Treasures! - More Danish Stuff

Super excited about this great find on Etsy. It may not look like much to most people, but this Dansk rosewood salad or bread server (on the left) designed by Jens Quistgaard, is extremely rare. Anything in rosewood by Dansk is rare. The server came with the teak spoon and fork pictured too, and they’re cute!

You may wonder why the label says JHQ-Malaysia.... Well, JHQ stands for Jens Harald Quistgaard, and many Dansk Pieces for the American market were manufactured in Asia; mainly Thailand and Malaysia.

The fact that the server is made from rosewood, is probably why it’s in such great condition still. Brazilian Rosewood is a beautiful, hard and durable wood, with dramatic grain and a brilliant, saturated color. You are able to polish Brazilian Rosewood to a much glossier surface due to its being less porous.

Brazilian Rosewood was very popular for furniture and household items in the 60’s, but since then has become increasingly rare due to there being a lot of confusing and complicated rules on its import and endangered species status. Indian Rosewood, which is not considered endangered, is more often used now.

You may remember another recent post was also about Dansk and Jens Quistgaard. It’s becoming a bit of an obsession for me, so you’ll hopefully be seeing pieces in this vein often!

Treasures! - Danish Stuff

So excited to find this salt and pepper shaker and mill! It's a really nice example of one of the pepper mills designed by the celebrated danish modern designer, Jens Quistgaard. Among the many, many beautiful things designed by Quistgaard, were the extensive line of wood (primarily teak) kitchen items designed for Dansk (a company he helped create). Quistgaard designed an estimated 70 mills for Dansk.

This is a great little book about them.
http://www.danishpepper.com/dansk_pepper_book.html

Until very recently, I also had the mill on the far right of the book cover. It's gotten so hard to find these pieces, and the ones that come up are so expensive, that I bit the bullet and sold it on EBay. I'm kicking my self a little bit now....but there's always hope in the treasure hunt!

Project 1: Let's rewire a lamp!

The Background:

I found this great lamp on Ebay, and fell completely in love with it. While doing some research, I found another auction selling a pair of the exact same lamps, and gobbled those up as well! The lamps are primarily carved Italian alabaster, with teak wood details at the top and mid-base. I will probably do an entire entry on alabaster alone (Love it). The addition of teak in the lamp design clearly marks them as mid-century, if the design didn’t give it away already. 

That’s actually a good general rule of thumb. When you’re looking at a thrift store piece of furniture and it’s made of teak or includes teak, it’s probably Danish Modern or at least Danish Modern inspired. One of the great things about vintage teak wood items is the fact that you’re getting pieces made from old-growth teak. The amazing and dramatic grain of the wood is impossible to get in farmed teak pieces. While I would never condone cutting old-growth teak forest down to make bowls, the fact is, buying vintage pieces is very “green”. Reuse & restore, people! There are also a lot of vintage Southeast Asian teak wood products on the thrift market. Some of these can be great: 

• Teak bowls - if they’re solid teak and in good condition, they’re a great addition to the kitchen, and you will pay tons more for new copies.
• Occasionally, interesting boxes or platters - sometimes these have really nice designs and can be great additions to a modern interior.
• Oversized fork and spoon wall decoration - eh...they are everywhere…what were people thinking?

These tend to round out what you normally see around in thrift and resale stores. If you love it, get it. That is the cardinal rule of thrift shopping. 

Well, one of the lamps has started to flicker when I turn it on, which means either the bulb is going to die, or the lamp needs to be rewired. I’ve tried a new bulb and had the same problem, so it’s definitely the wiring. 

NEXT: Lamp disassembly and parts identification.