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…
Here is a photo of an antique iron bed we converted from it’s original antique double size, to todays modern king size.
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…
Yea…..well people in hell want ice water to. Only kidding…..but that’s about how scarce a matching set of twin size iron beds are