FYI, The table from the previous post is now sold. It only took about 2 hours.

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.

The highly distorted image above is disguising the device that produces the beautiful sound that you will hear when you play the audio below. If you have a guess as to what type of device it is, post your guess into the comments section below. I will reveal the device tomorrow and provide a link to it’s listing with clear pictures. If you don’t see a audio player below, click on this link to hear the music, but be sure your speakers are on first.

I’m back from Key West and I had an eventful week including a good share of Victorian sightseeing while I was there. It’s good to be back and I’m ready to get back into the Rare Victorian and digging into the minutiae of fine Victorian Furniture. I have to do a bit of work for the day job today even though I’m on vacation for another week, but I wanted to send out a quick note about Rare Victorian being profiled in the Hall Of Fame for Collector’s Weekly.

Collector’s Weekly is an all-encompassing collector’s site covering pretty much any category of collecting that you could imagine. Rare Victorian has been recently profiled in their Hall of Fame. I hope that over time (the site appears to be relatively new) they will expand their content to include informative articles (as the “Weekly” name implies). Right now the content is a bit light and is comprised mostly quick blurbs, reference links, profiles of other sites, and Ebay Affiliate links. I know full well how it takes time to develop a site to it’s full potential. Rare Victorian is only a fraction of what I’d like it to be today, but these things take time. Thanks again to Collector’s Weekly for inclusion in the Hall of Fame.

Congratulations are in order for Jason Flatt (you may have seen him as “1881Victorian” in the forum) who was the winner of the Century of Revivals giveaway. Thanks go out to all of you who registered to participate and I will be giving away more Victorian furniture-oriented items away in the future. Maybe some day this site can afford to give away furniture! We’ll just have to find a nice dealer out there who will want some extra exposure.