Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Hallingdalen, post: 11621372, member: 93477&quot;]I’ve been trying to use springing (or the absence of it) as a rough dating clue for 19th century chairs, and I’m curious whether others have found the same pattern.</p><p><br /></p><p>Working hypothesis: if a chair reads as genuinely high quality in the frame and workmanship, but the seat appears never to have been sprung, I increasingly suspect it’s more likely to be pre-1870 (often even earlier), i.e. from a period when webbing + stuffing (hair/vegetable fibres) or a loose cushion solution was still entirely “correct” for good furniture, and coil springs were not yet a default feature outside higher-end upholstery and larger forms. In other words, absence of springs can be meaningful when the overall build signals that corners weren’t being cut.</p><p><br /></p><p>Where I get much less confident is with lower-grade chairs that lack springs. There the same observation could just reflect cost-saving rather than age: provincial/cheap production lagging behind fashions, a “budget spec” even when springs were common elsewhere, or later re-upholstery where springs were removed or never reinstalled. So “no springs” feels like a weak signal unless it’s paired with other indicators that the chair wasn’t built to a price.</p><p><br /></p><p>How do you all weigh this in practice? Do you treat “high quality + no springs” as a stronger early indicator than “low quality + no springs,” and what construction details do you find most reliable to confirm or contradict the upholstery evidence (joinery, tool marks, rail profiles, patina match between frame and seat build-up, etc.)?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in