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I just purchased this baker furniture tub chair and I'm not sure how to clean it if it's old or how much it's worth... Help? I've searched the internet like crazy and I've not found anything like this particular chair anywhere.
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There is not a 'book value' on chairs that one can look up and there's no way to assess over a single mediocre cell phone photo what the chair is all about. Baker builds some very nice pieces, but its all about condition - and that requires hi-res photos taken in the sunlight to really get a look. Do not use any water or steam to clean - that car ruin the material, most fabrics (90%) are Cleaning Code S, which is dry cleaning fluids only. I assume you don't know what the cover material is made out of.....
Can't answer you precisely, but can offer this possibly/partly relevant information.
My wife loves these kind of chairs (variously described as "shell back" or "channel back", "tub chair or "club chair") , and in fact has one from a lesser maker that we bought years ago. It's her favorite chair.
As far as current value of a new one, Stickley currently makes an identical looking chair to your Baker, it is called an Otisco Chair.(My wife loves it). As far as I've read, Stickley is considered a good maker, though Baker seems to be yet higher priced.
So maybe you can impute a value to your chair as follows:
-get the current "real" selling price of the Stickley Otisco chair; (assuming covered in their mid-range fabric, I guess?)
-slap 20% (?)above that, and that would be the price of this chair if it was being sold new by Baker.
- Then there must be standard "rules of thumb" guidelines, somewhere, for how much a used chair should sell for, as a percentage of new one of the same type. The percentages will vary based on condition.
If you can't remove the stain: for my wife's very similar looking chair, we were quoted (in a very expensive part of the country) $650 to redo her chair, plus 6 yards of fabric. The yardage will of course depend on the dimensions of your particular chair. Fabric cost varies tremendously, but sadly the ones we always seem to like for our couch cost like $150 a yard. (we didn't try for the chair yet).Hopefully your tastes will have a more economic result. But cheap fabric on a Baker chair seems somewhat incongruous, doesn't it?
About $1,900 for the like-looking Stickley chair new, I'll guess $2,300 if Baker made it. If someone was moving and selling a two year old one in excellent condition it would be worth what, half ? $1,100 maybe? If it was much older and in equal condition maybe 1/4 to about 1/3, say $800?. Just guessing, somebody with better metrics please chime in.
So if your chair is also older, but in addition it needs to be refurbished in order to get it up to that same excellent condition of that last one, and the cost of that refurbishment was, say $1,100, then, by this appraisal method, your chair should be worth negative $300. Meaning the prior owner should have had to pay you $300 for you to take it.
But I've made a lot of assumptions here that may be all wrong.
Unlike cars and houses, pre-owned furniture is worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it. That makes determining a market value very difficult. Upholstery especially, its easier to do on hard case goods that are well-made, but 90 % of wood furniture is NOT well-made!