San Quentin Prison Chair

This is my first post… So hello everyone!

My husband & I have been collecting for 20 years… Since we were 16 and first got together. We have had this chair that we got really inexpensively at an antique store a long time ago. I wanted it after seeing the label on the bottom. The seller had no idea - knew nothing about it.

We may finally sell it… someone is interested. But we weren’t sure what to ask for it. The fair price / worth.

I know a lot of prison furniture and other items were turned out en masse by prisoners… But being that this is such a well-known prison I didn’t know if that increased its worth/desirability.
Thank you very much!
-Cat


It won’t let me upload a picture but the bottom has a paper label glued on that says department of corrections manufactured in San Quintin prison and has the production order number, article, catalogue number filled out. It is an office chair, Wood, with wheels. It looks to be from the 1950s or prior.

 

The site limit size for photos is 1MB. If the pics are on your phone, email them to yourself as size medium & they should be resized for using here.

 

Each image MUST be UNDER 1 MB....
There are instructions on site here on how to reduce the size of your image, if that is the problem......you are allowed up to 8 images per post!!! Here are some links to the instructions:

If on the computer:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/posting-a-thread-and-uploading-pictures.15990/

If on an iPhone:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/resizing-photos-on-i-phone.35097/

And if on an Android phone:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/using-an-android-phone-for-pics-on-antiquers.41709/

Hoping this helps you get them posted, as we're anxious to see them!!!

 

When i was living in the Bay Area I bought a chair that was made at San Quentin for the Marin County Civic Center. which was a few miles away and designed by Frank Lloyd Wright shortly before he died in 1959. After he died, his protege Aaron Greene and his son-in-law William Wesley Peters continued the project, which included furniture and lighting designed by Wright. I tried to determine if my chair was designed by Wright but never could and ended up selling it for around $150. I did not save any pictures of it, but it was similar to this Gunlocke chair, though with light blue upholstery. To answer your question, I don't think the fact it was made at San Quentin adds much value, even with a potential Frank Lloyd Wright connection.

 

take any old chair, install a few cut-off wires, sign it underneath with SPARKY... and become a rich man...

 

I once visited the collection storage facility of the Nevada State Museum in Carson City. My eye was immediately drawn to a simple, rusty and stained old metal chair sitting against the far wall. It gave me chills down my spine. Now I have no claim to, nor put much faith into psychic abilities, but this object "emanated" something. It turns out it was the gas chamber chair used by the Nevada State Prison back in the 1920s.

 

Welcome Eclectic Medix,

Please try upload a picture, I would be most interested to see this chair.

 

Interesting chair..... My Mom has a San Quentin made oak School chair with built in small desk that I bought for her one year at a local Santa Cruz antique shop . It still has the tag which I need to take pictures of and preserve before it falls off. They apparently had a large industrial program back in the day , making furniture and probably the old license plate production line one would think ........

 

Here we go !


San Quentin
SAN QUENTIN, CALIFORNIA - CIRCA APRIL 1949: The furniture factory at San Quentin State Prison is photographed in 1949. Inmates built desk, chairs, and similar furniture for schools and state offices. (Photo by Keith Dennison/MediaNews Group/Oakland Tribune via Getty Images)

 

and then there is this ......

Student Desk made at San Quentin Prison | Antiques Board (antiquers.com)

 

1955 San Quentin Prison CA Furniture Factory Press Photo

 

San Francisco Call 23 August 1902 — California Digital Newspaper Collection (ucr.edu)

READS LIST OF FURNITURE MADE IN SAN QUENTIN

 

This is San Quentin - Bay Area Television Archive (sfsu.edu)

 

I will ASAP. I need to remove some pictures as my whole phone is at full capacity
Thank everyone for walking me through proper picture format.

 

lovely. shows that China copies even the work system of other places.
today it's mostly Uyghurs that are forced to work in hidden camps for the brand IKEA, which was founded by an old Swedish Nazi that enjoyed his later life in Switzerland - where else ....

 

All empires come from some form of labour exploitation.

BERLIN — Ikea has long been famous for its inexpensive, some-assembly-required furniture. On Friday the company admitted that political prisoners in the former East Germany provided some of the labor that helped it keep its prices so low.16 Nov 2012

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/...ns-of-using-forced-labor-during-cold-war.html

 

Thank you for all the archived pictures and documents and other links, Much appreciated.

 

I found the photos of my San Quentin chair and tag on a backup drive.

 

Thank you, Mark. Is it comfortable, as the armrests look quite high but perhap's that is delobertae for some reason. For whatever its exact purpose