Recently, during one of my wife’s painting weekends (she is making sure all the white walls in our home’s upper floors adopt a real hue), we moved one of the beds away from the wall and I noticed this label on the back of the headboard. Not quite sure how I missed it as you tend to get very intimate with big furniture as it travels up and around stairs when entering the home.

Unfortunately, the label is missing a section due to it spanning two separate boards, which in moving independently of one another, frayed the label. I’m not very good at interpolating missing text (now I know what archaeologists face when reading hieroglyphics that are half chipped away), but essentially it says that the bed was one of the first pieces of furniture that Emma C. Bancroft purchased when she and her husband William P. Bancroft got married.

I was surprised to find out that William P. Bancroft and his wife Emma lived in the Wilmington, DE area and were one of the wealthiest families in Delaware at the turn of the century. They made their fortune via a cotton mill on the Brandywine river that was originally founded by his father in 1831. William was at one time the president of the Wilmington Board of Park Commissioners and he donated 80 acres to the city with the stipulation that it be used for a parks. According to the Wilmington DE website,

The late nineteenth century saw the development of a comprehensive park system, “Godfathered” by William Bancroft, a successful Wilmington businessman with a concern for the preservation of open parkland in Wilmington who was influenced by the work of Frederick Law Olmsted. Rockford Park and Brandywine Park owe their creation to his generous donation of land and efforts.

Just as it is with researching the history of one’s historic home, it’s equally fun to find that your furniture has a particular history and in this case, I was fortunate that a clue was left behind for me to learn it.

If you don’t hear from me for days it is because my 1 year old Gateway desktop computer has just died and is in need of an OS repair. I had a photo of the bed itself but the desktop died before I could add it to this post. Let’s hope I can restore all my files of importance.

I have this picture in my head of Wall Street traders’ flailing arms with tickets in hand and yelling, “Buy, Buy, Buy Hunzinger!” That is about what it feels like with a recent series of Hunzinger purchases that have transpired. I don’t think I’ve seen this much excitement or should I say bewilderment about anything in the Rare Victorian reader community in the past year.

Let’s dissect the recent activity with this past weekend being the pinnacle. Two high-end Hunzinger Renaissance Revival chairs sold for $12,338 and $18,213 at Neal Auction including buyer’s premium. One of the two chairs had significant upholstery challenges and that was the one that went for $12,338 (pictured above).

I would consider this design to be Hunzinger’s most decoratively ambitious while appealing to the widest market relative to the other designs that he produced. The chairs of this style weren’t whimsically designed with lollipop ball and stick elements nor as bereft of decoration yet design-focused as some of his innovative tables.

I think that these chairs are selling high since they would look perfect in a parlor with John Jelliff pieces or any of the other Renaissance Revival style pieces without looking “Hunzinger”. You have to be a certain dedicated collector to buy some of his more “unique” items and I consider myself included in that population.

Recently (January 2nd), one of these same style chairs sold for $4,300 on Ebay. The purchaser of that chair wrote me and was very happy with this past weekend’s results. If I were him, I’d ship my chair to Neal’s for auction.

So here is how I see the Hunzinger market as of this moment (based on auction prices for items sold):

• The Renaissance Revival chairs above are starting at $4,300 and going beyond that. I think the next one sold at a mainstream auction house will point the direction. I don’t see last weekend’s prices as sustainable.

• This diminutive parlor chair above recently sold for $3,800 but I see that one as an anomaly. There are other exceptions such as this one that sold last June somewhere in the $4k range if I remember correctly. That particular chair design is on the rear cover of the Barry Harwood book on Hunzinger. Most of these chairs like the one below sell through in the $1,000 to $2,000 range.

• Duplex spring rockers like the one below are selling in the $400+ range.

• Lollipop chairs and rockers are starting in the $400 range for the more commodity low-back versions. The high-back varieties are in the multiple thousands due to the rarity created by the diversity of designs as well as buyers’ current preference for these versions.

Most of the tables sold as “Hunzinger” are actually mis-attributed Merklen Brothers tables or other makers, so I won’t go into those prices. His “real” parlor tables come up rarely. The flip-top game tables are selling in the $100-$400 range. Other designs by Hunzinger such as metal strap chairs and folding chairs are generally in the low hundreds. Artfact and Terapeak provided my rough figures.

As a Hunzinger collector myself, I like the trend that I’m seeing and only anticipate increased valuation in the future.  To find current Hunzinger items available for sale go to GeorgeHunzinger.com.

I’ve put up for sale a 4-piece bedroom set accented with Birdseye Maple panels. Although it is a nice set, it doesn’t fit the way I would like in the bedroom that I intended to use it in. I nabbed this set due to the Maple wood being a nice departure from the rest of my furniture which is in Rosewood, Walnut, Oak, and Cherry. This set is all original, down to the heavy brass and beveled mirror. Stop by the listing if you have a need for a “new” Victorian bedroom set. In addition, I have a cute 8-legged game table from turn of the century also up for bid.

An update on the leaders in the Forum new posts contest: Peakangus and 1881victorian are neck-and-neck, but it is still anyone’s to win. If you haven’t stopped by the forum and are a Victorian antique lover, this is your place to communicate with other like-minded people.

I’m upping the ante on the contest and adding another book to the prize package. I’m adding a paperback copy of “Victorian Furniture – Our American Heritage” by Kathryn McNerney. It’s a little disturbing to see that the 1999 prices in the book are almost inline with today’s furniture valuations. Yikes. I guess that means that it’s a good time to buy! See you in the forum.

I happened to be perusing an old article from May ‘99 in The Magazine Antiques and noticed that this table at Neal Auction, attributed to Berkey & Gay, is actually in a photo from an 1870 catalog photograph. This table was done by Kilian Brothers and if you happen to have the article, look at figure 2.

I don’t know if others feel this way but I’ve been lamenting for about a year or more about the disappearance of nice parlor tables in the market. It seems that prior to that, I could find nice tables at my local auction and shops that I frequent, but the “good ones” have disappeared and tend to only be appearing in the major auctions.

The table above will get sold today as lot “0140″ and more pictures and details can be found here. You can read a little bit more about Kilian Brothers in an old post here.