designers who worked for George Nelson Associates were Irving Harper, George Mulhauser, designer of the Coconut Chair, Robert Brownjohn, designer of the sets for the James Bond film Goldfinger, Don Chadwick, Bill Renwick, Suzanne Sekey, John Svezia, Ernest Farmer, Tobias O'Mara, George Tscherney, who designed the Herman Miller advertisements, Lance Wyman, and John Pile.

But controversy was to cloud George Nelson’s success. In recent years, it has come out that many of the designs for which Nelson accepted credit were actually the work of other designers employed at his studios. Examples of this include the Marshmallow sofa, designed by Irving Harper, and the Action Office, the forerunner of the office cubicle and for which Nelson won the prestigious Alcoa Award, neglecting to mention that it was Robert Propst who actually created it.

It seems that Nelson believed that it was okay for individual designers to be given credit in trade publications, but for the consumer world, the credit should always be to the firm, not the individual.

Nelson’s company designed many wall and table clocks for the Howard Miller Clock Company, including the Ball, Kite, Eye, Turbine, Spindle, Petal and Spike clocks, as well as a handful of desk clocks. However, Irving Harper designed most of them. Howard Miller assigned numbers to all the original clock designs. The most famous, the Ball Clock, became Clock 4755. It was available in six color variations.

According to legend, the Ball Clock was designed by George Nelson, Irving Harper, Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi during a night of drinking in 1947. Its Space Age atomic look supposedly came from the an abstraction of the atom with its nucleus and particles.

A Furniture Re-Awakening

QUESTION: I recently purchased a mirror from an antique store in Thomasville, Georgia. The shop owner said the piece belonged to her grandfather, and she thinks the mirror dates back to the 1870's. I bought the mirror because I love the ornate carving on the frame. I'm also curious about the two round "stands" on the sides. Did people place candles on those platforms? What style do you think the mirror is? My best guess is Renaissance Revival.

ANSWER: You’re exactly right. Your mirror is in the Renaissance Revival style that was popular from 1855 to 1875. One of seven different revival styles prevalent during the Victorian Era, Renaissance Revival was an architectural style that easily made the transition from the custom, one-of-a-kind furniture shops in New York and Philadelphia to the mass-production factories of the Midwest.

Introduced in the early 1850's as a counter balance to the flowery Rococo Revival, Renaissance Revival borrowed elements from just about every furniture period since the 1400's. Originating in the French court of Napoleon III, the style soon took on a life of its own.

Furniture makers built pieces that consisted of an eclectic mix of 14th-century Renaissance, Neoclassical and 16th-century French derivation, based on a rectangular form with various embellishments.

While pieces of this style of furniture came in a myriad of shapes and sizes, they generally featured turned and fluted legs, raised or inset burled panels, heavily carved finials and crests, inset marble tops, and cookie-cut corners. On many mass-produced pieces, manufacturers added black and gold incising dn banding, and on finer, one-of-a-kind models, marquetry inlay and bronze or brass mounts. Most pieces of Renaissance Revival furniture were very large—ideal for the Victorian "more is more" philosophy. Makers of finer pieces preferred to use walnut, as it had been in the 16th century. And that was the most accurate thing about this revival style, which also borrowed heavily from the 17th-century Baroque and the earlier Gothic periods.

Prominent Renaissance and Neoclassical motifs such as columns, pediments, cartouches, rosettes, and carved masks, as well as plaques in porcelain, bronze, and mother-of-pearl became common types of decoration. Factory pieces had turned or cutout parts while finer examples featured carving or elaborate inlay of ebony and other exotic woods.

Before 1870 nearly all fine Renaissance Revival furniture came from small cabinetmaker shops in the East that made pieces to order. As the style gained popularity, furniture factories in the Midwest figured out how to mass produce the style for the Middle Class market. While some still used walnut, many chose to use cheaper ash or pine, painting it to look more high-style. The Renaissance Revival styles of the 1860s and 1870s marked the first time furniture makers used fine designs for mass-produced furnishings.

Large Midwestern factories, centered primarily in Grand Rapids, Michigan, manufactured pieces with turned and cut elements that could be produced more readily in volume and at lower cost. A few of the larger companies in Grand Rapids had committed to using the latest technology by the 1870's, among them Berkey & Gay, Nelson Matter and Phoenix. Renaissance Revival became the style of the Centennial Exposition and Grand Rapids was the star, but by that time it was already on its way out. The overpowering bedroom sets presented by Berkey & Gay cemented the reputation of the Grand Rapids factories as the manufacturers of bedroom sets or "chamber suites" as they became known.

