In 1995 I was approached by a publicist who had asked me to select an iron bed for a photo shot on the beach for her client, who had just been nominated for and Academy Award. She had wanted the bed to have a white chipped finish, because her client was going to be wearing…
Many years ago I went against my better judgment and allowed a client to talk me into converting a very thin gauge antique iron bed into a modern king size. Because additional tubing needs to be welded into the width of the interior design, the tubing going across the top of the bed should always…
Close to thirty years ago I was just getting started in the iron bed business. At that time I was living Washington DC, going to school at George Washington Univ. and doing all my antique buying within a comfortable “one days” drive throughout Pennsylvania, W. Virginia, and Ohio and a little in Maryland and Virginia.…
This one has a rather colorful past, if we’re to believe the “picker” we got it from. He canvases the New Orleans area and said that it came out of the red light district over 175 years ago, and had been handed down through the family of the madam that supposedly owned and operated the…
So why, you ask, would anyone in there right mind paint an antique iron bed “barn red”. Over the years of dealing in iron beds I’ve come across “hundreds” of them that had been painted a very distinctive “barn red”. But then I’ve also come across a number or iron beds that were painted white,…
One of the many determining factors that go in to the collectibility and value of an antique iron bed is the size of the tubing that goes around the perimeter of a bed frame and specifically across the top. Probably as high as 90% of all iron beds are made with 1″ thick wall tubing…
Over thirty years ago I started buying and selling iron beds iin the Washington DC area where I lived and went to school.
When a very light gauge iron bed is converted to a canopy it becomes so much more impressive than when it was just a simple bed with head and footboard in their natural configuration.If you go one step further and make the top canopy poles curved up to a central casting, a traditional bed all…
Take a look at this iron bed frame. It was made in the Pittsburgh Pa. back in the mid 1800’s. Yet it’s definite “Deco” design would not come into existence until it was introduced in Paris France in the 1920’s.
Many years ago, after opening my store in Santa Monica Ca., I had the distinct pleasure of selling the first of many subsequent iron beds to the one and only “Boss”, Bruce Springsteen. He and his wife Patti wondered into my store one afternoon and proceeded to select one of the best antique iron beds…