oh mama! thankfully my family hasn't had anything that heart breaking.

omg i feel your pain. i think that chair's on 1st dibs for like $17,000...

"Alas, they are no longer in the family". (PERIOD)
Write much?

No but I am keeping my eye on my aunt's danish modern dining room suite. Been trying to figure out a way to crawl under the dining room table to check for a maker with out appearing crazy/drunk at family gatherings for years now.

My dad THREW AWAY his Eames lounge chair and ottoman when it broke. I am sure it could have been repaired, but at the time he did not realize what he was tossing (and neither did I, as I was very young). Sigh.

My mom had a set of Marcel Breuer chairs (the tubular steel cane style) that mismatched with our kitchen table. I still can't believe she got rid of them.

My parents had a ton of amazing Dansk kitchen and tableware, which they got rid of in the '80's in favor of a set of reproduction willow ware. Sigh.

lampeam - Use a hand mirror!

$17,000 for a JH512?!

Wow. Prices are going crazy. Could have sworn that 5 years ago they were going for about $500. Here's a pair for $19,000:

http://vamptvintagedesign.com/detailimage.php/chairs/4cc3c56cc468a.jpg/0/50/Hans%20Wegner

Ah, I got lucky! My parents immigrated to Canada from Holland in 1968, and my mom took along a lovely teak wall unit (several pieces) that was the first furniture she ever bought. I always loved the feel and look and smell of them... and now, almost 25 years later they are on my wall in my apartment.

Now if I could just bring back that gorgeous MCM coffee table we had in the 70s... wahhhh!

I can't believe that I got rid of a pair of rusty orange 1950's low sofas. They were in perfect condition-but at the time (right out of college about 25 years ago) I HATED them. When I moved I left them by a dumpster and they haunt me to this day...

I almost cried when I heard my parents got rid a 1960 HMV tv set. It was the most amazing piece of furniture with a wood built-in cabinet. I don't know if it's valuable but to me it was a precious piece of technology...

Ouch(!) but great topic ;)
As a child of the 70s/80s, anything my parents have parted with has been anything but mourned... anyone want to purchase some rattan tables or brass tv rolling carts? :D :D

My aunt had a beautiful original Saarinen tulip table and 4 chairs. I'm pretty sure some lucky person snatched them up at the estate sale.

my father disposed boxes of vintage christmas ornaments when he moved from my childhood home w/ his new wife. The ornaments were from the 30's through the 60's given to us from our surrogate grandmother (family housekeeper). i bristle every time i see an ornament collection at a flea market or vintage store.

My aunt's Craftsman dining room table and chairs. Her STICKLEY Morris Chair.

What WAS my dad thinking??????

What I wouldn't give..........

My dad refinished (gasp!) a Stickley desk. He thought it was too dark and dreary so it made it honey colored. Or at least we think it's a Stickley. Somehow it arrived to us from the great uncle (original owner) without the center drawer, so I can't find any markings. (Anyone have a suggestion for another place to look?)

Not furniture but my mom gave my cousin her 1968 GTO!!!! I'm still sad about it.

my mother in law inherited a Calder Mobile. She thought the all white was too drab for a baby's room, so she painted it with bright colors and and hung it over my husband's crib. (he was younger then). After the kids grew up, my smart sister in law realized what they had, and was able to strip the paint and restore it.

My mama got rid of a huge stretched-on-canvas marimekko fabric. When I saw it in a baby picture of mine and asked her about it, she started crying b/c she said knew she should've saved it for me. Poor mama. Note to selves: Never let an old tapestry go!

There was a mental health facility near my father's hometown up in New England at which many of the people in town worked. The place was furnished with Stickley furniture, gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous wood furniture. When the facility closed (decades ago now), all that Stickley furniture went to the dump because it had been stamped on the back "Property of the...". No one took any of it because they didn't want to be potentially viewed as thieves. All the offices, the day rooms, the waiting areas, all of it was Stickley outside of filing cabinets and some desks. All to the dump.