New York cabinetmakers, such as Herter Brothers, on the other hand, produced pieces with elegant detail and elaborate inlays. They interpreted 16th- and 17th-century designs. And their motifs ranged from curvilinear and florid early in the period to angular and almost severe by the end of the period. Walnut veneer panels were a real favorite in their 1870s designs. Upholstery, usually of a more generous nature, was also often incorporated into this design style. Ornamentation and high relief carving included flowers, fruits, game, classical busts, acanthus scrolls, strapwork, tassels and masks. Architectural motifs, such as pilasters, columns, pediments, balusters and brackets, were another prominent design feature. Makers usually employed cabriole or substantially turned legs on their pieces.

The inevitable end came when the public desired to return to simplicity, the antithesis of Renaissance Revival, which embodied itself in the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th century and the resurgence of interest in American heritage which presaged the coming, and long running, Colonial Revival period.

Renaissance Revival furniture, while not the most favored by many of today's collectors because of its size and obvious statement, nevertheless played a pivotal role in American furniture history.

Collecting the Golden Arches

QUESTION: My kids have all grown up. Recently, as I was going through some boxes in my attic, I noticed one filled with little toys that my children received in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Are these of any value as collectibles?

ANSWER: The answer is yes, but...and there’s always a “but.” To be of any value to a collector, Happy Meal toys need to still be encased in their packaging and not used. There are some rare pieces that have value even if out of their packages, but generally, as with other toy collectibles, mint in package is the rule.

McDonald's collectors aren’t simply food groupies picking up recent Happy Meal toys. Collecting McDonald's memorabilia can be a complicated affair. Categories are numerous and subcategories extensive. Items can be instantly available or hard to find. Prices range from a couple of dollars to thousands. As with any collectible, the law of supply and demand rules.

McDonald's memorabilia encompasses a vast amount of local, regional, national, international material-ephemera, advertising and print items, cross-collector character items, McDonaldland character items, restaurant pieces, books and comics, sports and non-sports cards, glassware , and plates, watches and jewelry, garments, vehicles, dolls, toys, and more. The list is almost endless.

The McDonald brothers started their fast food drive-in restaurant in 1948, so an item from the early 1950's  could carry a hefty price tag.

A novice McDonald's collector could amass hundreds of Happy Meal toys in a very short time.. For example, nearly 90 different toys had been in Happy Meals in 1996 alone, and millions of each toy had been issued. You can easily find toys from recent years selling for one to two dollars. A manufacturing variation or recall may create a toy of a little higher value, but even these are available in quantity.

Happy Meal toys and related display memorabilia remain are the most popular items to collect. Each Happy Meal has a specific and variable number of toys, including a special U3 toy which meets special standards for children under three years age, some bags or boxes, a stand up display and possibly counter displays, as well as banners, posters, and signs.

McDonald's collectors are as fussy about cleanliness, condition and completeness as any other collectible collector. Since McDonald’s had many of the items produced in the millions, prices for most packaged items remain low, and the package must be perfect. Loose Happy Meal toys have little value, especially once they’ve been tossed in a box, as the paint rubs off and are lost. Paper items need to be pristine and unmarked to bring top dollar.

Figurine Happy Meals toys are the most popular, especially those which feature well-known characters. Special packaging can also increase the desirability. The April 1996 Walt Disney Masterpiece Home Video Collection Happy Meal is a McDonald’s collector’s Holy Grail—eight nicely made classic figures, each in a fitted half-size videotape box, with well designed color cover artwork and McDonald’s logos. Dumbo is the U3 toy in the set. A single Happy Meal bag completes the set.

Happy Meals which feature books, buckets, or. little-known characters are usually of lessor interest to collectors, but there are exceptions. The four small soft cover Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit books from a 1998 Happy Meal, in mint condition, complete with the Happy Meal box are worth about $80 as a set. The Peter Rabbit Happy Meal was a "regional" which had limited geographic distribution. Any books that have been in children's hands are hard to find unblemished. Usually, this happens moments after opening the package as little ones’ hands are often sticky from eating fries and the like.

Elusive, scarce items can bring big dollars. The growing interest in fast food collecting has helped many wonderful older items to surface. However, many may or may not be valuable. Experienced McDonald's collectors look for complete older items in excellent condition and newer items that might be unusual or limited.

