Furniture with two manufacturers labels?

I joined to see if anyone has any information or could lead me on the right path.

I'm going to try and post a picture.

I have a hutch that was purchased by my great great grandfather, he was a wood worker and built a top piece for it. The tag on the back says skinner and steenman, but inside the drawer on the front says the charak furniture company.

Now skinner and steenman were in Michigan and the charak were in Boston. My family is from Boston. So we believe he might have worked there fixed it up and redid parts and it got re tagged as the chakar furniture.

Any ideas?

 

Welcome to the Forum, Matthew!
Here’s instructions for posting photos:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/making-a-post-and-uploading-pictures.16038/

 

This is the imgur for the images they were too big to upload

https://imgur.com/a/f6DpPWA

 

People don’t always like to click links. I resized for you.

 

Thank you

 

No problem, Furniture Folks will be along.

 

Matthew, your explanation seems feasible. So....you know it's a "marriage," the bottom part was an oak dresser ca. 1900-1910, the top part built by your great grandfather later in the 20th century and put a Charak tag on it, for whatever reason.

Makes sense.

 

We know he was a cooper and worked doing woodworking at a bunch of places. Just very odd.

Also the bottom is a buffet, or side board whatever they called them back then

 

Skinner and Steenman. 1898-1905.

Debora

 

So talked to some relatives, he bought the bottom piece in Boston, he did not work for charak. He did build the top. So im back to confused about why charak would have done work to it and then put there name on it.

 

I am confused. Are the tags on the same piece or is one on the top and the other the bottom? If both on the bottom, one may have been the maker and the other the retailer.

In searching further, I see that both were furniture makers. Your piece very much fits the work of Skinner and Steenman. It does not match up with Charak, which made 18th century reproduction furniture.

 

Both on the bottom, the paper tag under lacquer on the back and the charak metal tag nailed into the drawer. From my research charak was a furniture builder but did custom stuff it seems like only. It's pretty crazy.