Re: Author Chair or Austin High Back
Though we are a Bradington Young dealer, I never stock or suggest customer buy the BY 1848 Maverick (I will usually talk them out of it). While it looks like the Hancock and Moore Austin High Back chair series, it does NOT sit the same, B-Y got the pitch angles all wrong in that chair.
And there is a one of the major differences between the two companies and why you have to be careful to buy on price (B-Y is always less than H&M). At Hancock and Moore, I have seen in person how much they fuss on getting comfort done perfectly. They literally have everyone in the main office come try out a new chair and comment on it. Then it goes back to the hand-made prototype section of the factory where its re-tweaked after the comments. Then repeat that whole cycle. Most pieces have four to five revisions before they are finalized. At B-Y, they tend to copy other companies successful designs rather than design their own from scratch. They may buy a piece at a H&M dealer, take it back to their factory and tell them to tear it down and copy it. When you do that, however, angles change on frame measurements - PLUS they are using different materials such as lighter gauge plywood, less expensive cushion cores, different springs, etc. and it comes back to not sitting as well as the original.
Onto the comparison between the two H&M pieces. They are TOTALLY different chairs that do not sit alike. The Author chair is what I call a slouch reading chair, that envelopes you like a baseball glove and has a style / look that the Austin will not have. It has a lower seat height and is not a napping chair. The Austin High Back Tilt is perfect for cushy yet supportive comfort, in a tilt back variant you can easily take a nap in the piece, just lower the back and its better than sleeping in a lot of beds. It has a higher seat height as well. Both have been in the line for years, they continue to be top sellers so you know they got them right.
As to customs, you cannot custom any of the motion pieces, the mechanisms are designed for specific sizes and cannot support added weight or leverages. You can custom-width most all of the stationary pieces (like the Author Chair) that do not have a carved exposed wood frame. I have a client in Connecticut that has ordered several custom-width Author chairs as she and her husband like to sit cross-legged in them, and she loves them. Note that all custom widths incur additional charges and take longer to build.
Last edited by sarahc; 11-12-2022 at 12:28 PM.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
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