Most non-Happy Meal McDonald's collectibles feature the company name, one of the corporate logos, the trademark “M,” or recognizable characters.  Remember that a copyright date is only the year of first issue—a seemingly early piece may still be in circulation.

Early and scarce are the key words in McDonald’s collecting, although they may not occur simultaneously. Look for design features and characters no longer in use, such as Archy McDonald, the early character Speedee, items with the golden arch logo with a slash mark, and items related to the old style "red and white” restaurants. A 1966 Ronald McDonald costume with slash-arch logos, complete with makeup and wig, surfaced at an unclaimed storage locker auction. Needless to say, a collector paid several thousand for that hot item.

Most people think the same toys appear in all McDonald’s Happy Meals. In fact, they vary from region to region and country to country. This brings the total issued into the millions. And the more produced of any collectible, the less value it eventually has.

It May Not Be What It Seems

QUESTION: I’m a big fan of the Civil War. I’ve read a lot about it and go to re-enactments regularly during the summer. Recently, I started a collection of Confederate items. My most recent purchase was a cartridge belt plate with the letters “CSA” on the front. It looks real enough, but I’m not so sure. Can you tell me how to tell the fake from the authentic items?

ANSWER: As in all collecting, the more educated you are as a collector, the better off you’ll be. You must become an educated buyer. Purchasing on sight just because an items looks good and the price is right isn’t enough.

There’s a sucker born every minute. And when it comes to identifying Confederate militaria, there’s probably one born ever couple of seconds. In fact, someone once said that if the Confederates had everything that’s now believed to have belonged to them, the would have won the war and had a surplus.

Confederate items can be worth 10 times those that belonged to Union soldiers. So the market for Confederate fakes is ripe. Be wary of dealers that won’t tell you anything about an object, then offer it to you for what amounts to a bargain basement price. If the price is too low, the item most likely is a fake. Even selling it for a low amount, the dealer will make out on the deal.

To make objects look as if they’ve literally been in battle, some have minie balls hammered into them. A tell-tale gray ring will show that the ball had not been fired into the object.

Demand that a dealer authenticate a Confederate object. Ask if you can get the item appraised by a professional appraiser before agreeing to purchase it. Whether you plan on buying a $1 minie ball or a $10,000 Henry repeating rifle, it always pays to ask. If the dealer refuses to let you get it appraised, just walk out of the shop or away from his or her booth at a show. If the dealer is selling legitimate Civil War memorabilia, he’ll let you bring it back for a refund.

If you purchase what you think to be an authentic Confederate object for a relatively substantial price and it turns out to be fake, then you have the right to prosecute the dealer for fraud. Doing so will probably prove difficult, since fraud is difficult to prove, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

Confederate coins are a good case in point. Unscrupulous dealers have hundreds cast, and sell them for modest prices. Coins are minted, not cast, so they’re fakes. But, then again, how do you prove that the maker wasn’t making honest reproductions to sell to re-enactors?

Sometimes labels on objects will reveal their authenticity. First, paper labels didn’t come into common usage until the turn of the 20th century. If an item has a paper label on it, it would pay to have the paper tested. You might just discover that the process used to make the paper didn’t exist before the 1930s.

As for belt plates, two types exist, excavated—dug out of the ground—and unexcavated. Fakers will use acids and brass-black to pour over the buckle and create a dark color to make a patina. Look for signs of liquid in tiny pits, or smell the buckle. It will have a harsh foul smell, like something rotting.

A faker often makes a reproduction of an unexcavated buckle by making it look damaged. You should look for evidence that parts have been filed off. The belt plate also should have the same color throughout and "no spots where the brass is shining through. Above all, be suspicious of any buckle marked "CSA" or "CS." And if it has a date like 1862 on it, it’s not authentic.

Within militaria, the Civil War is a problem because there are more items from it around. One way in general to tell if a product is fake is to judge its quality. Very few can duplicate the quality of merchandise that they had back then.

A Case of Romantic Identity

QUESTION: My husband and I recently purchased what looks like a plain sideboard while traveling through South Carolina. It’s smaller than a regular one and has only four legs instead of the usual six, plus it’s about 10 inches taller. It looks to be made of a more common type of wood like pine or elm and has little decoration. Can you tell me about this piece of furniture?

ANSWER: It seems you bought what some people call a huntboard and what most Southerners call a slab. Whether it’s antique or not is dubious.

