A new cool piece for the collection showed up the other day but I haven´t had the time to show it until now. First I did not think this stool was a design by Verner Panton but a lot of details points to the direction this really is an “undiscovered Panton Stool” from 1967.
The first time I saw this stool was at Quittenbaum auctionhouse some years ago. It was described as a Verner Panton prototype from a man who worked for Vitra in Weil Am Rhein in the 60:ies. The stool was marked with Verner Panton´s name and it also has some markings showing weak parts of the stool. The name inscription alone wasn´t “proof” enough to me, since many chairs has been called prototypes by Verner without beeing that.
In the same auction, Quittenbaum also had a “raw” Panton Chair without lacque for sale wich was described as a prototype for the first Panton Chair. It came from the same source and also had some marks from the production. At that time I understood the Panton Chair wasn´t a prototype for the first pre-series but one not ready version of the first serial produced chair 1968.
I couldn´t tell regarding the stool so I asked Marianne Panton about their opinion about it.
She told me the stool wasn´t a design by Verner so I left it and didn´t think of it more.
Some weeks ago the stool came up again. I again asked Marianne Panton about it but I got the same answer – not a design by Verner as far as they knew…
To me the stool reminded a little of the Panton Chair so I couldn´t let it go without finding any info. I decided to buy the stool hoping to find some more info later.
By this time I had got the name of the original owner (it has been sold several times and the original owner is dead since several years back).
I did one last attempt to get some info regarding the stool from Marianne Panton. I now gave her the name hoping she could say anything.
Some days I got an answer…
Marianne found this original owner´s name in their phonebook from the 60:ies… The man who was the original owner of this stool was actually a model maker for them in the 60:ies and now Marianne beleive this stool likelly could be a prototype that Verner and this man was working on!
When the stool arrived I first compared it with the first serial produced Panton Chair in Baydur from 1968. The measurements wasn´t exactly similar and the shapes are a little different.
I then compared it with the first pre-serie Panton Chair from 1967 wich is made in fiberglass. The similarities are here much clearer.
The chair and the stool has exactly on the centimeter the same height and width. Both are made of the same type of fiberglass with the same thickness. The edges are also more sharp and bent in the same way.
Just for fun I also compared the stool to a wire stool prototype from around the same years and the measurements are very similar besides to the height – it is exactly 5 cm lower but I beleive it was meant to use a pillow on the wire stool. The height of the fiberglass chair is also exactly the same as for another Panton stool – a T1 stool from Plus Linje. You can see a little what I mean in the pictures above.
I can not find any document saying this stool is a design by Verner but all known facts leads separatelly to the same idea – that this must be a prototype stool that Verner worked on when he created the now world famous Panton Chair!
The original owner claimed the stool was a prototype for Verner Panton and the fact that he also had a “working model” for the serial production chair tells he must have had something to do with the production of the serial produced Panton Chair in 1968. (Otherwise he would not have got that “not ready” chair). He did not have any reasons to make this story up and when now Marianne found the model maker´s name in their old phonebook with people they worked with, the connection are coming from two directions.
A strange coincidence with both the Panton Chair prototype I have since earlier and this “new” stool is that both have the same small colored spots of paint in yellow, red, violet and white on them.