THE owner of two special chairs from the 1950s has discovered they’re worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Each was crafted by her father when he worked for famous designer George Nelson.
Nelson was known for his work as a lead designer for the Herman Miller Furniture Company before creating his own studio and is considered by some to be the founder of American modernist furniture design, per Creative Hall of Fame.
Homeware designs from Nelson are still sold by Herman Miller today.
“He designed these chairs, he also designed the steel frame furniture line and other types of furniture for George Nelson,” the owner told Antiques Roadshow appraiser Leigh Keno of her father, John Pyle, during a 2009 episode.
Keno emphasized that many people didn’t know that Nelson was also an architect and that he even had fellow designers like the owner’s father working for him on pieces.
“What happened was the George Nelson name went with the furniture, but the designers themselves rarely got individual credit,” the owner noted.
In front of her were two wooden chairs, with the closest being a “pretzel chair,” according to Keno.
“That name only started in the 1980s — In 1952, when your dad designed both of these chairs, it was called a laminated chair,” the appraiser explained.
“It took 30-some years to call it the pretzel chair.”
PRETZEL RARITY
The pretzel denotation was given because of the chair’s bent and curved back and legs that appear to form a shape reminiscent of the snack.
Keno said there were only around 100 of the pretzel chairs ever made, and they didn’t come out until five years after they were designed in 1957.
The owner said he father told her the company struggled figuring out how to mass-produce the curves in the pretzel chair for customers.
“They’re quite rare,” Keno said.
Although, it was the second chair, a prototype design, that caught the appraiser’s eye more.
“Now this chair, and the cool thing about this — I was so excited to see it — it is a prototype, this is a sample chair your dad made,” Keno confirmed.
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PROTOTYPE PAYOFF
On the seat of the chair were unfinished screw holes for a seat cushion and raw sanded wood that lacked the varnish present on finished versions.
Similar to the pretzel chair, Keno identified that the chair was made of birchwood, but it had walnut tips on the back, something different.
The unfinished aspect of the prototype made it considerably valuable among collectors.
“There are certain people in the field that only collect prototypes,” the appraiser said excitedly.
Considering everything the owner had, Keno evaluated the finished pretzel chair to be worth anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000 at auction.
While the evaluation seemed almost expected for the owner, the prototype’s worth left her shocked at $15,000.
That’s a combined potential value of $19,000.
Antiques Roadshow revealed that in 2024, that estimate would increase to about $22,000.
