In the past 40 years, I come across just about every imaginable shape bed you can think of. I can remember the first time I saw French Campaign iron beds and how fascinated I was with the practicality of it’s use when the armies of Europe went on “conquering” campaigns.
But the bed that is in this pictures is about as unique and collectible as they come. This is the only complete folding bed I’ve ever seen or even heard of. It must have been a prototype. That didn’t quite meet up to the expectations or sales the foundry intended for it. If an metal bed was not received well when it was introduced to the public…… it was immediately discontinued. There was very little “tweaking” to the design or shape. Beds lived and died on the popularity the public assigned them.
I can only believe this “folding”metal bed never found an audience because it really didn’t serve the purpose it was intended to.
Some style beds were so popular that different small independently owned foundries would sometimes steal a popular model bed and duplicate it………sometimes using the exact same shape but with different iron casting they would pour in their foundries.