My mother had a complete set of the gold Ironstone Fiestaware that she sold in a yard sale. It would have looked fabulous in my retro kitchen.

It's not furniture, but my in-laws tore down all but one of the door arches in their house...To install 1970's wood paneling. I still get a bit weepy when I see it.

That is such a shame!!! Hans Wegner is my favorite.. :( .. Wow.. if they only knew..

my moms 69' chevy convertible. We had to replace the engine and my dad never did(even though we had the engine in storage)....so he hauled it out with the scrap. I was mad about it then. (I was 15) I'm still mad about it now!

All our funiture tho was pretty bad, We still have the old yellow diner table and I'm taking it when I move.

Terry in Silver Spring's story actually made me well up with a few tears. Yeesh.

If it makes you feel any better they are not real Hans Wegner chairs. During that time there were a lot of knock offs coming in from Yugoslavia. They can always be spotted by the fact that they are upholstered in rope (originals were done in cane).

My parents had a great Danish mid-century coffee table that I largely scorned growing up because it was "old." Then when I got my first apartment I asked if I could have their icky old coffee table to... wait for it... paint it! So yes, in my infinite wisdom as an early 20-something in 1998 I painted this piece seafoam green, yellow and pink.

Forgive me apartmenttherapy, for I have sinned.

Oh, my!!My mother, a product of the 60's counter revolution with little appreciation for the generation of consumerism and social grace of her parents' generation, hauled her parents' impeccably kept 1950's credenza to the local DUMP. She couldn't find anyone who would come and pick it up!

She also threw out their HUNDREDS of Broadway and off Broadway playbills from the 50's, 6o's and 70's. OUCH!! And she pitched her mother's matching ballroom dancing heels (at least she kept the ball gowns). Apparently my grandparents were the NYC socialites in the 50's & 60's.

Sigh. I still get a squeeze of horror when I type or even think about this!! It's the stuff of nightmares! I could have put my kids through college on those playbills at today's prices, lol! Such a piece of history!

In my early twenties, I began collecting Fiestaware. Unbeknownst to me, my great grandmother also had quite a collection. My grandmother had given away many of those pieces to a boss' wife fifty or so years prior (including a medium green gravy boat). She managed, internet-free I might add, to track down the family and requested the pieces back! I relish my lost and found pieces as much for their rarity as the story of their return.

I feel the same way with our neighborhoods apartments decorative furnishings. I've heard stories of in the last 20-40 years of people throwing out oak and cherry wood fireplaces and mantles, or banisters, original to the buildings. When I see them in a restoration shop now they all go for over 10,000. Thankfully my apartment is pretty much intact, except it's been painted over too many times.

My Grandmother's entire estate with the exception of her bedroom furniture and 'good' china was given to the Salvation Army. My farther, King Polyurethane, felt the need to do a Kmart-esque refinishing job on it. God help me! I am painstakingly buying vintage kitchenware and Christmas tree ornaments, duplicates of items which were in her home, on Etsy. It is purely sentimental. It would be so much nicer if these items had belonged to her.

Sadly, my mother hated what she referred to as 'blonde' furniture and all furniture in the Danish style (go figure--she's Danish). *Very* traditional, my mother. So I didn't have the luxury of growing up with any of the true MCM stuff; however, I do remember a lovely dark brown coffee table and a funky hi-fi system in our basement. As well, my mom had a great sliding door cabinet by our washer/dryer that she used for folding clothes--complete with louvered panels, finger holes, and those cone-shaped feet. Sadly, now...all gone. :( If only we'd known.

My mom's forest-green 1957 or 58 Karmann Ghia that she bought with the money from her part time job at the A&P (can you imagine some kid- or adult- making enough today at their after school grocery store gig to BUY A NEW CAR???) that she used to neck in with her multitude of high school boyfriends. I know this tidbit because I found her diary when I was in 8th grade and read it cover to cover.

In post-college 1980, I paid $20 for a new David Lance Goines print. It traveled with us around the country, until we moved from D.C. to Dallas. We mistakenly left it behind and called the realtor. "Yes," she said. "I have it right here." And then .... SHE KEPT IT. Just wouldn't return our calls.

