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Charles Rohlfs Mahogany Chair, ca. 1910

Value (2020) | $220,000 Auction
Watch  

GUEST:
My mother found it in my grandmother's house in Dayton, Ohio, back in around the 1960s, when they were settling up their estate.

APPRAISER:
Right.

GUEST:
It was up in the attic. Nobody else knew it was there, and when she brought it down, everyone wanted it. Uh, she had it for the rest of the time, and we have it, and we love it.

APPRAISER:
Do you know who did this chair?

GUEST:
Haven't a clue.

APPRAISER:
Do you have any idea about this chair at all?

GUEST:
I have no idea, I've never seen anything like it, and that's why I brought it here.

APPRAISER:
All right, great, well, let me show you. On the back of the chair, we have a mark, and it's an R with a vertical saw.

GUEST:
Right.

APPRAISER:
That's the maker's mark for a very famous Arts and Crafts maker named Charles Rohlfs.

GUEST:
No kidding.

APPRAISER:
And Charles Rohlfs was a very eccentric man. Unlike a lot of the Arts and Crafts other makers, he worked only in a studio with himself and a few apprentices. Gustav Stickley, a lot of the other people at the same time, had large factories, but Charles Rohlfs worked individually. He made all kinds of unusual things, and he really pushed the boundaries of Arts and Crafts. The whole design is very radical. Most time, Charles Rohlfs worked in oak, quarter-sawn oak, regular straight-grained oak. This chair is mahogany, which makes it very interesting, also. Uh, very rare for Charles Rohlfs to work in mahogany. Also, the style-- it's not very practical-- it was the thought of furniture as sculpture. And this chair, as you can see, really goes a long ways in blurring those boundaries between furniture and art. There is a little bit of damage on this chair. It does not appreciably affect the price. Charles Rohlfs furniture is very rare. And it's absolutely, absolutely sought-after by the best collectors in America. This chair, in mahogany, is worth between $80,000 and $120,000 at auction. GUEST (breathlessly): You're kidding.

APPRAISER:
I am not kidding.

GUEST:
Really?

APPRAISER:
I am not, I am not kidding.

GUEST:
That's unbelievable.

APPRAISER:
Yeah.

GUEST:
Absolutely unbelievable.

APPRAISER:
Congratulations. It's a fantastic chair. There are three or four examples out there that are known, but they're very, very rare. And the other two or three I've seen were in oak. So this is the only one in mahogany we, we know of. There's, like, one to four known in America. You have one of them.

GUEST:
That's absolutely amazing. Don't you think my mother has great taste?

APPRAISER:
She does-- geez, I about fell over when you had that in line. You know?

GUEST:
Are you kidding?

APPRAISER:
I am not.

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Appraisal Details

Appraiser
John Sollo
Furniture
Rago-Wright Auctions
Lambertville, NJ
Update (2020)
$220,000 Auction
Appraised value (2006)
$80,000 Auction – $120,000 Auction
Featured In
Unique Antiques (#1120)
Philadelphia, Hour 2 (#1105)
Vintage Philadelphia 2020 (#2419)
Event
Philadelphia, PA (August 05, 2006)
Category
Furniture
Period
Arts and Crafts
Form
Chair
Material
Mahogany

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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."

Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.

Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.

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