Brunswick Spectator Chair. ESV?

Brunswick didn't just make pool tables. Brunswick Balke Collender made a lot of fancy bars for drinking establishments. . I restored an early phono in a cabinet made by brunswick, they were into bowling equipment too.
 
you can order that label here:

lots more there too:


I have an old BBC, I keep thinking of making a ball rack or scoreboard or cue rack to go with it.. old ones do come up, but are a bit hard to find , basically I'm thinking of using photos of originals to go by.. the labels would be nice for that.
 
you can order that label here:

lots more there too:


I have an old BBC, I keep thinking of making a ball rack or scoreboard or cue rack to go with it.. old ones do come up, but are a bit hard to find , basically I'm thinking of using photos of originals to go by.. the labels would be nice for that.
You want to make a Ball Rack for your BBC? Read what you wrote again. ;)
 
You want to make a Ball Rack for your BBC? Read what you wrote again. ;)
the script might be wrong for the Brunswick Balke Collender ball rack..

the Brunswick Balke Collender sales literature from around 1915 or so shows one, it has several rows and a way to tip them all to an unlevel position and then they all drop down to the next level and run back and forth until ending up to spill into a basket..
each row has a ball sized hole so they all unload by dropping to the next shelf below.. It looked neat, a bit gimmicky maybe, fun to watch.. I can imagine the old clay balls being chipped.

I'm not sure of the date where the BBC name was dropped to become Brunswick. I think the phono company might have had its own identity somewhat.

I think they way the script is done might be tracked back to certain dates and if one were to build reproductions of accessories then youd want to duplicate the correct logo that fits the era.. likely this is all patented so making them to sell commercially might be a patent infringement, but I doubt if anyone would care much if you made a repro one off for yourself.

I sometimes restore old radios of the era, and if you refinish a cabinet the labels for volume , tone etc are often lost by cabinet refinishing, you can photo them and use a ink jet printer to make reasonable copies, maybe even on waterslide label paper.. the ones sold commercially might be a bit more "gold" but you can come close enough to make it look fairly believable.

If you owned na old edison, it can be quite valuable so i fit is refinished and new labels applied it will likely look a lot more "restored" , if it were fairly well intact there are ways to repair finishes and try to retain originality. I always take photos of such things before I go stripping a piece and loose the images.

if you started making something and tried selling it commercially then you might get a legal challenge, idont' see many going after a one off or a restoration, this company is selling the labels, mainly for restorations of old phonos.

i restored a beautiful old art neveau phono in a very nice and unusual cabinet. The phono wa slost but I got one in a square oak box and it was the same so I mad it complete. if I had known I'd one day also own a BBC table then I would have retained it becaus it would be fun to have in the same room. I see BBC radios come up now and then here in Canada. I thik some were made here.. maybe in the US as well.. pre-ww2 likely earlyto mid 30's era.
here are links to BBC radio schematics, they give some dates.

fro the existence of schematics one can note that during the depression and stock market crash a number of companies vanished due to bankrupcies so the schematics end at those dates.. prior to WW2 the governments pushed all radio prioducers int the war effort so reatil radios became scarce. after war many designs were more similar and most were of the "all american five" design, wartime meant improvements in tube technology..



there wa also this :
Brunswick Div. Mersman Bros.

they seem to go up into the 40's, this one is from 1940

 
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It absolutely is the same chair.

Look under the seat for further identification.
Except the seat is different and feet are different, they are not close to being the same, I bet the differences are more pronounced in person.
 
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that second pool chair, I can;t ell if it is antique or repro but it seems to reflect the "Stickley" style, its closely related to craftsman style or if you know about the furniture that is inspired by the arts and crafts movement , it is much like that.

That type of furniture is now extremely valuable. I have a pair of armchairs with similar features, they aren't high like that one but they are very robust and about 100 years old.. something I do cherish..

old kitchen chairs and such seem to have almost no value. i have many old chairs that arent; even worth recovering as there is a very weak market..
that one is not too hard to copy but if you look close it looks like everything is square until you realize it is not.. light tapers and slight angles are a part of it's style. you will sometimes see features like pegged joinery, the pegs aren't necessary, it does give it a certain appeal, they present like they will last a few lifetimes and they will.

