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Antique armchairs are fabulous quality, full of character, very comfortable, almost always unique, and incredible value for money.

You can buy a 120-year-old Victorian chair made by a true craftsman from only the best materials for around £50! To buy the same quality new – and let me assure you there are only a handful of companies left who make to this standard – you’d need to be prepared to pay over £2000!

So, it’s happy days then. It’s time to save some money and sit pretty! We should all be out there snapping up these unbelievable bargains from antique shops and auction rooms all over the country – or should we?

You see, one of the downsides to buying one of these bargain chairs for 50 quid is the material from which they’re made. Horsehair and straw may be some of the best materials to use in chair upholstery, but when the stuff is over 100 years old and you’re sitting on top of it you may be in for some trouble, especially if the chair has been stored in a barn for the past 30 years!

Horrible bitey things live in places like this, and to mice it is pure heaven!

For example, my Dad remembers sneaking two white mice into the house when he was 10. He had no idea where to hide them, but his mother’s favourite old chair, stuffed with horsehair and straw, seemed as good a place as any. He and the mice got away with it for a few weeks, and although the family had some complaints about itchiness and mice droppings found in slippers, no one found out. That was, until one evening when his mother sat down rather heavily on her Victorian chair and flattened two white mice!

The chair was swiftly disposed of and a new, utilitarian, fresh, and clean one bought to replace it. The new chair was apparently highly uncomfortable, and it didn't last long before being sold for a fraction of its cost. My family replaced it with another soft and comfy, albeit cleaner, old Victorian one.

Obviously then, we can see that buying antique armchairs has its pros and cons!

This is the £50-and-up sector. Auction rooms are probably your best bet, but remember what you’re buying is not really a chair to sit on, but actually the shape, style, and frame of one. The new owner will need to dispose of all the top cover and fillings and have it resprung and rebuilt professionally. Its legs might need re-polishing and their castors might need replacing.

Go to a recommended upholsterer. Don't skimp on the price and get it out of your head that you’ve only paid £50 for it. Put a good quality fabric on, or, even better, a nice Scottish leather, and maybe a feather seat cushion. Make sure that they closely examine the frame and do any re-jointing and gluing right then. If you do this, you will have a supreme chair that will last forever. Sadly though, the £50 bargain will now owe you closer to £1000 all done and dusted, but don't worry too much, because that's still about half the cost of a similar quality new one.

Buying an already-restored antique chair will save you an awful lot of time and effort over finding a beat-up one – and then choosing an upholsterer and waiting for ever to have the job done. The downside here is that you could possibly arrange it more cheaply yourself, but then again, this isn't always the case. A few companies do specialise in finding and restoring antique armchairs. They’re sympathetic in their restorations and employ teams of qualifies upholsterers.

Anyone who has ever been in business will understand that these upholsterers need to be continually employed and kept busy, so holding out for big money on stock items is not good for business. They need to sell quickly and move on to the next restoration project to keep the wages paid, so with a bit of negotiating you can pick up quite a good-value restored chair off the peg and have it delivered the next day. With an already-restored chair, though, you are not going to have a choice when it comes to the fabric covering, as it will never be cost-effective to have it done again just to change the colour. It might be worth asking if you may see any chairs prior to restoration, and if you have a good imagination you can choose your own fabric and have it done to order.

This is the domain of the seriously good antique dealer. To find an antique chair in its original fabric covering and in super condition is extremely rare. Such a chair is highly desirable, highly sought-after, and normally astonishingly expensive.

I’ll give you a couple of examples.

(1) As I’ve already said, you can buy a Victorian armchair in rough condition and needing restoration for £50. The same chair, found in really fine condition and not needing any work, maybe from a country house sale, and in its original, but nicely worn, brown leather covering might sell for well over £1500.

(2) A Queen Ann wingback chair on cabriole legs dating to the early 1700s will always be expensive, and if I could ever afford one, I’d happily pay the £10,000 or so to own a great, but later re-upholstered, one. That same chair, however, in its original and perfect needlework covering, might be worth £100,000. Shocking, isn't it? And quite confusing, to be honest

Put simply, buying antique armchairs is never going to be as easy as buying something new. There will always be problems to overcome, whether these be having it restored or finding the right chair in the first place.

The upside, though, whether you live in a period house or a minimilistic white box, is that using antiques adds a unique style to your home, whether you have it furnished super-modern or truly traditionally.

It is never cost-effective to buy cheap throwaway furniture only to have to replace it time and time again, and there can be no sense of well-being in owning horrible-quality goods.

An antique armchair has a wonderful feel-good factor. It will not only give great service, but be a great investment, too, in financial terms as well as in terms of character and style – and isn’t it just nice to be different!

 David Harper 2006