18th Century Rocking Chairs

So talking about collecting 18th century chair I want to show you a couple of examples of early country style rockers, New England style. Here's two great examples; you can see the turnings are a little different this turning is compared to this, very typical of that period you can see the typical pegging that's going on here. Here we have four slats in the same thing with this one we have four slats but we also have a different type of a slat with an arch in the center here. This is two different examples the both arms are turned outward you can see the construction here one goes through the center of the chair right here. The rail goes right down through and it attaches to the spindle on the rocker itself and here you see where the pieces are put on the outside of the rockers. So two different examples of the way of the construction of these rockers you can see where they are also made from different types of woods. You can see two different examples of a splint seat and a rush seat which is not unusual for either one and when we go down you can also see two different examples of rockers. This one has shaker style construction but I believe this rail has been replaced at a later time. But this is an interesting construction that they put onto this rocker it's a different totally different wood this where as if you look at this rocker you can see it has, this to me is original you can see it had a lot of wear underneath here from the rocker. Something to look for when you're buying these rockers, these two rockers are really nice examples of I can remember the first rocker I bought years and years ago. From an older gentlemen who was a collector of 18th century and he advised me these what he called hoop skirts, these were hoop skirts rockers and they were for woman during the 1700s that they would have their big puffy wire hoop skirts on. They would try to sit in these chairs and what they could do is lift the hoop over the chair arm cause the arm set back into the chair. So that's one other way that people refer to these chairs as hoop skirts rockers, so two nice examples of early 18th century rockers with different types of seat, different types of construction, and different types of wood so these are just a few examples for you to look for when looking at 18th century rockers.