How to Identify Henredon Furniture?

Looking for the best ways on how to identify Henredon furniture? Browsed some used vintage furniture pieces? Saw something you liked but aren’t sure of its value? Were you told it was Henredon furniture?

Knowing the value of all the pieces of furniture and home accessories you own or want to purchase is important, especially if their value exceeds four digits.

If you love vintage furniture, you need to know how to recognize it.

This blog will help you learn how to identify Henredon furniture so that you can make smarter purchases on your next furniture shopping trip.

Henredon is a premium quality furniture line that ranks amongst the top five furniture designer producers in the world. It is also one of the most expensive brands in the realm of furniture.

You might have an old vintage table or couch valuable enough to cover rent for months, and with this guide, you’ll learn how to identify them.

About Henredon

Henredon’s history goes back almost a century. The brand’s story starts with four men in Morganton, North Carolina, who in 1945, were eager to build a product line of custom quality furniture.

Their very first product line was just three kinds of chest boxes.

The original idea mushroomed into a line of beautiful hand-designed upholsteries and wooden furniture.

Henredon’s reputation and quality come from the talent and ingenuity of its workers. In this time of mass production, it’s rare to find furniture with so much hand and detail work. 

This is why it’s important to know how to recognize quality furniture.

They have been leaders in the furnishing markets for many fruitful decades in which their quality and design only improved year after year. Despite the demand for Henredon, the company filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

After that, most of their operations moved to a Drexel Heritage furniture plant. Drexel is part of the heritage home group, which successfully parent’s multiple acquired and iconic furniture brands.

Even still, to many people, Henredon is synonymous with America’s best quality furnishings. You might stumble across one in the market, or better still, have one at home.

Where Is Henredon Furniture Made?

Most people often wonder if Henredon is still in business. Since the closure of its main factory and the sale of its assets to a larger parent company, it’s a little unclear if Henredon still operates to the same capacity as before and with the same employees and processes.

This is why the answer to where is Henredon furniture made is, unfortunately, not simple. Let’s look at some of the brand’s recent history.

Up until 2000, Henredon manufactured at their factory in Hickory Furniture Mart in North Carolina.

But as trade deals with China opened up, Henredon had two choices – continue to produce in America at exorbitant cost or outsource production to China for cheaper work.

To remain competitive with imported brands, Henredon chose the latter, producing most of their furniture overseas.

Since their bankruptcy in 2013, Henredon’s brand name and assets have been sold multiple times, most recently to the Heritage Home Group. Henredon had four operating factories in North Carolina.

As of 2021, if you check out the Henredon website, it says “coming soon,” but there are no details. Thus, the present manufacturing whereabouts of Henredon is unknown.

It’s possible that this decade was Henredon’s last leg. The origins of the brand’s future are anyone’s guess at this point. Their last tweet was also in 2018.

How to Identify Henredon Furniture? – Steps

A Henredon Folio dining room set in good condition can have a resale value of up to $2400. An Aston Court Henredon dresser can cost anywhere between $600 to $1500.

Henredon’s handcrafted details have become such a rarity that it commands a high value for its design and quality and its vintage. Needless to say, Henredon’s furniture, at least the ones made in America, age like wine.

With these tips, you will not only learn how to identify Henredon furniture but how to appraise furniture in general based on a set of selected criteria.

Recognizing Henredon furniture is quite easy; the company has some identifying markers that are easy to spot.

Step #1. Finding the Marks

Want to know how to identify a Henredon sofa? Just look below it. The makers of furniture always leave a marker somewhere. It could be underneath a couch, table, or chair.

If it’s a chest of drawers, you’ll probably find it in one of the drawers’ top edges or all drawers or on the back. It might be on a steel or paper tag or a stamp of the brand’s name. If it’s a vintage make, it might even be engraved.

But Henredon leaves its signature on every product they make. Unfortunately, over time, the signature may have eroded, which is why we have included criteria you can appraise your furniture on.

Check out this link to see where you might find the label on a lamp table.

Step #2. What If the Tag Missing/Damaged?

As we said earlier, you may not find a tag or mark containing the brand’s entire name. You might see an HH, serial number, model, or stamped symbol with initials.

This makes it trickier to narrow down whether or not your furniture set is an authentic Henredon.

But it’s not hopeless. You can still use this info to determine the department store it came from.

This will be your first step towards confirming if what you own is a Henredon.

Just look up whatever information is available to you online, such as the initials or the logo/symbols, and see what turns up.

Step #3. Scrutinize the Details

This step will make you feel like a professional appraiser! You might even be well on your way to becoming one after you familiarize yourself with how to appraise furniture.

Henredon products are widely popular because they’re unique for something, their design.

You can deduct the time and region where a particular piece was made by the material used. If reclaimed driftwood or timber is used, there’s a good chance the furniture was made in North Carolina.

The state is a hot spot for timber logging and also where the Henredon Headquarters happened to be.

This alone, of course, is not enough. Observe the shape of the details on it as well as the furniture itself.

The shape is often a source reminiscence of its era to most antique collectors. It may even have a distinctive form that identifies its manufacturer.

Study the way the parts of the furniture have been assembled. The screwing or gluing should tell you if it’s been done manually or by machines.

Since all or most Henredon products were handcrafted, there should be no machine manufacturing tell-tale signs.

Step #4. Last Resort Options

If you still can’t tell whether you own a genuine Henredon classic, how about having a go at the Henredon Catalogs from over the years?

If not at your local used bookstore or public library, you have a good chance of finding it online. If any of the pictures match, then boom! You most likely have a Henredon.

Another alternative is to post pictures online on communities like Ask Yahoo or Facebook to get answers. You might even come across a potential buyer this way!

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, by now, you know how to identify Henredon furniture. It’s not that hard to narrow down a furniture maker in the age of the internet.

You may want to reconsider selling it, though, if that’s your intent. For all you know, it might command a higher value in the future, especially if Henredon never makes a comeback.

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