I have found that I could replace it -- for $500.

Stickleys in the dump is seriously upsetting me. At least everything else went to someone who will love it, but that is just heartbreaking.
I scored some Stickley side tables for 20 total. Original paper tags and everything. I baby sat for my cousins cat and as cats do, it rubbed on the furniture. Paper tags? Dust on the floor. Still makes me cringe.

Thank god most of my furniture is of the IKEA variety with the exception of the table my 1949 sewing machine is attached to. I will never have to regret making mistakes like this!

My mom had a full Broyhill Brasilia dining room set that she sold for $50 in a garage sale in the mid-90's. We thought it was so ugly then. Now I have a piece of Brasilia in every room in my house - and have paid much, much more than $50... She also had the coolest mid-century teak and brass lamps that hit the trash can. Luckily I found the exact ones on ebay and didn't have to pay through the teeth to get them. Although I feel a little strange now, its like I am re-creating everything my parents had - but they had really good taste!

I put a Paul McCobb dresser on the curb when I was 23 (long time ago). My mom still had the long version and it was just recently that I realized what I had . . . and threw away.

During the 60s, my father, through his work, became friends with folk artist Edgar Tolson. I remember as a child looking/playing with a carving of an ox and its wagon that Mr. Tolson gave my father. It fell apart at some point and my father threw it away! It would most likely sale for $7000-$10,000 now.

When my grandmother died in like 1986, everything she had just vanished..... She had trunks full of silver flatware, entire depression glass sets, czech and german china sets, some gorgeous textiles that never saw themselves on a garment, a beautiful domed glass key winding wall clock and a stunning bronze hermes (not the label) sculpture.

I've read this post and just made me kind of sad and powerless not no know what actually happened to everything....I was very young at the time and didn't have any decision power over matters at my parent's home. I loved, loved, to go through those trunks and over everything that was there.... I knew everything by heart but still it was a world of discovery....

I still love to go through old closets, thrifts shops and flea markets... it's just that little sense of magic discovery that you can't stop.

My parents had an orange Herman Miller shell chair that I always thought was ugly; I'm sure it must have been sold at a yard sale. It would have been perfect at my daughter's mid century house. Luckily they had saved a tile top coffee table (has a Made in Miami label on the bottom) and that is now at my daughter's house and it looks better at her house than it ever did at my parent's! I found one of my folk's lamps (again, HATED it as a teenager) at a Goodwill here in FL. I realized they had brought it from MI to FL when they bought a mobile home here to spend the winters at. When they sold the mobile home, the new owner must have donated the lamp. Now it's here in my living room and I'm not that crazy about it, but love it for the story!

Yes, my parents also got rid of their Hans Wegner folding rope chair. Believe me, I feel your pain. Brutal.

My parents gave me their Marimekko-upholstered birch daybed and lucite coffee table from Design Research. The daybed had been in the attic for so long that the fabric had faded and begun to rot, so we had to have it recovered. So sad. But it's still alive and well and in my study.

Not to belittle everyone's pain, but ohhh how I envy you all. Just imagining my father throwing away ANYTHING is a delight!

sad! Those chairs would go for a pretty penny these days and anyone who had them would be super lucky to have such gorgeous chairs in their home!

My parents got ride of a beautiful and sleek couch that was UBER comfortable!!!! I would have it now if I could!

Not my parents, but my sister was an architect in charge of maintenance of property for a big university and when they refurbished one of their lecture theater, completely furnished with original Prouvé tables and chairs, everything went to the dump and uncomfortable and passé. Nothing she could tell them could make them change their minds. She salvaged what she could for her (unfortunately tiny) apartment...

My parents had an original ARCO floor lamp which they lent to my aunt, who married, then divorced and the ex-husband took the lamp with him, back to Holland, never to be heard from again... sigh*

Frank Lloyd Wright built one of his first private commissions for my great grandfather, who was one of the owners of the Winslow Brothers Iron Works. Elevator screens created by the Winslow Brothers are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Anyway. They sold the house some 60 years ago, and much of the furniture that FLW designed for the space has been sold over the years. My grandparents still have some of the objects from the house -- a pair of FLW armchairs, a gorgeous fire screen with wrought iron dragons, and lots and lots of japanese woodblock prints.

