Furniture Specific: Chairs speak softly

Another blabbermouth is the drop-front desk with its outspoken lid hardware and interior drawer arrangement. The mechanical operation of the lopers is like having a date stamp. The drop front’s only secret is the location of the hidden compartment.

Tables will even give you more than the accompanying chairs. A table will show the underpinnings that support the top. There you can see if the top used to have another base or if the slides are original or if the legs have been repaired. And any hardware under the table, such as nails, screws, closers, latches or catches is easily identified by the manufacturing technology employed to produce it.

And beds have a way of showing their origin and history mainly by the type of device used to secure the frame. The technological progression of bed hardware is well documented and easily followed with a little research. There is no mistaking 18th century hand-wrought bed bolts or Victorian era “horseshoes.”

But chairs have a tendency to keep their own counsel and to guard it closely. Mostly what you see when you look at a chair is the style. A Chippendale chair is unmistakably a Chippendale chair, but that may not tell you all you want to know and the chair is not going to be a lot of help – at least not at first.

The most obvious thing about a chair, after the style, is the type of chair. Chairs can roughly be placed in three major categories: the chairs made by turners, those that can be classified as Windsor chairs and those that were made by cabinetmakers or chair makers.

Turner’s chairs are exactly what they sound like. They are assembled from pieces turned on a lathe and usually employ a round mortise and tenon joint for the construction. Everything is round in the eyes of a turner. This type of chair was one of the first that was mass-produced because of the simplicity of the elements and the construction.

A Windsor chair consists of a more or less flat seat, into which legs are inserted from below, again using a generally round mortise and tenon joint. The upper section of the chair consists of turned spindles inserted in the seat and topped, usually, by the bent hoop that composes the equivalent of a crest rail. The distinguishing feature of a Windsor is that no element of the chair is continuous from top to floor. Almost everything has a terminus in the seat except the lower stretchers which connect leg to leg, back hoops that form arms and crest rails that sit impaled on stiles which are implanted into the seat but do not contact the floor.

Cabinetmakers’ chairs are made from sawn and shaped elements, often elaborately carved. The normal joint in this type of chair is the rectangular mortise and tenon and in the later incarnations of the industrial age, the dowel joint.

Each of these types of chairs will tease you with a little morsel of evidence to help you identify it, but sometimes it is merely a come-on and is often misleading.

A turner’s chair will entice you with inscribed markings to show where the mortise should be drilled to accommodate the round tenon. But those marks are easily added later, after construction, or they may have been generated by the lathe operator in the factory of the late 19th century just to simulate an 18th century look. Then the temptation is to up-end the chair to look for the single indentation of the foot-powered lathe rather the crosshair pattern of a modern lathe left on the end of a leg. But skinny legs are often worn and easily cut and there may be no clues at all.

Windsor chairs offer a little more help. Some useful clues can be found in the construction and composition of the seat. Early Windsors, late 18th century and very early 19th century, had a single plank for a seat, with the grain running from side to side. These early seats were primarily cut from a soft wood such as pine or poplar while the legs and spindles were fashioned from hardwood. Shrinkage of the soft seat over time helped hold the inserted elements tightly as time passed. Newer model Windsors, from the mid 19th century and later often had seats consisting of more than one board glued up to make the solid surface. Twentieth century Depression-era chairs may have as many as five or six separate pieces in the seat. And these later chairs give two more clues to their lineage. The seats are often the same wood as the rest of the chair and the grain in the seat runs from front to back – a major departure from earlier chairs.

Cabinetmakers’ chairs, at first, seem to be the hardest to read. No joinery is visible except the occasional through tenon peeking out the rear stile or the apparent presence of a pin, the “tree nail” or “trennel,” securing a mortise and tenon joint. Without these scant clues and without performing some destructive testing, like opening a joint, it is very difficult to tell if the chair was assembled with mortise and tenons or dowels. But there very often is another clue that can be used if it can be seen. That is the manner in which the corners of the seat frame are blocked.

Since most cabinetmaker’s chairs are upholstered, access to corner blocking is not always easy unless the chair has a removable slip seat or unless you are able to remove some of the bottom dust cover to see into the interior. But if you can get there you may find some real help in identifying the chair.

The blocking in mid-18th century chairs was almost always done using a soft wood with several small blocks in each corner. The grain of the blocks usually runs vertically and since all fasteners of that period were handmade, very few 18th century corner blocks have original nails or screws in them. In keeping with the concept of “workmanlike manner”, i.e. if it doesn’t show don’t spend any time on it, most original 18th century corner blocks are unfinished, just like the insides of the seat rails.

