Old Hickory Chair

Old Hickory furniture company has been in business since 1892 in Martinsville, Indiana. Simple, easy to identify and virtually indestructible this furniture is found both indoors and out. This piece came out of a local auction and is an example of a "new" chair. Although my first preference is to purchase older pieces of Old Hickory, sometimes you have to take what you can get. For anyone seeing this type of furniture for the first time the old and new pieces have virtually the same look. Antique pristine Old Hickory that has been used only indoors will carry hefty prices. If this chair were a vintage piece from the early 1900's with the original woven seats you could expect to pay $300 or more for it. A weathered chair from the same period would bring $150.

This chair would bring around $75.00. If this chair had the woven seat the price would increase to around $125.00. Keep an eye out for these at garage sales and auctions. The chairs will be marked with either a metal tag or they will have a burned in mark. These marks can typically be found on the legs or stretchers. Old Hickory produced a wide variety of items so make sure that whenever you see furnishings with hickory as the primary wood you check for the markings.