I didn't buy it, it turned out to be a reproduction! This actually turned out to be a VERY good learning experience for me.
First off, the family selling it had no idea it was a repro, they were selling it for their mother and thought it was antique. But the alarm bells started going off as soon as I saw it. I was kinda confused at first, because it had the basic hallmarks of the older gooseneck rockers, with the raised crest, the skirt at the front of the seat, all of that looked good, but there was none of the nice mellow glow that you get with old wood, so I thought it had been refinished.
But then I looked at the carving quality of the goose heads, and it was really crude when compared to the one we had posted on this forum. On that one, the bills of the geese were beautifully carved and they imitated nature, looking like the bills of real geese. On the repro chair, the carving was crude, and the bills were bulbous, rather than dipping up to a ridge in the center like a real goose.
On the back of the chair the wood looked even newer, and when I flipped it over (I've learned the hard way never to buy any antique without flipping it over to look at the construction, LOL!) I saw modern-looking manufactured Phillips head screws holding the rockers to the chair and on the bottom of the chair were tags, which at first I thought might have been put on by the upholsterer when it was reupholstered, until I saw that it was a manufacturers tag, that said "Kimball Reproductions" which confirmed what I suspected.
It was a very nice reproduction and certainly worth $35 bucks, but not an antique. I also do not think the wood was mahogany. It didn't have that nice deep red tone. It looked more like oak. So the my quest for a gooseneck rocker goes on!