If I were to take the time to create wooden furniture a chair like that or a set of them for pool would be an awesome and worthwhile project .. likely there are are lots of repros around that are done in similar ways but making a profit as a modern furniture maker means asking more than what you may percieve as "normal" chairs are quie time consuming, every joint in that chair is a mortice and tennon. sure CNC can crank stuff out fast, if you were to set up a production facility..

when original, a lot of such oak furniture was "fumed" they exposed it to ammonia gas which darkened the oak.. nowadays not many will fume oak as the ammonia gas is dangerous. Some restorers do set up a tent to put a pan of it in there ( or release gas) and see the wood darken, things like wipe on stains are easier to use, but they produce a bit different effect.
Many such chairs were stripped of the original finish by people who unknowingly devalued them. Pieces made from quarter sawn oak that was ammonia fumed are quite special and getting harder to find..

there were wars fought where chemical weapons involved exposing people to amonia gas and it resulted in very painful deaths.. swimming pools and such need to have trained staff monitoring, to ensure the gas (used as a refreigerant ) doesn't get loose and kill people.
 
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Except the seat is different and feet are different, they are not close to being the same, I bet the differences are more pronounced in person.
The chair in the OP has the inferior, delaminating plywood seat insert stained while in the photo I posted it is painted black.
And somebody slapped some ill-fitting, generic rubber floor protectors on the legs.
Same stool, down to the placement of the rivets
 
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The chair in the OP has the inferior, delaminating plywood seat insert stained while in the photo I posted it is painted black.
And somebody slapped some ill-fitting, generic rubber floor protectors on the legs.
Same stool, down to the placement of the rivets
For the world of me I don't see how and 90 degree bent steel foot turns into a straight foot with rubber floor protectors. I cant see enough detail to comment accurately on the seat, I refuse to jump to incorrect conclusions.
 
For the world of me I don't see how and 90 degree bent steel foot turns into a straight foot with rubber floor protectors. I cant see enough detail to comment accurately on the seat, I refuse to jump to incorrect conclusions.

Hard to tell, but it looks like the rubber might be a hollow cane tip pushed over the foot. The riveting and design looks extremely similar. I'd guess it's at least made by the same company.
 
For the world of me I don't see how and 90 degree bent steel foot turns into a straight foot with rubber floor protectors. I cant see enough detail to comment accurately on the seat, I refuse to jump to incorrect conclusions.
I think it;s the same chair, I have fairly soft wood floors so could definitely see cutting the metal feet off to install rubber feet. the label was a clever way to upsell it, or maybe he just had the label and thought it would look nice and then it was later thought to be made by Brunswick. the chair might be 40's , guessing. plywood wasn't too common in the 20's , a bit more in the 30's but even then uncommon ,, early plywood, like from the 40's usually had a lot thicker plys than today. in the 40's plywood was used a lot more. My house is 20's. not a scrap of plywood was used. Ive never seen plywood used in a 1930's era chair but there was a lot of mass production furniture then. Most of that was solid wood core with veneer, often thicker veneer than today and usually veneer was done both sides to prevent warpage. In the 40's when people returned from war and there was a boom then there was tons of that waterfall stuff, that was post war. Plywood became more common and mass produced at some point after the war. The metal chair might be considered Art Deco. lots of people like and collect Art Deco stuff. with most things like that the price is so dependent on the venue, an antique store will ask lots, and at a garage sale or auction, a lot less. antique stores have limited space so many are very fussy about what furniture they bring in and need to pretty much double the auction price that they paid.. the overhead is generally high, so space is a concern.


I like that wooden chair, looks comfortable, I dont think its real oak, looks like sort of later a repro using an arts and crafts style and cheaper white wood with a stain on it. still nice though. I don't think the drink holders fit the style. It could have been made fairly recently.
 
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