Heavy Wooden Dresser

[debodun]

A local woman has been asking me to sell her this dresser for quite some time. It's dark wood - maybe walnut or mahogany. The drawers part is 45" long, 33" tall and 19.5" deep. The mirror is 34.5" wide and 32.5" tall. What would be a reasonable price for it?

[ghopper1924]

A mahogany dresser ca. 1945, value would be about $150-$250 depending on where and how it's being sold.

[debodun]

Thanks for the quick reply.

[mart]

Yep !!  Same as my mother had from early 50`s !!  Yours looks a shade earlier than hers !!

[frogpatch]

These Sheraton Style dressers from the 40s and 50s are very common where I live and generally bring around 75.00 realistically. If they are a real quality piece from a fine furniture maker, they will bring considerably more.
This one looks fairly typical. It is a good thing that the top was protected from all those bottles. The glass adds a little value too.

[ghopper1924]

Yeah,  I don't see anything exceptional about this dresser. I might have to revise my estimate down to $100 or so.

[mart]

In that area is the same as it would bring here !!

[bigwull]

here in the UK...to be more precise..in Scotland..it might fetch...£40/£50...

[KC]

Big Note here! It also depends on what it looks like UNDER all the collections on top.  Most ended up with stains from perfumes, etc.

In my neck-of-the-woods  $75 - $125 in good to great shape!

[debodun]

Hard to believe this nice dresser is worth so little these days. I think my parents paid $200 for it at the auction in 1976. That would be over $800 in today's money.

[sapphire]

My parents had what could have been the matching pieces, bought around 1942. In '66 they did a 'trade' at a furniture store......the four poster bed from the set in exchange for a 'three room grouping' for my sister's apartment. When my mother passed away about 15 years ago I sold the vanity with mirror and stool, five drawer man's dresser and the bedside table, in near mint condition, to a neighbor for $250 (they refinished a perfectly good set ). Sad to think how the values of 'real' furniture has so diminished.

[ghopper1924]

There was so much of the Colonial revival "Duncan Phyfe/Sheraton" furniture made in the 1940s and 50s that it still floods the market, thus lowering its value. 

Too bad, because like you say, this is "real" furniture, made of solid wood (often mahogany) with dovetail drawer construction. Now it's lost value to the point that it's barely worth messing with.

I wonder what will happen when the "retro" 1960s-70s bubble bursts, and that furniture is seen for the discardable, souless, mass-produced stuff that it (generally) is. Maybe the Phyfe/Sheraton revival pieces will get back some of their value, since they are in fact very well made pieces.

 

[KC]

I agree it is so sad.  However, people like Wullie (who burn loads of furniture for heating) will eventually help the values of the furniture left over...to go up! 

[bigwull]

I,m doing my bit...