Last weekend I went on a little safari to Virginia. There’s a guy there who’s well known in the period (think 18th and 19th Century) furniture circles for his excellent reproductions and carving. Ten or more years ago, I took an intro to carving class from him. Well, he’s now in his 80s and can’t work and shut down his shop. And, rather than leave all that crap to his wife to deal with when he passes, he’s selling it now.
I know what you are thinking: Tools. No. Wood. This guy is why we can’t buy legit mahogany anymore. He has it all. No, really. He has two carport-type shelters of stickered and stacked wood adjacent to his shop as a ready wood supply. But he has the rest of the wood behind this field. FIVE sea containers and another 2-car shelter for wood.
I’ve shot a couple of pictures of this back area, including 3 of the sea containers. Zoom in. Note all the 27″ to 36″ wide boards (all genuine South American mahogany). They are between 12′ and 17′ long.
Every one of those boards is first quality. You just pull the boards off the top. First of all, they are heavy as shit, so that’s all you can do, but the boards are perfect, just get them on the skid loader to get them to the checkout.
This doesn’t count the piles of figured cherry he had in his shop. Some turners were fighting over one board until they decided to split it 13″ wide, 4″ thick, and 13″ long. Quilted cherry that wide is about $16 or $18 bd ft retail, over $1000. I think he charged them around $600. But most of the other stuff, including the mahogany, was going at 60% to 80% off from current retail.
I don’t know who did inventory for him, but he had this spreadsheet, and it totaled over 19,000 bd ft of lumber. None of it firewood. Just incredible.
No, I didn’t buy it all. I wish I had storage space. I came away with 4 Spanish Cedar boards that are 17″ wide and 10′ long (~$45 each), four eastern white pine boards 36″ wide, a couple of boring 13″ wide black walnut, and a 2″x6″x13′ mahogany board.
I am looking forward to building a 17th Century New England panel and frame chest using boards as wide as they had, with no compromises.