I think I'm the only person in the family who still thinks this was a real loss. My grandparents are like, "do you know how much of a pain in the ass it would be to have to live in a dark, heavy, 'historic' home?" They love the history associated with the objects they have, but there isn't much regret that the house was sold so long ago.

My parents had mostly junk furniture, nothing really worth anything. There was one chrome floor lamp with a frosted glass ball shade that was pretty cool, though, but everything else was a pile of crap. :-P

One set of grandparents are crazy about antiques, so almost all of their furniture is from the beginning of the 1900s and earlier. The other set weren't and the entire house was outfitted in late 50s, early 60s stuff. However, it wasn't the cool MCM stuff we all covet now; it was all the light wood country stuff that is still horribly dated.

My mom still blames me for getting rid of her '76 Camaro. My carseat wouldn't fit in it. :P

Thank you all for making me feel a tad better about being the family storage house for 3 generations of furniture that nobody wants to part with OR store in their own homes. I have some great late 1800's - early 1900's pieces that surprise visitors - they all seem to expect me to have a very modern home.

I work with contemporary style every day, and have a fond appreciation for it. But it's not "home" to me.

I do mourn the loss of my grandfather's 1969 Triumph GT-6 however.

I try not to think that way. It seems dangerously similar to how hoarders obsess. The loss of furnishings often is caused by the decline and passing of loved ones. The survivors confuse the furnishings with the deceased love ones at an unconscious, emotional level. That's why grieving families too often are broken by hurtful, irrational fights over old furniture.

My parents had a Knoll Saarinen dining set - oval tulip with 6 chairs - they gave away the chairs when i was fairly young but kept the table for several years. They sold it or got rid of it when i was away at school. Sniff...

Not anything of particular value, but when I was really young (5 or 6 years old) I had a large plastic mountain with tracks for my die-cast cars to race down. There wasn't room for it in our family room, so it was moved to a shed in our little backyard. I frequently went out there to play with it, but my parents apparently were not aware of this, and believed that I had stopped playing with it altogether. One day I went out to the shed, and found that it was no longer there. Horribly upset, I ran to my parents and learned that they had donated it along with a bunch of other old, unused stuff while I was at school.

My mother gave this wonderful secretary desk that they had bought in Germany in the 60s to Salvation Army. My sister and I were both heartbroken, either one of us would've gladly taken it if we knew she didn't want it any more.

She does have many treasures that I had no idea of until recently. A very regency corner shelf made by my danish great grandfather and milk glass vases, for instance.

OMG, don't even get me started. In 1972, my Grandmother sold almost an entire house full of 18th and 19th century antiques. Chippendale, Hepplewhite. Handmade rush-seat chairs. Giant stack of Shaker boxes. Velvet Queen Anne sofas and chairs. Yellow Ware bowls. Trunks full of Civil War-era clothes and even some old paper money.

Thank God she kept the books, family papers, and art, plus a few beds and small accessories (tea sets, china). But so much of it went for a song, it breaks my heart.

My brother and I have happily hoarded everything we can get our hands on. Stepmom has been especially free with the family "clutter"... we saved an entire box of vintage 40's glass shades from the garbage last winter!!! Also just rescued great-grandma's nursing chair circa 1900 from the heap a couple weeks ago. OY!

My Grandfather worked for an Ice & Gas company many years ago and when electric refrigerators started coming onto the scene they decided the old wood ice chests were of no use, so they BURNED them all. Hundreds and hundreds of old wooden ice chests. I cringe every time I think of it. If only my Grandpa had stored them all somewhere he would now be a wealthy man.

My parents gave away the bedroom furniture and beautiful cedar chest that my grandfather made when he married my grandmother. They also gave away a one of a kind grandfather clock that they had.

