How, you might well ask, could that very ordinary looking chair in the photograph conceivably be worth in the region of £3,000 to £5,000 sterling? And, if you're reading this column ensconced on a moulded plywood chair, could you be sitting on a small fortune?
Bonhams auction house in London will next November hold what it is billing as the world's first auction dedicated to the work of Charles and Ray Eames, comprising everything from "early plywood furniture and storage units" to toys.
According to Bonhams, Charles Eames and his wife, Ray, are credited with "some of the most highly acclaimed furniture designs of the 20th century".
Mr Alex Payne, head of the design department at Bonhams, explains why that ordinary-looking chair in the picture is worth up to £5,000 sterling: "It's the predecessor of a standardised chair which has graced all of our environments. It is the result of experimentation with materials to create a chair for mass production."
While it's unlikely that you have a pre-production prototype, you could still be sitting on more than you bargained for. Mr Payne says the first production run of the Eames's Dining Chair Metal or DCM "could turn up in someone's house, perhaps bought by an architectural student in the 1940s". Early examples of these chairs can be worth between £800 and £1,200 sterling.
He explains that the labels evolved with the moulded plywood chair. If the label on your chair says "Manufactured by Evans Products for Herman Miller", it could be worth up to £1,200 sterling.
Designed in the US around 1945, these chairs were first manufactured in 1946. Readers who received wedding presents in the late 1940s, or whose parents married at that time or emigrants who returned to Ireland from the US are perhaps the most likely people to own these valuable chairs.
Another valuable item is the Lounge Chair Wood or LCW. An original from this range is included in the Bonhams auction. It has a moulded plywood seat with an ash veneer and is identified by a circular label with "Evans Evans" inscribed (guide price: £3,000 to £5,000). If you have a chair from the first production run of this model, it should be worth between £800 and £1,200.
Mr Payne says that an early Eames's office chair could be worth £1,000. In the late 1940s, the couple experimented with plastic resins from war surplus materials. They developed the first fibreglass stacking chairs, with various leg configurations and bases, such as wire metal shaped like the Eiffel tower.
According to Mr Payne, if your office chair has "Zenith Plastics for Herman Miller" and there is rope tracing around the edge of the seat, you probably have an early model and it could be worth about £1,000.
The couple also designed a wooden folding screen to screen off different areas of a room.
"Some readers could have one these in their homes," says Mr Payne. "It's easy for folding and shipping, folding completely into itself. Someone may have brought one back from the US. If so, they're worth up to £5,000. Or more, if they're of a larger panel."
A six-panel Folding Screen Wood or FSW-6 in walnut veneer and an eight-panel folding screen in ash are included in the Bonhams auction, each with a guide price of £3,000 to £5,000.
Mr Payne believes that some readers may well have an Eames's House of Cards in their homes from the 1950s. It's a toy comprising a full set of normal-size playing cards decorated with everyday objects, like chalk and crayons. The cards are cut at the edges so that they can be locked together to build various shapes. A 1952 edition House of Cards listed in the Bonhams auction has a guide price of £300 to £500.
