Description
SOLD to Gio in the first week this set was listed for much more than the OFFERS OVER price!!! We have another 6 Rufenacht dining chairs in long-term storage- enquire if you have interest in 6 Rufenacht chairs.
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OFFERS OVER $2,500 for all 6 chairs. OFFERS OVER $3,200 for the dining table AND 6 matching chairs will take precedence over offers for just the chairs. (The glass-top for this table can easily be changed to a rectangle to fit your space better if desired.) If a VERY strong offer comes in early, this suite will be quickly sold and not seen again! (We aim to price items to sell in the first week of being listed. We’ve had many enquiries for this design since our last suite was listed- it sold in 3 days for more than this reserve price.) This suite is being sold by a regular iNVISeDGE seller in ADELAIDE. I travelled to Adelaide and personally photographed these chairs so have carefully inspected every chair and given this suite the iNVISeDGE stamp of approval. This is a late-1970’s suite, a great example of this design AND in amazing ORIGINAL condition too!
This suite can easily be transported Australia-wide. Cost of moving 6 chairs to Melbourne would be about $200 as an example of interstate freight cost.
Joe Rufenacht dining chairs have now become THE MOST sought-after dining chair in Australia! Ozzie ozzie ozzie oi oi oi !! We get MORE enquiries for this AUSTRALIAN-MADE design than for ANY other dining chair design, even more than the famous Parker Spadeback chair from the early 1960’s. The reason for this is very simple- these chairs are WAY better than any chair Parker ever did! (There’s no comparison to be honest.) The comfort of this design is ABSOLUTELY SUBLIME! These are beautiful to sit in- you can have leisurely dinner parties in these chairs and relax in them for HOURS! I now (finally!) own 6 Rufenacht dining chairs myself- I work at the dining table most days and usually sit in a Rufenacht dining chair for 8-10 hours- day in, day out. I LOVE MY CHAIRS! I have a bad back and this design is the MOST comfortable DINING chair I’ve EVER sat in. Plus the vintage AUSTRALIAN-MADE Howe leather is PURE LUXURY. This vintage leather is beautiful to touch- the AUSTRALIAN-MADE cushioning is also just perfection. You want the perfect dining chair- this is it in my opinion!
I unfortunately couldn’t afford this design a few years back (when they were much easier to get) so I recently paid FULL RETAIL VALUE to keep a set of these chairs for myself. Values are going up quickly and I didn’t want to have to buy them in the future (I don’t really need them now- I have 4 of my set in storage because I’m currently based in a tiny studio apartment). I feared that in a few years time I wouldn’t be able to afford a set of 6 for myself! These chairs are similar to Tessa T21 swivel chairs- anyone who’s ever experienced this design in the flesh wants them.
I love the colours of this suite too. Off-white is minimalist and timeless (white always looks “modern and fresh”). This allows the stunning frame to take focus. The upholstery settles into the background- except when you feel the leather- this VINTAGE leather (the suite is late-1970’s) is some of the best QUALITY leather ever made- still soft and supple after 40+ years of use. There is now a vintage Howe Leather brochure on the iNVISeDGE website. Type “Howe Leather Brochure” into our SEARCH box above to read this brochure. This brochure outlines the reasons why FULL-GRAIN leather is far superior to every other leather on the market and “howe” to look after full-grain leather so it will last you another 40 years or more!
The leather is off-white (fresh and modern). It’s not a “typical colour” for Rufenacht chairs. I LOVE this design in white and would buy these too chairs if I had the money. I would have no problems having 12 of these chairs!
Provenance and Background Info
(This part of the description was written in 2015 but updated in 2021.)
A stunning set of SIX leather dining chairs by highly acclaimed South Australian furniture designer and manufacturer Joe Rufenacht. In my opinion, these are up in the top 3 best dining chairs I’ve sold in the 20 years I’ve been in this business. The other two designs (from my top 3) sold for $4500 and $5000 FOR SIX chairs. I believe Rufenacht chairs are way undervalued at the moment. In my opinion, it is currently the best dining chair you can INVEST in (the value of these chairs WILL continue to go up in value in the future).
There was a time in the late-1970’s when Rufenacht had won more furniture design awards than anybody else in this country. Why? you may ask when virtually no-one has ever heard him. Because Rufenacht was a stickler for quality- he was fastidious about furniture. The chairs on offer here were put through 40 prototypes! … Now let’s just ponder that for a moment. Rufenacht created a chair from scratch- tested it, had other people test it, mulled over it for some time, made adjustments, went back and made another chair from scratch, tested it … yadda yadda. He did this 40 times for this design! It is no wonder Rufenacht (and not Parker) kept winning design awards. His work must have had huge price tags on it in its day because these days I rarely find it (even though everyone wants it)! If these sell for anything under $525 a chair the buyer has nabbed a no-brainer INVESTMENT.
If we look at the Falcon chair by Vatne Mobler of Norway (a lounge chair done at the same time in the 1970’s with a very similar design) you’ll see they were selling in Australia for about $900-$1000 a chair around 2003. These days they fetch $2400 EACH in most mid-century shops. This design by Rufenacht could have been inspired by the Falcon chair but he’s adapted the Falcon to be used as a dining chair. So Falcon chairs are worth around $2400 each for a lounge chair- let’s say that if Vatne Mobler made dining chairs (which they NEVER did) they would have to be worth about $7500 for 6 AT LEAST. To me the investment appeal of these chairs can’t be any more obvious.
The investment appeal box is ticked, COMFORT is well and truly ticked (they are the most comfortable dining chairs I’ve ever sat in) which leaves us with quality and value for money.
After many modern pieces end up as landfill this 40+ year old set of chairs IN FULLY ORIGINAL CONDITION will be passed onto another owner and then yet another generation. It was said on the ABC in 2006 that Rufenacht’s furniture will be the antiques of tomorrow and after being in this business for almost 20 years I agree. JR furniture (Rufenacht’s company) closed its doors in 2006 unable to compete with Chinese imports because JR items are of a quality that’s barely ever seen. As an example of the quality, Rufenacht only used Howe Leather. I believe Howe Leather from the 1970’s and 1980’s is the best leather ever made. I have sold vintage Italian leather and the rest … in my eyes the leather on these chairs is as good as the absolute best you can get (if not better). Look at this leather after about 40 years of use- incredible! Another indicator of the quality on offer here is the fact that the full-sling back is also fully upholstered in LEATHER- most, if not all chairs in this style have exposed canvas backs. Exposed canvas is obviously cheaper to make and can have problems. It can fade and mark easily (particularly if you try and clean off a dirty mark). Canvas edges fray and I’ve also sometimes seen the canvas seats ripped. None of this can happen with these dining chairs.
Chairs like this are the reason I do this for a job. These chairs should inspire us all and show us all the way forward. Most modern furniture is made with little respect for the earth’s resources and even less for the workers who make them (most are the equivalent of modern-day slaves in my opinion). If these chairs were made today in Australia I would still promote them but the fact they’re vintage (and no longer in production) makes them even more special. When you INVEST in items such as this there’s no better way to reduce landfill and your carbon footprint. If these chairs are used with some sense, there’s no reason why they won’t last another 40 years and then another 40 and then another, becoming more valued each time they are passed onto a new set of hands and then an entirely new generation.
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