Mario Sabo Lounge Chair, ca. 1968
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GUEST:
My husband, years ago, loves modern furniture, and I saw this in a magazine and I said, "That's the one I want for my husband's birthday." So I wrote the company. I asked how much it would be, and they wrote back and they said, "It's about $1,000."
APPRAISER:
$1,000, and this was what year?
GUEST:
This is 1968, '67, something like that.
APPRAISER:
That's quite a lot of money for a piece of furniture.
GUEST:
That was a lot of money. My husband was in the Army, and we moved to the Pentagon and we went to a store, and lo and behold, here was the chair.
APPRAISER:
Same chair, same color, white?
GUEST:
Yes, with the orange and everything. It was only $250.
APPRAISER:
$250.
GUEST:
This was in 1972, and we'd just bought a house and we couldn't afford that, so we said goodbye to the chair. Well, the next year, same store, went in there, there was one left, and it was $50. My husband and I went and bought it.
APPRAISER:
You're glad you waited, right?
GUEST:
I'm glad we waited. It just kept going down. We have loved this chair ever since. It's fiberglass, I know, but I really don't know much else about it.
APPRAISER:
So when I first saw this sitting here, you rolled this in on a cart, I...
GUEST:
As we came through the lines, everybody got excited about it.
APPRAISER:
Yes, I was just wowed because it's a primal egg-shape, right? I think of even Play-Doh, it's so moldable, because plastic has those qualities.
GUEST:
Very comfortable, unless you try to get out of it.
APPRAISER:
This chair really represents in an iconic way the futuristic designs that came out in about 1966 or '67, right there at the cutting edge. This would have been the most avant-garde furniture you could buy anywhere. So you were very ahead of your time, and so was your husband.
GUEST:
My husband was like that.
APPRAISER:
This is called fiberglass and plastic foam-covered, injected plastic furniture. It's very much coveted today by collectors.
GUEST:
Oh, that's good. I didn't know that. They can't have it, but that's good.
APPRAISER:
This chair, with its pierced sides and the globular form, was actually made by an Italian maker, and his work doesn't come up much on the marketplace, and it's not signed.
GUEST:
No, but I know you looked for it.
APPRAISER:
I looked for the "Made in Italy" stamp, which most of them have, and it's not there. His name was Mario Sabo, and he designed furniture for some of the most luxurious and expensive homes throughout the world. So you really bought an amazing piece of furniture here.
GUEST:
Really?
APPRAISER:
What's really important is the color combinations. He made these in purple, which is not that saleable. This color, the white with this wonderful, almost like a tangerine orange, which is original, is just the best color combination. People try to replace these seats and it's never the same. You've taken great care of it. We would put today an auction estimate on this chair of $3,000 to $4,000.
GUEST:
(gasps) Oh, my goodness! I can't believe it, I can't believe that.
Appraisal Details
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