By the beginning of the 19th century many cabinetmakers were no longer using the corner blocks and instead relied on a type of cleat to span the corner and connect the front rail to the side rail, bypassing actual contact with the corner altogether. These narrow cleats were usually a hardwood with the grain running horizontally and were glued into notches cut into the tops of the rails. They were fairly shallow and did not extend the full depth of the rails.

By mid century, with the Industrial Revolution reaching maturity and the factory system in full swing, corner blocking became more elaborate. Many Victorian-era pieces, especially later in the period, had blocks shaped to cover each corner completely, securing two rails and the leg. In addition to being glued many blocks of the time also had the newly introduced, machine-made, readily available gimlet screw to help hold it fast.

At the beginning of the 20th century another technological innovation influenced corner blocks. That was the development of commercial plywood. This new type of surface became the seat bottom of choice in much of the mid-grade furniture production of the first half of the century. Some way was needed to secure the new seating material to the chair and screwing it to the corner blocks was the logical step. Corner blocks of the Depression-era emulated those of 100 years prior in that once again they did not actually cover the corner but only connected rail to rail. But this time they were glued and screwed and had another hole in the center to accommodate the seat bottom fastener.

With the advent of strong dowel joints, reinforced with new resin glues, corner blocks almost became superfluous to the structure of the chair. Their new job focused primarily on holding and supporting the seat.

So the enigmatic chair does have something to tell you after all. You just have to get to know it a little better.

Send your comments, questions and pictures to Fred Taylor at P.O. Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423 or email them to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Visit Fred's website at www.furnituredetective.com. His book How To Be a Furniture Detective is available for $18.95 plus $3 shipping. Send check or money order for $21.95 to Fred Taylor, P.O. Box 215, Crystal Fiver, FL, 34423.

Fred and Gail Taylor's DVD, Identification of Older & Antique Furniture ($17 + $3 S&H) is also available at the same address. For more information call 800-387-6377, fax 352-563-2916, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . All items are also available directly from his website.

Furniture Specific: More housekeeping

CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. - I am back with more suggestions about how to prolong the life of some of your furniture. Some of the ideas are based on what should be done and others on what should not be done – no matter what your great aunt told you when you were a child. It’s OK, she lied to you about a lot of other things too.

To refresh your memory on my take about the topical application of almost anything to your furniture, see my treatise on oiling, waxing and otherwise abusing the finish on your fine old furniture. Just remember, you don’t need to feed that finish – you need to protect it. And you don’t need to “remoisturize” the wood – it’s supposed to be dry. Enough on that subject.

But speaking of topical applications and protecting a finish, some of the worst damage we inflict on good old furniture is caused by what we place, throw, dump or otherwise deposit on our horizontal surfaces. I’m not thinking of car keys, damp newspapers and unprotected drink glasses. I’m thinking of vases, lamps and computer games. The bottoms of many of the “dustables” that we so carefully place on end tables and lamp tables are far from being silky smooth and they eventually will leave a scratch or a haze as they are moved around for cleaning. While it’s true that some better lamps and other artifacts come with felt bases, not all of them do and you need to check them. Felt is available in convenient peel off shapes with one sticky side ready to apply to the bottom of almost any glass, ceramic or metal decorative object. The trick is that the felt doesn’t do any good stuck to the manufacturer's backing. It actually has to be installed once it is acquired. These same little felt appliques also work well protecting hardwood floors from the bottoms of wooden chair legs.

However, there are some precious objects that we choose to display that might not be well suited for the application of sticky felt. For the areas that support objects like that and for other areas such as your workaday nightstands, you might want to consider having glass cut for the tops. That solves the wet drink glass problem once and for all. Custom cut glass is actually an affordable solution considering the price of having furniture professionally restored. You can even save a little bit of the cost by making a pattern of the glass yourself and taking it a glass company. Of course if it doesn’t fit you get to eat that piece of glass. Or the glass company will send a technician to make the pattern. The cost will be added to the cost of the glass but if it doesn’t fit they're stuck with it, not you. In the long run the extra protection will add years to the life of your furniture. Just be sure to use the small round plastic discs under the glass. They lift the glass off the surface and allow air to circulate under the glass. This helps keep the glass from eventually “growing” to the finish because of residual moisture on the surface.

And speaking of things growing to the finish, our modern world is complicated by the use of certain substances that seem to be impervious and inert to most of what we do to or with them but actually react strongly with some of the other things we use. Specifically certain types of vinyl or plastic, not all but some, tend to emit solvents over their useful life. Nothing real bad about that unless you happen to place them on another substance that is susceptible to that solvent – like lacquer and some shellac finishes on older and antique furniture. The solvents from the vinyl migrate directly into the finish structure and the two surfaces, vinyl and lacquer, unite. You can see that effect occasionally in an office when an executive leaves a vinyl stock binder or corporate minute book on the edge of the antique walnut double pedestal desk. After a year or so the book become part of the finish and the desk has to be resurfaced and in some cases refinished because the book took the finish with it when it was moved.