@brunchbird
I know ppl make a big deal over patina, but I don't see why, if you strip and refinish, it would not still be an attractive and enjoyable piece. And in another 40 years it will have a patina again. But what I want to know is... Why those colors, even as a 20-something in the late '90s?!?? I was a tween at the time but this is not something I can really process....

@pleinjane
... THIS BITCH. >:E!

people i know who shall remain nameless had a yard sale and sold a gorgeous original grey eames shell chair for only $60. but that's not as bad as the absolutely beautiful 1930's art deco bed and night tables from germany that they sold for $300! i think they just wanted it out....so sad.

My parents had an oxblood leather Chesterfield sofa as well as two matching armchairs. It made the move with us to the States but they put them out on the curb when we went from renting an apartment to buying a house. I look longingly at them in our old family pictures now.

Not my parents, but I was sitting in a bar one night circa 2002 when a narrow sighted dude described the entire letter press print shop he and 4 other casual construction workers threw in a dumpster when reclaiming an unused building into another bar's extended patio. I was about to run over to the construction site before he confessed the dumpsters had left the site two weeks prior. :(

My father was a Swedish architect with a passion for furniture. When my parents married they had an AMAZING apartment full of Danish modern pieces. Then the 80's hit and my mom replaced it all with white lacquer, gold and paintings of cats. So like you, all I have are old, yellowed photos and tears.

If I could I'd go back in time to the early 70s and tell my father to NOT sell his 1958 Cherry Red Daimler Benz 300SL Roadster. Street value today is $500,000 or more.

My dad made my mom give away her Beatles albums, on vinyl.

My great uncle threw away a fiesta ware pitcher that was my grandmother's. It was vintage, quite a collector's piece, and had sentimental value for my mom. That's why my mom has fiesta ware in like every color. I have some too, it's shamrock!!

My aunts each inherited carved antique Chinese trunks from my grandmother. One left hers in an unlocked storage unit and it was stolen, the other left hers outside on a patio to be ruined by weather. And they both have the nerve to complain that I claimed of all my grandmother's vintage dresses. At least they're in my closet with cedar instead of crammed in a plastic bag in one of their garages.

My parents have this huge 3ft+ TV console. I call it The Behemoth... after reading all these comments I'm wondering now if its worth ANYTHING.

The only thing that my parents got rid of was a 1967 Camaro my dad had restored for me and sold when I was 13. He even had the gull to ask me if he could trade it(for a pick up truck) and when I said NO!! he said "I'm selling it anyway." I'm still angry.

My mom is amazing when I comes to finding antique things in thrift shops and such. A few years ago about 2004 she found an old Polaroid camera for $1 she bought it since she knew I loved them. I see it and was like let me google/ebay this thing. Its apparently a very hard to find/expensive $300+ Polaroid camera (180 land camera). I went to school for photography and when I told my studio teachers they were trying to get me to sell it. I'm never getting rid of it!

I'm showing my mom a picture of those rope chairs... hey you never know!

Now, remember...

The only reason these pieces are worth a lot of money now is because your parents threw them all out in the 60s and 70s. If everyone had kept them, they'd be as ubiquitous as they were then, and we'd be tired and bored with their style now.

I'm old enough to remember how horrifically dated and "grandma" all these styles were in the 20 years after they went out of style the first time. They were as tacky then as the pink-and-green late 80s stuff is now. Just you wait.

Mary

I'm fairly young (25) and just a few years ago before I discovered how much I loved Danish teak furniture, my aunt sold all of my deceased grandmother's pieces that I would've killed to have now. I try not to think about it lol.

My parents aren't design savvy. There really is no piece of furniture in their home I covet.

man, this thread is sad.

This is more of a "had no choice BUT to get rid of" story.

Almost my entire family came to the US from Cuba in the late 50's and had to leave everything behind. I mean entire estates just handed to Castro's government. They were able, however, to bring pictures and one's heart breaks to see entire homes and beachfront apartments filled with mid-century modern and deco pieces. The most frustrating part is that these houses are occupied by members for the Cuban government and have been left intact, meaning some dirty guy is sitting on my grandmother's George Nelson Coconut Chairs.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer. (Or maybe it's more like Kristen Wiig's Penelope? "My grandparents have 8,000 Eames chairs").

