I’ve been in the antique iron bed business for close to 40 years. I’ve never lost the excitement I get at finding unique ones that I’ve never seen before . The longer I’m in the business I realize how many incredible designs must have been made for someone like me, who has seen and sold literally thousands over the years, to still come across beds I’ve never seen. Some styles were obviously more prolific than others. For the simple reason some of the foundries that made beds, were larger and turned out more in a day than the sma
ll independently owned foundries would in a year. It’s also rather funny that some of the small independently owned foundries would actually buy competitors beds from the larger corporate foundries and then duplicate them, by taking molds of the castings and maybe just changing them a little bit.
There is one particularly bed with a very pleasing design, we refer to as the “Tulip”. Over the years I’ve come across no fewer than four distinct “Tulip” beds, with uniquely different side rail hitches, which is a distinction all foundries had their own molds for. So corporate espionage is not just a modern day phenomenon ………… it’s something that’s been around ever since man couldn’t come up with his own good original idea and decided to steal someone who could.
My reason for writing this blog was actually to thank all my customers who continue to be considerate enough to email me photo’s of the beds we sell them, after they’re set up and dressed appropriately.
The iron beds in these two photo’s come to me from a very good customer in Lakeland Florida. She selected a beautiful bed from us and then we did one of our more popular custom antique “Two Tone Crackle” finishes on it. From the design and colors of the room it’s set up in, she really did a great job in working both the style of bed and colors with the surroundings. Great job………..
And thank you again for the photo’s. It made my day.
For the hundreds, I should say thousands of customers that we’ve sold iron beds to…….. if you get the time, we’d love to see what your bed looks like in it’s new home. Send us a photo.
I hope you’ve found this blog informative . I invite you to revisit my website
to answer any and all questions you might have about antique iron beds.
I also invite you to take a look at our company Face Book page for multiple photo albums on Custom Finishes, Canopy Conversions and a comprehensive “Before & After” King Conversions album.