Another culprit with similar but not quite so dramatic results is the material used for the “feet” on electronic instruments, including computer chess games, portable typewriters, answering machines and even stereo speakers. The vinyl feet don’t usually have the biting power seen in the cover of the executive stock book but they do have a nip. Rather than growing into the finish, the solvent in the feet merely conveys the color in the vinyl of the feet into the finish, and sometimes all the way into the wood, below. I have seen light colored tables and stands take on a mysterious dappling of red or black spots after the use of a computer game on the surface or after a small stereo speaker is relocated after a long period on that site. Given long enough to work, the color can become part of the wooden surface and cannot be removed, even by refinishing. Try using felt on these too.

If you are lucky enough to live out of a nice old chest of drawers, you know from daily experience that those drawers are not the same as the ones that come in new chests, with the fancy metal slides and lower guides that keep the drawer straight all the time. You know that the drawers in your nice old piece need two gently guided hands, operating in unison to correctly open and shut them. But sometimes old drawers, like old cars and old motorcycles, can be a little recalcitrant on a given day. Maybe it’s the humidity or something. Or maybe it’s something else and you need to find out what it is because those things don’t usually fix themselves – you just get used to them.

First take a good look at the contents of the drawer. Do you really need that much stuff in that drawer? People from the period in which that chest originated normally had a lot less “stuff” than we do and the furniture was designed for that period. Perhaps it’s time to lighten the load and give the drawer a break. But don’t stop there. Remove the entire contents and then remove the drawer from the case. Carefully examine the sides, bottom and top edges for signs of undue wear or stress. Pay special attention to the bottom of the sides of the drawer that carry the weight. They do eventually wear out after more than 100 years. Sight down the side and see if the bottom edge has a noticeable arc to it. If it does you need some professional help to rebuild that drawer. Then take a careful tour inside the cabinet, assisted by a flashlight. Look for worn interior case runners, signs of wear on the interior of the cabinet and signs of sawdust in the cabinet. All are silent calls for help.

But suppose after all of that you don’t find any signs that you take as serious structural problems. Maybe it is the humidity or lack of it and the drawer just needs a good lube job. With what? The pragmatist will tell you to just use the edge of a wax candle to apply a good coat of lube. The purist will tell you to go to the trouble of acquiring, storing and using beeswax. Both methods will do OK for your purposes but they can be a little difficult to use uniformly on a cabinet. The furniture restoration artist will tell you to go buy a can of silicone spray. But not just any silicone spray. The ones you find in the hardware store and automotive store normally have a harsh solvent in the propellant, usually alcohol of some sort, and that can do harm to the finish on your nice old furniture. You need a type of “food grade” silicone commonly used by savvy upholsterers to get tight fitting covers on plump sofa cushions. Most nice upholstery folks will order you a can next time they order for themselves. This stuff won’t harm your old finish. And once you have used it on the sticky drawer you will find a couple of thousand other places to use it, like on slow table slides, squeaky hinges, awkward tambours, sticking cabinet doors and unruly locks. And it’s a lot easier to use than a chunk of wax.

Send your comments, questions and pictures to Fred Taylor at P.O. Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423 or email them to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Visit Fred's website at www.furnituredetective.com. His book How To Be a Furniture Detective is available for $18.95 plus $3 shipping. Send check or money order for $21.95 to Fred Taylor, P.O. Box 215, Crystal Fiver, FL, 34423.

Fred and Gail Taylor's DVD, Identification of Older & Antique Furniture ($17 + $3 S&H) is also available at the same address. For more information call 800-387-6377, fax 352-563-2916, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . All items are also available directly from his website.

Furniture Specific: The attribution pit

In many categories of the antiques and collectibles trade these concerns are justified based on the level of expertise used by potential crooks in producing fake objects and reproductions. To the uninitiated in the nuances of say American art pottery or folk art one object looks pretty much like another and one piece of modern art can be as undecipherable as the next. The use of molds to produce certain kinds of works of art makes reliable individual checks on authenticity difficult if not impossible. Of course with almost any category a professional or vigorous amateur who has dedicated his or her life to the pursuit of knowledge on the subject can easily detect a fake Roseville Futura vase or a bogus Buddy L tanker truck reproduction. It’s all the other folks in the beginning and middle phases of collecting and dealing who have a problem in this area.