Also makes one think of all of the vintage stuff in our homes today - we were lucky to get them at a fraction of the price because our parents got rid of them! Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Higginbotham.

Yeah, we used to have a Marcel Breuer Wassily chair that just took up space in our basement. When I was small, I always thought it was damn uncomfortable and useless, but looking back, I can't believe they pitched it. Bother!

@cvgmiami, It's hard that all that furniture and all those houses are gone forever. I'd guess such losses are part of why many Cuban Americans greatly value intangible domestic possessions, like family bonds, love, memory, tradition, and heritage. Those are the soul of a home, and can't easily be stolen and destroyed by time, tragedy, disaster, or scoundrels.

I'm trying really, really hard to see why anybody would like the chairs in that picture...

My Father was (and indeed still is) a vicar. He is currently in a victorian vicarage which is undergoing renovation - and the builders removed all the seasoned oak beams from the front (think thickness of railway sleepers and twice as long) and my mum threw them in the skip... I managed to rescue one of them but by the time I got there all the others had misteriously vanished. Monetry value might not be that high but there were 20 of them!

HA! I guess I'm lucky that my parents and grandparents have fairly bad taste when it comes to furniture.

my dad doesn't throw anything (I mean ANYTHING away - he has an old laminate 1970's kitchen in the backyard...) however he did manage to throw away two pottery urn lamps that I couldn't wait to get my mitts on...

However my mum throws everything away - she threw away Landro figurines... and while I don't appreciate them, they would be worth a pretty penny now!

Sad, funny, tragic! I have no horror stories but after reading these I am really missing my grandparents. Not their stuff but their wonderful selves! Time to head home and cook up some homemade food in my cozy little home, curl up with the photo album and then call mom.

- Uncle Alex's legendarily badass record collection
- Dad's '71 Torino
- My aunt and uncle's '69 Charger
- And not quite a "why did they give this away?" story, but my grandparents used to have '70s black-and-white faux-Art Nouveau wallpaper in their bathroom, with a pattern featuring Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Lots and lots of boobs on that wallpaper. When I was little I couldn't hold in my giggling whenever I'd go into their bathroom. If I could find a roll of it today, I'd buy it in a second.

I don't think it was a designer piece, but to match the dark blue (velvet?) livingroom set, my parents had a coffee table that was rectangular with a blue glass top.It opened on the sides to contain a bar and glasses. I intended when I was a kid to take that with me when I left home, but of course I didn't.

Wish I had it now, it would go with Danish, midcentury or contemporary furniture...sigh!

It also occurs to me that my father's 1967 Mustang (which was the only cool car I ever got to drive in my life by the way) was sold to pay for my first semester at an expensive college. Luckily, we knew the value of what we were selling and the value of what that money would purchase in exchange.

Indianroad I could cry for you, as I would kill for a Karmen Gia.
I miss so many things...not necessarily for their monetary value, but because they were cool and/or remind me of happy times. I miss the full sets of Heller plates, a great Gucci bag with a bamboo handle, my Dad's MCM bedroom set complete with a fantastic desk and dress/bar combination. The set was his in college and even though my mother always hated it, I thought it was fantastic.

I am fortunate enough to have a set of four Danish modern armchairs (Parker - Australian manufacturer) and one of the set of four matching side tables from my parents. However, I will NEVER forgive my father from throwing away (throwing! into the paper recycling!!!) the original Vogue pattern book (you know, the big ones with *all* the pattern styles in them, one per page) from the late 50s. NEVER.

Oh, or for putting the Georg Jensen cutlery set in the dishwasher, which was Not Good for the black bakelite handles.

BTW, this is not limited to our generation: my mother has never forgiven her mother for giving her carved oak lounge and dining settings to the Salvation Army. And replacing them with a vinyl lounge setting. Or for throwing away (!!!) her own parents' magic lantern set ...