The word "huntboard" conjures up visions of dashing red-coated Southern sportsmen sipping mint juleps from frosted coin-silver cups while engaging in spirited conversation with soft-spoken young belles—all gathered around a high four-legged serving table, an inlaid mahogany demilune sideboard, circa 1800, often found in Southern dining rooms.

But more likely the huntboard turned up beneath a spreading oak tree, conveniently placed so that overheated horsemen could grab a refreshing drink without dismounting. And every Southerner worth his or her riding crop knows huntboards were built a good five to ten inches taller than sideboards because men in high hunting boots couldn't bend their knees and found it more comfortable to eat standing up. Another equally practical explanation for the huntboard's height was that it kept food out of reach of high jumping hound dogs.

Both scenarios are completely fictional, devised in 1925 in a romanticized account of Southern furniture, part of the romantic, if mostly incorrect, Colonial Revival Movement, perpetuated by the grey ghosts of the Civil War. Imagine a tall, gleaming, highly polished walnut four-legged serving piece set with coin silver and transfer-pattem earthenware, complete with a long rifle, and you can almost hear the thunder of the horses’ hoofs and the hunter’s horn sounding in the distance.

If the term had been part of aristocratic Southerners' vocabulary at all, it would have been their name for the piece of furniture out on the back porch or in the back hall of the "big house"—not in the dining room of the plantation home. In the Southern mansion the hunt-board was a basic piece made of native poplar or pine, not a glamorous item of walnut or mahogany. And when meal-time came around, the humble huntboard was set with pewter, crudely fashioned wooden bowls, and crockery, not the costly imported earthenware and handcrafted coin silver.

In other words, in the wealthy Southern plantation home, huntboards were just utilitarian pieces designed for the servants and slaves to eat around—a "board," as in "room and board." This variety of 19th-century huntboard comes closest to the original purpose of a sideboard—a simple stand-up serving table.

During the mid-19th century, the agrarian South—unlike the industrialized North—had few cities to support major cabinetmaking shops. Modest farmhouses and the occasional plantation sprawled throughout the region. This spread-out population—and the abundance of Southern forests—meant that it was more economical for furniture to be made "on site" by a traveling craftsman or even a handy family member than purchased from a faraway joiner's shop. During those months when the crops were planted, dinner—as they called the heavy noonday meal—had to be served efficiently. So slaves at the plantation main house set out biscuits, gravy, and other vittles on a quickly, even crudely, constructed sideboard called a “slab.”

The term "huntboard" was born at a time when a falsely romantic image of the South was at its peak. During that time, the demand for Southern huntboards far surpassed the supply. There had been little reason to keep the plain, crudely made slab once the servant and slave society disappeared. And many middle-class families that held on to the better walnut and cherry serving tables during the bleak postwar days quickly discarded their "old furniture" after the economy improved. As a result, furniture companies produced fake and reproduction huntboards by the truckload in the late1920s and '30s. Those authentic slabs that survived were often found in deserted country houses. Though "huntboard" sounds great, there’s no evidence that people actually used the word during antebellum days.

So the piece you purchased most likely dates to the late 1920s or early 1930s. Age and neglect probably made it appear much older. One way to tell if it’s authentic is to check the wooden pegs used to join it together. If it’s old, the pegs will be slightly elliptical and jut out of their holes a bit. If newer, they’ll be round and flush with the surface of the wood.

Those Oldies But Goodies

QUESTION: My husband recently purchased an old jukebox for a game room we created in our basement.  It’s a Wurlitzer 1015, and considering it’s 68 years old, it still plays pretty well. He paid $3,500 for it. Can you tell me more about this machine and others like it? Did my husband get taken on this deal?

ANSWER: While the jukebox is more or less a thing of the past, a few still exist in arcades and roadhouses off the beaten path and in the private collections of people who yearn for a return to those happy days. The one your husband purchased is the most popular of the oldies but goodies and normally sells for twice that amount. 

A jukebox, for those of you who may not know, is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that plays selections from self-contained media, at first records, then CDs. The classic jukebox has buttons with letters and numbers that patrons to restaurants, diners, and bars pushed  in combination to choose and play a specific selection at first for a dime, then later a quarter, fifty cents, and upwards.

Although jukeboxes, in one form or another, had been around since an Edison phonograph with a coin slot was exhibited in San Francisco in 1889, the early machines were staid affairs.

In 1928, Justus P. Seeburg, who manufactured player pianos, combined an electrostatic loudspeaker with a coin-operated record player and gave the listener a choice of eight records. This Audiophone machine was wide and bulky and had eight separate turntables mounted on a rotating Ferris wheel-like device, allowing patrons to select from eight different records. Later versions of the jukebox included Seeburg's Selectophone, with 10 turntables mounted vertically on a spindle. By maneuvering the tone arm up and down, the customer could select from 10 different records.

