Anybody know much about barber chairs?

  • Thread starter Thread starter KP
  • Start date Start date
KP

KP

Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
2,589
The previous owner of my house left a Berninghaus Hercules barber chair behind. I looked around a bit but didn't find much information or guidance on figuring out when it was manufactured.

If anyone has any suggestions about the chair, websites with info, or can give me an idea of how much it might be worth, I'd appreciate it. It's not in the pictures below, but I believe I also have the footrest for it.









 
One source woul be to contact the chamber of commerce or historical society of cincinnati .They probably have lots of data.
 
My grandfather was a barber, and he had a chair like yours. I was a kid when he died, and all of his equipment was sold off, regretfully. I don't have particulars at hand, but those old barber chairs are highly collectable. You've got a gem, congratulations!
 
All I know about barber chairs is what I have seen on Pawn Stars. Apparently, they aren't worth a whole lot unless they are in pristine condition.
Also, it seems that the head rest is worth almost as much as the rest of the chair. When people started shaving themselves, the head rest got tossed.
I looked on eBay. There are a lot of chairs running from very little to :eek:. People are not lining up to buy them.
My barber has 6 old chairs besides the ones that they use. I think that they are all Koken and Kochs.

Like most things, people seem to think that anything old is valuable. Quite often, they will be disappointed. You got yours for a good price though. ;)

I found this.

If the chair is hydraulic, it was made from 1899 until the company went out of business in the 1930s.


Eugene Berninghaus Company
The first manufacturer of barber chairs in the United States was Eugene Berninghaus. Opening his business in 1875 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Berninghaus made barber chairs and other tonsorial furniture and accessories. As his business grew, Berninghaus named his most popular barber chair the "Hercules" models. The Hercules models were made of wood and cast iron with a choice of leather or mohair plush upholstery. The wood choices included:

Birdseye maple
Oak
Cherry
Mahogany
Walnut
Perhaps one of the most well known models of Berninghaus barber chairs is the "Hercules # 58" hydraulic barber chair manufactured in 1899. It was one of these barber chairs that M.G.M. used in their famous 1960 film on time travel "Time Machine".
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies, fellas. I think it was reupholstered and it's definitely not pristine so I don't think its worth very much beyond the novelty value of having a vintage barber chair in your house. The chair is actually in the basement so I probably did him a favor by saying he could leave it. It would be a bit of a challenge to haul it up the narrow stairway.
 
Just out of curiosity, I asked my barber about his collection of old chairs. He paid nothing for them and in a few cases, he got a thank you for hauling them out of the
house, garage or basement. They seem to be like National Geographic magazines in that no one throws them away and have less than no value.

If it was restored to pristine condition, someone might want it for their "man cave", but that takes $$$$.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top