Just picked this up at an auction on Memorial Day. Again, it was an auction for an old St. Louis family that obviously loved the good stuff. This is walnut with needlepoint fabric; the fabric is not original.
Unusual for a Victorian piece, this one has been stamped with a maker's mark: "Hunzinger/N.Y./PatMarch 30/1869," so that tells us the who, where, and when. Nice to have that! I don't know about the northeastern U.S., but this is the first and only Hunzinger chair I've seen in my part of the Midwest. George Hunzinger was a prolific NYC chair designer and builder, known these days for his radical Victorian-era designs. This one is solid, and though it appears to be a folding chair, it is not. Not terribly comfortable, either, but I didn't expect it to be.
Similar ones on E-Bray are priced at $600-$800, so I'd insure this for $1200. Sound realistic?
