Jesssica Charles Versus Vanguard

We have had a couple of sets of H&M sofa's and recliners. We like our H&M furniture. We also have two Jessica Charles swivel chairs that are good comfortable chairs.

We're looking for some new dining room chairs and found two that were comfortable for us. One is a 1933 Mann from J Charles and the other one is the Juliet from Vanguard. My wife prefers the Vanguard chair, but we've never bought anything made by them so we wanted to hear any experiences people have had with the Vanguard furniture.

We know the quality of J Charles so we don't have any issues with it. Both chairs had fabric available that my wife liked that had high rub counts for durability so it's pretty much a tie there. Both chairs were priced about the same so there's no advantage there either. It's just a question of which one is really a better chair. I've read both positive and negative comments on both so I'm not expecting perfection. Our last dining room chairs (used daily) have lasted 20 years and are still very good.

Let us know about your experience. I read Duane's Vanguard Hot Dog comment in one post and then Duane mentioned he might look at them during market week to see if he wanted to carry the line since it's made in the US. I don't know how that turned out.

In a chair, its all about the construction, not the maker. A top of the line chair will have a mortise and tenon construction, that's as good as you can build a wood frame. You can tell a mortise and tenon as they have to have a wood lock pin to 'lock' the joint and its is visible from the outside of the chair. Very few modern production chairs use this kind of joinery because its time consuming and requires fitting joints. What is more common in a good chair is doweled joints, where there are two dowels going into the intersecting frame junction. Its much faster to make however the binding factors is wood glue, and if the glue bond breaks the chair wobbles. Downmarket from dowel construction and screw joints or bracket joints. Avoid them.

Jessica Charles uses dowel joints, not sure what Vanguard uses but probably dowels as well. It would require a call to their factory to find out for sure. If they do then assume the chairs are equal and then buy the one you like the best.

Thanks for the response, Duane.

I'll call the factory on Tuesday. Here's a quote about one of their lines.

Construction & Warranty

Frame Construction: Vanguard uses sustainably forested wood products and eco-friendly manufacturing processes whenever possible. Kiln dried hardwood frames. Snugly fitted, glued, double doweled joints that are reinforced with corner blocks.

Coil Construction: 8-Way Hand Tied coils.

Padding & Ergonomics: Poly Dacron Fill Cushion

Origin: Made In the USA

Not all of this applies to a chair. But I imagine that this same joint construction applies to all the chair lines if they put the Vanguard name on it, but I'll ask to make sure because you never know. Vanguard makes furniture for some large resellers using the resellers branding, and some of that furniture may not use the same construction methods.

Details matter!