The term "jukebox" came into use in the United States around 1940, apparently derived from the familiar usage "juke joint", derived from the word "juke" meaning disorderly, rowdy, or wicked.

While jukeboxes had once been enclosed in wooden cabinets, the machines of the era beginning in 1937 were made of gaudy plastic, frosted glass, jeweled mirrors, and chrome ornaments. Many of those Art Deco creations were self-contained light shows with polarized revolving disks, bubble tubes, and flashing pilasters.

During those golden years, the Leonardo da Vinci of jukebox design was Wurlitzer's Paul Fuller, who was responsible for 13 full-size machines, five table models, and numerous speakers. The Golden Age of jukebox design ended when he suffered a heart attack in 1944 and died the next year. By then a new generation of larger jukeboxes had appeared, and the classic machines from the golden years—1937 to 1949—were, for the most part, relegated to the junk heap and forgotten.

Forgotten except for a small group of admirers of the design achievements of the 1937—49 period, who began busily picking up the pieces and reassembling the classic jukeboxes.

The popularity of jukeboxes extended from the 1940s through the mid-1960s, but they were particularly fashionable in the 1950s. By the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in America went into jukeboxes.

And even with all of today’s high-tech music devices, the sound from one of those old machines was fabulous. Nothing beats hearing an old 78 on a machine created just to play it. Those were the days.

The Red Carpet Treatment

QUESTION: My great grandmother left me a beautiful Oriental carpet runner. My grandmother said it is quite old, but I’m not sure by how much.  What can you tell me about antique Oriental carpets? I have no idea about its origins, pattern, and such.

ANSWER: What most people classify as Oriental carpets are actually Persian (now Iranian) or Turkish carpets. Originally made to cover the sand in the tents of nomads and to kneel on when saying daily prayers, these beautiful floor coverings have a long history.

Oriental carpets have been highly prized in the West since their first appearance in Venice in the 13th century. By the 18th century they were common in wealthier households. But relative demand was fairly small, so the production of carpets declined. During the 19th century, trade routes improved, contact with the Orient increased, and the Western obsession with the exotic grew. So Persian weavers produced great quantities of carpets for export.

Carpet-weaving is an integral part of Iranian culture and art and dates back to ancient Persia. Weavers from other countries copied the designs of Persian carpets, but Persia produced 75 percent of the world's woven carpets.

Generally, Persian carpets can be divided into three groups—Farsh/Qa-li, any carpet greater than 6×4 feet, Qa-licheh, sized 6×4 feet and smaller), and nomadic carpets known as Gelim including Zilu, meaning "rough carpet," mostly for use in tents.

Wool is the most common material for carpets but cotton is frequently used for the foundation of city and workshop carpets. There are a wide variety in types of wool used for weaving Oriental carpets, including . Kork wool, Manchester wool, and in some cases even camel hair wool.

Persian rugs have both a layout and a design which in general include one or more motifs, so it’s not unusual to find more than one motif in a single rug. The original designs act as the main pattern and the derivatives as the sub patterns. Rug experts have identified 19 pattern groups---historic monuments and Islamic buildings, Shah Abbassi patterns, spiral patterns, all-over patterns, derivative patterns, interconnected patterns, paisley patterns, tree patterns, Turkoman patterns, hunting ground patterns, panel patterns, European flower patterns, vase patterns, intertwined fish patterns, Mehrab patterns, striped patterns, geometric patterns, tribal patterns, and composites. The most common motifs include Boteh, Gul, Herati, Mina-Khani, Rosette, Shah Abbasi, Azari Kharchang, and Islimi Floral.

Persian rugs are typically laid out using one of four patterns—all-over, central medallion, compartment and one-sided. So a rug’s design can be described in terms of the manner in which it organizes the field of the rug. One basic design may serve the entire field, or the surface may be covered by a pattern of repeating figures. In areas using long-established local designs. the weaver often works from memory, with the patterns passed on within the family.

Weavers often tailored the dimensions of their carpets to suit Western needs. They produced a disproportionate number of runners—long narrow rugs originally designed to cover the sides of rooms or tents since these had special appeal to Westerners. Even so, the standards remained the same. The major carpet-weaving centers—Persia, Turkey and the Caucasus—continued to use traditional motifs and techniques, maintaining the carpets’ regional integrity and originality.

