August 12, 20232 yr Popular Post Interesting post by Paul Sellers, cut and paste here for those that don't do YouTube Seems like IKEA before IKEA Michael Thonet gave us the first mass-produced piece of furniture in his No 14 Bistro chair. He first announced it as a production model in 1859 and 50 million were sold between then and 1930. In terms of weight-to-strength ratio, this chair has known no equal. Its weight is about half that of 95% of any other chair and it's this that makes the chair so iconic as 'the cafe' chair. So I sit on my Thonet in Blackwell's bookshop here in Oxford now to write knowing that not a single woodworking joint was used and that the designer relied on minimising the need of any kind of skilled work staff. The parts simply bolt and screw together and a single chair is made in under ten minutes of human labour time. Some designs are worth celebrating. This is the one I would choose as the ultimate mass-made chair design and, yes, I find it to be a wonderful work chair. I can lean back in it, sit forward, scoot it, rock on it and even stand on it if I want to. The greatest savings in the chair were in warehouse storage and distribution as they could be sent out unassembled and required only ten screws and two nuts and bolts to be installed by unskilled staff. This is not the #14 type but the #14 is still being made today by Grebruder Thonet in Vienna. Thonet originally had his factory in a part of what was Austria and is now known as Moravia.
August 12, 20232 yr Popular Post They look like the chairs that were in a lot of "malt shops" in the late 50's
August 14, 20232 yr Famous for the use of steam bent parts, according to what was likely one or two lectures I endured during college in the required Furniture History class. Sadly that class is no longer taught, having yielded to the need for a computer applications course. Some of the content got rolled into the History of Interior Architecture class that is still taught. 4D
August 15, 20232 yr We had a set (of four) of this type chair. IIRC, bought from an auction at a VFW (or similar) post and came with a table. They were well used, and we used them for probably close to 15 years before "upgrading". And the chairs were still in good usable condition when we traded up.
August 24, 20232 yr Author Man, it's like doing a search on something and then keep seeing in your ads. Saw a reproduction chair this morning at the furniture bank. Just like these.
August 24, 20232 yr 4 minutes ago, kmealy said: Man, it's like doing a search on something and then keep seeing in your ads. Saw a reproduction chair this morning at the furniture bank. Just like these. Big brother is watching you
August 24, 20232 yr Author 56 minutes ago, lew said: Big brother is watching you 56 minutes ago, lew said: Big brother is watching you Yes, his name is Google
August 24, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, kmealy said: Yes, his name is Google If Google is a big brother, does that mean it's a he and there's a family of googles?
August 25, 20232 yr The family names include Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Ecosia, Baidu, and a few others I see that are used to find my blog posts. 4D
August 27, 20232 yr On 8/24/2023 at 5:32 PM, Gene Howe said: If Google is a big brother, does that mean it's a he and there's a family of googles? Would that be a gaggle of googles?
August 27, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, Grandpadave52 said: Would that be a gaggle of googles? Only if Google owns them all, which I doubt. That would be too sneaky as then all the add revenue would be theirs. Wouldn't surprise me if all the competitors were founded by former Google employees though.
August 28, 20232 yr On 8/25/2023 at 7:47 PM, 4DThinker said: The family names include Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, Ecosia, Baidu, and a few others I see that are used to find my blog posts. 4D I use Startpage for a search engine, it uses all of the above but sends out your query to them anonymously. I have had mixed results but better than having everything you looked at oogled by google.
September 14, 20232 yr Author Popular Post One showed up at the furniture bank last week. I was talking to one of the other guys today and mentioned the flat-packed, easy to assemble, "IKEA before IKEA" comment. He turned it over and low and behold, this red one is an IKEA chair.
September 15, 20232 yr Popular Post I brought two home from my parents home because I liked them. Never would have guessed they were something special. These are originals. They have square headed lag screws as the hardware. Not the original finish. Dad put some type of clear coating on them and added self leveling feet to them. I keep them in the garage and take them out to the patio as needed.
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