kerewin's whine cellar

It Hurts A Little In My Heart

Before I met my husband I shared a house with a good friend, her husband, and their child. She had great taste in antiques and one day found a wonderful coffee table.

We had lots of room, so a round table, four feet in diameter wasn't any big deal. After I moved out, my friends bought a smaller house and decided to get rid of it. I loved that table and wanted it, so we worked out a little trade. I watched her son a few times while she worked cleaning houses twice a month (I actually watched him for two years, but the first year I did for free and the second year she felt guilty so she gave me some money. It was just a couple months at the end that I worked for free for the table).

I have a pretty small house, but the table is extra cool so we made room for it. A few years back a different friend who sells antiques and works on furniture saw it and said, "Hey, that's a Gibbings, if you ever want to sell it, let me know."

We just moved some furniture around in the house which involved removing two bookshelves in the living room. When those were gone I saw how much extra room we had and looked at the HUGE coffee table and said, "That has to go." Every day after I said that, I reconsidered. Anyway, the thing is huge, our house is small, it really has to go. We invited antique friend over, he just got rid of his shop and didn't have room. He suggested Craigslist.

After that I did a little research and found that a TH Robsjohn-Gibbings for Widdicomb is actually worth some cash. Not so much in Seattle but NYC, or Chicago, or L.A. However, I don't live in any of those cities so I priced it fairly reasonably for a sought-after antique, but pretty hefty for a used 54 year-old table.

I got two responses, one from a local modern furniture dealer (he didn't tell me that, I just googled him instead) and from a furniture dealer in Chicago (again with the not telling). Seattle dude was fast, thirty minutes after the posting. Mr. Chicago was a little slower, the next day, but also wanted to buy it sight unseen (minus pictures) and have a friend from Seattle come by to ship it out. He offered to PayPal me the money RIGHT AWAY. I gave Seattle dibs out of courtesy. He just finally came by tonight (schedules clashing). I thought he might haggle, or even look at it and change his mind, but he brought cash and told me it wasn't even a consideration.

Guess I underpriced it.

He wondered where I got it, just out of curiousity and told me how Seattle isn't a good Gibbings market but he found a cool tripod corner table for $60 at a rummage sale. He also said he would likely ship this off to L.A. Still, I wasn't in the mood to deal with shipping a large, heavy object several states away, let alone the hassle of eBay.

Now I just need a new coffee table. Any ideas?

Posted by kerewin at September 6, 2006 09:00 PM