While carpets made before 1800 are extremely expensive, the antique carpet market offers some excellent buys for the beginning collector. High quality runners generally cost between $1,500 and $15,000, depending on overall design, pliability, date, and type and number of knots.

Edgar Allan Poe once said, “A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of carpets must be a genius.” And as hard as they are to judge, they’re certainly easy to enjoy.

Shaker Chair Chic

QUESTION: Some time ago, I bought a simple chair at a country estate auction. I love that chair but know very little about it. Someone told me that my chair was Shaker. Since I didn’t know much about the Shakers, I couldn’t tell. It just looked like a simple country chair. What can you tell me about my chair?

ANSWER: Your chair certainly looks like a Shaker chair. But you need to know a bit about the Shakers to know for sure.

Mother Ann Lee, who led the Shakers to America in 1774, had enough to do to get her sect organized. She began with a community in Albany, New York, and sent out missionaries to establish Shaker communities elsewhere in New England. But it wasn’t until Mother Lee had died and another generation of leadership took over the Shakers that the idea of producing items for sale as a way of supporting the communities came to be.

The Shakers attracted skilled cabinetmakers and craftsmen to their ranks, so it was a natural to use their skills to produce furniture for the communities. By this time, the Shakers were totally self-sustaining. In the early 19th century, the sect began to attract large numbers of people, mostly those who were discontent with society in general or were out of work. The communities offered security and food and lodging to people who might otherwise not have had it.

To support all these people became a major problem. So the elders of each community came up with ways to produce items for sale. Some made chairs, others produced seeds, clothing, especially wool capes, or took in mending and such. Many members were very creative and invented unique items such  as the electric washing machine. They were extremely organized as well, so mass-producing items like chairs wasn’t a problem. 

The Shaker communities' peak growth came in the second quarter of the 19th century. In1840, an estimated 4,000-6,000 members lived in 18 self-contained communities from Maine to Kentucky and west to Indiana. During that time, they produced the icons of Shaker design—the spare, functional chairs that inspire today’s collectors. The best display uncompromising craftsmanship combined with absolute simplicity—ladderback chairs whose turned posts have been pared to the narrowest possible dimensions. At first they produced these chairs for use within the community. But later they chose the best design and reproduced it for sale to the outside world. Customers loved their simplicity and sturdiness and the Shaker chair business took off.

But not every piece of furniture made by Shaker hands is a design masterpiece: Some pieces were poorly crafted. Some were beautifully crafted but poorly proportioned. And some exhibit such bare-bones functionalism that they’re awkward and ugly. Often they’re barely distinguishable from country furniture of the same time and place. Indeed, unscrupulous dealers and auctioneers often promote plain country pieces as Shaker and sell for several times more than they would otherwise bring.

The chairs that the Shakers designed to be sold to the public were lean and severe and produced in huge quantities that ended up on back porches and summer cottages across America. Their popularity led other manufacturers to copy their look, and these pseudo "Shaker" chairs appear in quantity at country auctions and small antiques shows. Each of the endless variety of styles has its own Shaker-designated model number. Most were originally stained dark brown, and slat-backs predominate.

Each community made their chairs a bit different from those of other communities, changing or adding little details. And while they all began with the same design template, each community’s craftsmen added their own touches for their community. For instance, many people believe that all Shaker chairs have tiny acorn finials and arms that terminate in mushroom-shaped turnings. Not so. It’s possible to tell which community made which chair by the shape of the finial alone. The back slats were also often slightly different. The Number 7 rockers, for example, have mushroom arms, four slats, and a shawl rail connecting the backposts that replaces the more common finials. The Shakers often attached a decal identifying the piece as Shaker to the back of a slat or leg. But pieces meant solely for use within the Shaker communities didn’t have decals.

Although for years Shaker chairs never sold for more than $500, now even the most common three-slat rockers bring $600-$800 or more. Some even go as high as $1,700-to-$2,200.

Pieces from Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana—often less austere, less "Shaker-looking" than their eastern counterparts—often have a Victorian feel and sometimes resemble local country furniture even more closely than classic eastern designs. .

The earliest collectors of Shaker chairs—active from 1920 to 1960—tended to be serious academic types. They studied Shaker life and doctrine, became friendly with living Shakers, and often acquired pieces directly from them as the sect's numbers dwindled. Then Shaker chairs became attractive to doctors, lawyers, and other professionals whose bank balances boosted prices to new levels.