Monthly Archives: March 2010

By now, you should probably know who Ernest Koken is. He was the man who, in 1906, developed the first barber chair. He was born in Germany, although his family moved back to the US (to St. Louis, Missouri). He was forced to leave school after his father’s death.

He was pretty much an artist. While working selling items for barber shops, he developed a reclining barber chair, got the patent and started making money straight away from his invention, as it was a complete success.

Nowadays, there are many chairs you can find with the name “Koken” engraved on them.

But what most people don’t know is that he was designing a gasoline engine when he died, so who knows what might have happened if he had managed to finish it a little bit earlier?

That said, Koken Chairs are very much looked after, because of its design and first class quality. If you ever get your hands on one, you should check out its real value, you might be surprised how people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for one real Antique Koken Chair

The Emil J Paidar Barber Chair company was based in Chicago, Illinois. It has been building barber shop chairs since the beginning of the 20th century.

Here’s an interesting story about Paidar barber chairs: For many years, local US companies did pretty well selling chairs to the more than 100.000 barber shops in the States. But then, in 1957, a Japanese company, Osaka’s Takara Belmont Co. arrived in the States and started competing with American manufacturers.

The firsts models were almost identical models to the chairs produced by Emil J. Paidar Co., which by then was the leading manufacturer. Takara then made an intelligent move: his parts were intechangeable with Paidar Barber Chairs, so if an arm or footrest broke, Takara would just get some spare parts from their distributors network in the US, which were considerably cheaper than original Paidar Chair Parts.

This story about Japanese takeover sounds a little bit familiar, doesn’t it?

Anyway, going back to our Paidar Chairs, they are made (at least most of them) with the finest quality. Some of them get to be really expensive in the second hand market.

Having had more than 70% market share in the barber chair business, in the 1970′s, Paidar was the only big company left. Takara even adquired the Koken company, which was the first one to start building barber chairs.

The Theo A Kochs Company from Chicago (why is it that so many barber chair manufacturers were based in Chicago?) has a long history in well built vintage barber chairs (nowadays we have to say ‘vintage’, but some time ago, selling barber chairs was a very good business).

It's difficult to find information about the life of Theo Kochs on the Internet. But if you google it, you will find hundreds of chairs for sale online. There's no doubt that once upon a time, there were Koch Chairs in thousands of barber shops across the country.

Some other people have chair parts for sale, so if you have a Koch Barber Chair needing reparation, you can get just the part you need and do it yourself, or hire somebody to do the job for you.

If you have a Kochs chair you want to know more information about, or just want to show the world about it, check our forum.

Even nowadays, the Takara Belmont company has a very strong market share, selling Salon & Beauty chairs; also some dental equipment. The company was founded in Japan in 1921 by Mr. Hidenobu Yoshikawa.

They started selling Barber Chairs in Japan, but quickly started selling in the States, where there was a strong need for them.

You can find out what they do nowadays at their official page: http://www.takarabelmont.com/

If you are looking for a Belmont Barber Chair, these are the places to look:

• Craiglist
• Ebay
• Local Antique Stores
• Google (quite a big shop!)

You can find some Belmont barber chairs regarded as vintage or aged, that are sold for a very good price (for the seller, of course! , but sometimes you can get a nice bargain, just keep looking!

Known mainly for manufacturing superior quality barber chairs, the F&F Koenigkramer Company in Cincinnati, Ohio was founded by two sons of a german inmigrant in the States.

After many years developing and selling barber chairs, they moved into the business of hydraulic equipment, chairs, and stools used in the optical and dental industries. They got to be pretty well known among dentists for its superior quality and design.

In 1968 the F. & F. Koenigkramer Company of Cincinnati, Ohio was bought by Dentists' Supply (guess what their business was , which later on would become Dentsply International Inc. In 1982 Dentsply sold its Koenigkramer equipment manufacturer.

Nowadays, a company called Reliance Medical Products, Inc is what there's left of the formerly F&F Koenigkramer, Inc. Tha name "Koenigkramer" got definitely lost in 1987, when it was incorporated to Reliance Medical Products Inc. They nowadays operate as a subsidiary of Haag-Streit Holding U.S., Inc.

Even when it's long ago since they manufactured one, you can still find today Koenigkramer Barber Chairs on some auctions, local antique stores or webs like ebay or craigslist...

This company, based in Chicago (like most barber chair companies), has a strong background in building high quality barber chairs.

As you might know, reclining barber chairs came on the scene during the early 1880s. The Louis Hanson company was one of the first companies to start building and selling barber chairs. During the late Victorian era and on into the early 1900s, highly decorative oak and walnut in combination with fancy cast-iron barber chairs were found in the most prestigious barber shops.

Today we don’t have many records about the Louis Hanson Company, its long days of manufacturing chairs are gone, but we can still find lots of antique Hanson barber chairs for sale, with the finest quality.