I.H. Wisler and Sons Dowel Chair

[KC]

Yep...great digging for patent information.

As for the chair selling for big bucks...                                                         (note:  speechless in my typing!)

[jacon4]

actually, not really great digging, took all of about 30 seconds. I just googled windsor with wire supports or some such and BAM! there it was.
I liked my story of hubby being ordered outa the house with one of these guys because it really seems like that was a very real possibility! still chuckling over it

[KC]

I could see my grandmother doing that with my granddaddy.  In fact, when they passed we got lots of furniture out of the barn!

[jacon4]

lol, dead funny. On a more serious note, furniture has been marketed for strength in the past, John Henry Belter, a rather famous furniture maker during victorian era reportedly threw some of his chairs out a second or third story window of his showroom to prove how strong they were. He was building furniture with a laminated/plywood type construction and wanted to show how strong it was i guess.

[mart]

So I was not to far off the wall ?? It was part of the original construction ??

[jacon4]

yep, original 1930-1940s construction. It was an idea whose time never came kinda thing.

[cogar]

[KC]

These holes are what I questioned in a reply above cogar.  Thanks for blowing that up!

Wonder if the wire was put through this a one point (are the holes all the way through?)  or were there nails/screws to hold the wire at one point?

[cogar]

KC, .... my opinion is, .... there is no logical reason for the “chairmaker” to put that “tension” wire on the back of that chair. Therefore I have to assume it was installed by an “owner” of the chair and was probably (crudely) “replaced” one or more times.

If it had been installed by the “chairmaker” then me thinks it would have been a “solid” wire (not stranded) and it would have been affixed to the underside of the “back” brace or via “holes” up through to the topside of the “back” brace

And secondly, given the “wear” pattern on the backside of the “back” brace me thinks the “owner” had a habit of ….. “leaning” back on it …. on its back 2 legs … with the backside of the “back” brace against a wall …… which would have put extreme “stress” on the spindle joints in the seat causing them to “pull apart” ….. and thus the reason for the added “tension” wire.

Similar “stress” is why “tension” wires are installed between the legs of a chair ... because of people's habit of "scooting" across the floor while seated in them.

Chairs that were made with a “ball” end on the ends of the spindles did not require a “tension” wire.