GUEST: It's been in our family for about 50 some-odd years. It was given to our mother by a couple that received it as a wedding gift back in 1926. I think it's from the Heywood Morrill Company out of Chicago. I'm not sure exactly what era it was in.
APPRAISER: It's a great chair, and it's actually from the Heywood-Wakefield Company, which was one of the most prominent furniture manufactories in the U.S. at the turn of the century. Lots of times, these high-style chairs, even though they're really elaborately designed, don't have a label, and so they're always attributed to one manufacturer or another. What makes this special is that it does retain the label, almost the entire label, and it's right here on the inside. It has minor losses, but the fact that it does have its label allows us to know who made it, probably date it based on the color of the label because Heywood-Wakefield did use different colored labels from time to time, and it'd get it back to the beginning of the 20th century.
GUEST: Wonderful.
APPRAISER: And we usually don't discuss Victorian rocking chairs because particularly in wicker, that market's been decimated by all the examples imported from the Far East, but when it comes to wicker or rattan rocking chairs, this is really a crown jewel. It's got all the bells and whistles, from this elaborately scrolled crest to the contrasting interwoven lattice back and then these other flourishes on the stiles, on the arms, and at the top of the front legs. If this were like a Windsor chair that it had its paint washed away, it would be about a $100 chair. But because it has its label, it's more in the $800 to $1,200 for auction estimates. And if you had to find it in an antique shop, you'd probably be looking at something even higher than that.
GUEST: Wonderful! Good to know.
