Obs 99: Presenting a new feature, Must-Buys

(accessible items you'll never have to upgrade and which I deeply hope a reader wins)

Starting a new feature: hard recommended must buys—a couple more subjective recommendations, closer to my taste, which sit in the sweet spot of canon and… accessibility. As in—oh boy this is the stand-out. These must-buy forever items don’t need an upgrade (can prob. hand them down to your kid)… Occam’s Razor is these are the two or three items out of the 700 or so I look at every week which I believe one of my readers must buy.

Doing this to be more direct. I tacitly recommend for purchase everything I highlight in these Observers—that’s what this newsletter is. But these items are, to be sure, framed more… maybe coolly. I believe in them all, love some… but mostly they are a curation of items that are competent, or excellent, with a point of view. Not necessarily me, not my tastes, not all my shit. Many schools, many eras, worth considering for many reasons. Lots of reasons for this but no need for that now.

The must-buys because they are more subjective, closer to what I dig, and I want to… highlight items before they go on the block. These are items that are better than “good enough, cheap” or “twenty times better than the Joybird you have in your apartment” (often the same thing for many of us) but objectively all-time… objective on a Kant level… Unimpeachable. Forever… ass-beater items. Things we’d buy if we had our auction logistics (how to buy) and our tastes dialed in. Or maybe just stuff I would buy if I… hadn’t already completely completed my apartment (I’m free baby). Anyways they’re below, some below the jump, some after. Hope you dig em.

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Price results for week Nov 11 2024:

Above is the best deal that ended last week (bonkers), other highlights include Cassina barrel chairs 4 for 3K; von Bohr for Kartell shelves $600; lipstick chair $100; Bertoia Bird $800; Piva for B&B four chairs €600; Laubersheimer bookshelves 2K; four Anselmi for Bieffeplast chairs $850; de Lucchi ‘First Chair’ (memphis) $550 (nuts); Grassi leather side chair $40; Rennie Mackintosh tall boy $600; Stam chairs, $275 (insanity); Frattini mirrored Sesann table (objectively best item of last week) $600; Botta for Alias Seconda $600 (bought by a reader); Castiglioni floor lamp $700; Pallucco tankette €6,200; Breuer b65 desk <4K; Prouvé Grand Repos chairs one for €3,800, another €1,500 (batshit); Kuramata Moon chair €5,600; Trude Petri teapot €1,200; two Dell wine cups €7K (Bruce Willis won these); Eileen Gray Transat lounger €3,800 (brilliant buy); Boalum lamp $650 (my fav lamp); Meier skyscraper candlesticks (Swid) $550; Suzanne lounger (Knoll; GOOD), $700 and $1,200; Von Nessen bookends $325 (loved these); Russo walnut diners $2,100; Knoll Avio sofa/table combo $500; Sottsass vase $275 (jesus); Sonneman floor lamp $550 (nice); Hamburger desk lamp for Knoll $800 (smart buy); Piretti knockoffs four for $450; Ponzio/Casati Pelota lamp $275 (have this); Asti ceramic box $125 (smh); van Lierden for Artemide tall floor lamp $275 (perversely cheap); Bellini ORANGE coffee table $400 (stupid); Toucan lamp $300; Aulenti sofa $800 (jesus)

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Obs 99

Luckhardt chrome desk, Hudson: Ends Tuesday… Part of a strong auction covered in depth below. Desks are difficult: does anyone use them anymore? Mine holds a Fiorucci canister (with clippers) and an old-fashioned ABS plastic in/out box combo. One draft on top, another bottom. I want to say Treco made it. I work on it about four days a week. But now I work out of an office. Elevation… My desk doesn’t have a big footprint. But who do we know who has desks in their homes? Fewer people as time goes. I’m not going to make a case for a desk over a kitchen table (it’s your home), I would say they make their own cases themselves. This one’s from 1930 (auction doesn’t say anything) and was designed by Hans and Wassili Luckhardt. They have a number of hits—I wrote about their ST16 chair (genius); the ST14s… are as good. Bread and butter design: distilled, strong, steel tube work… they also did this:

