American Made Beds vs British Made
To the untrained eye…..the construction of one iron bed is just as good as another.

To the untrained eye…..the construction of one iron bed is just as good as another.
Back in the early 1800’s the more affluent people in this country sought out the beauty of shinny brass beds.
I’m often asked why some style iron beds are more plentiful than others? Sounds like a simple enough question, and should have a rather uncomplicated answer………. not the case. There are a couple of things that can effect how prolific one particular style bed is. One of those things is the size of the foundry…
The majority of the antique iron beds that were being made back in the early to mid 1800’s were Victorian style designs with beautiful open scrolls and smooth curved lines. So to come across a unique style bed that was made at the same time, but looked as though it was a bed that had…
So it would stand to reason that a foundry wouldn’t just make iron beds, back in the 1800’s. If the bed market got soft they had to have other things that they could produce with the foundries they had. If one month was slow with iron beds…. maybe the easiest and fastest thing to produce…
If you follow history you probably are aware that iron beds were not as popular in the west in the 1800’s as they were east of the Mississippi. Transporting beds to the west back in the 1800’s was not easy. It was costly, time consuming and difficult to transport large heavy items. People moving west…
I’ve yet to encounter an iron bed that once converted to a canopy doesn’t look more impressive and regal. It’s a funny thing, but back in the 1800’s the people that were producing iron beds in this country didn’t make canopies. That was something only coming out of Europe. The British were big into canopies…
It’s very easy to tell the popularity and collectability of an item by the number of reproduction of that item you see in the market place.
Few iron beds have the bells and whistles this one does. Made by the E. Simmons Co., that today makes a top line of mattresses. Iron beds of that time were in strong competition with the more expensive brass bed market.
The Two Tone Crackle finish is one that gives you an original finish for your iron bed that was being done by the manufacturer nearly 200 years ago.