Ercol Goldsmith Rocking Chair

You’re right, you’ve seen this chair before! This is the identical rocking chair to the one that we featured a month two back, but whereas we had painted the last chair black, this time we decided to take it back to its original wood. It really wasn’t an easy task, stripping away years worth of enamel paint and varnish, and you can still see remnants of the old paint under the new vanish that we applied (as well as under the seat where we left the paint untouched), but after nearly two days of sanding we had to call it quits! I think it was worth the pain – even though it’s not in mint condition, you can still get a decent idea of how it would have looked when it was first made. According to most sites the frame is made of beech wood, with the seat being made from elm. Most people seem to date the Ercol ‘Goldsmith’ rocking chair to the 1960s, but I think it was probably first produced a few years before that – it appears in the 1956 Ercol catalogue (worth having a flip through, it’s pretty cool!), so it must have been in production by then. We’re having to sell this chair for a fair bit because of the labour and materials involved (you’d be horrified at what we spend on sanding sheets – rip off hardware stores!), but given that they sell for around R3000 in the UK, and R2000 locally, the price isn’t too crazy!

NB: This chair is for sale in Joburg only

Dimensions: 87cm tall x 60cm wide x 70cm deep