Incredible. Chair speaks to and with work of Mies van der Rohe. Good auction, close to the city, I’d say this will cost maybe $300-450 to ship to Brooklyn and so on. On auction one has sold for €9,000; none at retail. $700 (insane)

• Other standouts include a murdered-out LC2 ($1,000); a very old ESU with great colors (paint in amazing shape; $2,600); five fine Murano vases ($250; one in Swiss Guard colors); Billy Baldwin (?) leopard-print stools (people love LP; $300) and this very brilliant open bookcase ($350; Graves?).

Esherick fireplace, Chicago: Very normal item on auction here, a $20,000 fireplace by Wharton E., the master of wood. (Museum tour video.) The auction is for the black thing and all the wood behind it. Frankly a steal for this price—you buy an Esherick and you own something eternal forever. It is not all about saving money. It is sometimes about understanding. Or just seeing something. I will say ask, does anyone here have space for a fireplace?

But then reading is not all about purchasing. It is good to know what’s been made, what is good. How many of people who read about Rier fleeces bought them? Maybe 7 people? Maybe 7 dozen. Maybe not that many. Anyways fireplaces are another one of these design white spaces—items that aren’t sofas, desks, tables, lamps—with a comparatively narrow selection of things to choose from. There are a lot of industry-focused brands and makers (good stuff; geared towards decorators and builders) but few get in front of normal people. But such is the penury that faces the design consumer. Esherick designed this in 1954. There is no price for this, no one who has this is selling it, it’s only alluded to in photographs online. This is like a couture dress or something, except you can grill with it. $15,000

• House also has a beautiful Phillip Lloyd Powell mounted cabinet for $7,500.

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Mu$t Buys

For example you “must buy” the Canadian red Coke (sugar) made with maple syrup. Other, unflavored Canadian red Cokes are made with corn syrup.

Let me know if you guys dig this premise. Below are items ending this week that I think are the best. As in the best. That readers should buy. That a reader must buy. Because they are in the sweet spot of beyond good, and attainable.

Olaf von Bohr for Kartell red shelves, three, Hudson, NY. $450. They’re the best statement shelves out there, or the best non-modular shelving option, the best non wall ones. Or the ones I like most. They are… eternal is the point. Maybe second-best after Kay Leroy Ruggles’ Umbo shelving (in yellow ideally; big), but Umbos don’t go on auction anymore and never hit Craigslist. There hasn’t been a real Umbo market since 2012. Maybe earlier! Crazy. Picking the von Bohrs as my tastes run towards Italian from this era—though von Bohr is Austrian—and these are in dialog with the Boby trolley and as good at it. Just a different shape, different purpose. There is a seminal design photo (not sure from where) that to me is the peak of taste:

Simply the best, simply the highest aesthetic there is. The best. The best.

And which includes these exact shelves… plus a Colombo chair, a Kartell magazine rack (that had a TikTok moment a bit ago), and a few other hitters. This picture is probably its own post. It is one of these documents from which an entire philosophy can be taken. Speaking more concretely, the Bohrs don’t sell for retail mabe $6,000 (on 1stDibs, in white, bigger)… so let’s say 3 or 4; price history on auctions is reasonable, like $800 before fees for a yellow one (fewer than above), double that for a big set, even less for a short stack. They are tricky to find in North America as stock is closer to Europe. I put a must-buy on this…. it does not need an upgrade. Other shelving options at this level (Tomado, Haller, Cadovius) are either modular or much bigger. The house has a few of these, the red ones linked above, and sets in yellow and black, which are both cheaper. Red is best because of provenance. But each one, simply put, is ideal.

Two other must-buys and a couple dozen Quick Hits with similar provenance and value to the price values above sit below the jump.