But the area of antique furniture does not have quite so difficult a problem. It is significantly harder and much more expensive to duplicate an early 18th century Queen Anne chair than a 1920s toy truck and the duplication of a Federal sideboard clearly is a work of major proportion. And the return in most cases would result in a net loss for the faker. It’s just too hard to do a good fake of antique furniture. There have been some notable exceptions like the “17th century” turned chair made in the 1970s by Armand LeMontagne with the express purpose of embarrassing some museum officials as detailed by Myrna Kaye in her memorable book Fake, Fraud or Genuine? LeMontagne was so successful in his attempt that the museum officials did not believe him even after he confessed to the counterfeit.

For the most part, however, outright fake antique furniture is easily detectable by even the occasional collector who has a bit of interest in the subject and it generally is not worth the effort for the crook.

But there are other areas in the furniture category that do have room for some confusion and a bit wishful thinking or artful redirection. True American antique furniture pieces in good condition with a reliable provenance and some verifiable traces of the maker normally sell for higher prices than do “anonymous” similar pieces. While it is true that occasionally the impressive workmanship and style found on a genuine anonymous treasure will lead to a bidding battle at auction that recognizes the quality of the piece, it more often falls to the better-known name with a wider recognition.

That leads to two areas of potential concern, labeling and attribution. One of the best works on the subject of labeling is William C. Ketchum’s book American Cabinetmakers - Marked American Furniture 1640 – 1940 published by Crown in 1995. It is by far the most comprehensive work on an elusive subject that still leaves lots of room for more investigation. Ketchum illustrates such seldom seen marks as Duncan Phyfe’s paper label used between 1811 and 1815 when his shop was on Partition Street or the engraved label of Anthony Quervelle when he was on Second Street in Philadelphia. But Ketchum also shows the hand-signed marks of people like John Chipman, the Salem, Mass., cabinetmaker who signed a Chippendale blockfront secretary made between 1770 and 1790 and the brand of William Fiske on a Hepplewhite mahogany chair while working in Salem 1788-1793.

Brands and chalk signatures are hard to duplicate accurately, but paper labels and metal tags leave lots of room for chicanery. Metal and porcelain tags, like some of those used by R.J. Horner, have an annoying habit of falling off the back of a cabinet and reappearing elsewhere. Paper labels can be carefully removed and accurately duplicated with laser scanning technology available to anyone. In fact some very good new reproduction labels are boldly offered for sale for Globe-Wernicke and Macey bookcases on America’s universal auction site. Other “vintage” labels, including paper and foil, are offered for Hoosier, Knoll, Charles Eames and Herman Miller among others. In the Fall/Winter 2006-07 edition of Style 1900, a magazine devoted to Arts & Crafts, noted Arts & Crafts authority, author and collector Bruce Johnson responds to a reader’s concerns about fraudulent L. & J.G. Stickley labels. He said “Shopmarks sometimes render collectors temporarily blind to otherwise obvious clues.” He then cites author David Cathers who said in 1981, “Get to know the furniture first by examining it carefully – then look for marks of confirmation.”

This gets harder to do in some periods. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, a great many cabinetmakers and factories did not label their work for a variety of reasons. That makes it awfully hard to confirm your suspicion (or hopes) that the cabinet might be a Pabst, Herter Brothers or Berkey & Gay cabinet. That leads to the next area of possible misdirection – the attribution game.

Many dealers and auctioneers, when at loss for descriptive material for a catalog or advertisement, easily fall into the “attribution pit.” This deep pit is surrounded by a long slippery slope lubricated with terms like “it looks just like …,” “it’s the same style as …” and “there was one at ...” et al. It has gotten to the point where almost any upholstered piece that features a carved head and face is “attributed to Jelliff.” It is true that John Jelliff (1813-1893) of New Jersey did make some parlor sets that had heads and faces carved in them. But so did a number of other cabinetmakers and carvers. And Jelliff wasn’t even in the business when most of the Renaissance Revival sets attributed to him were made. Jelliff actually retired in 1860 and his company was taken over by an employee, Henry H. Miller, who continued the business under Jelliff’s name until 1890. So is that parlor set an artifact of John Jelliff & Co.? If it has the simple brand used by Miller after Jelliff retired, “J.J. Co.” it probably is. If it is unmarked it probably isn’t.

As far as distinctive features found in the attribution pit, all winged animals, griffins or not, were not made by R.J. Horner although most of them are attributed as such. And all Mission oak chairs were not made by some variation of the Stickley family as much as someone might want them to be and all oddly configured, angular chairs were not made by George Hunzinger no matter how quirky they are.

For a piece to be properly attributed it must match in detail a known example of the maker’s work. It can’t just “look just like it.” The attribution must also be based on some unique skill, design or quality possessed by the maker that differentiates him from other cabinetmakers, and it helps to have at least some provenance that lends some credibility to the attribution. Without these points in place, an unwarranted attribution is just wishful thinking that could lead to long-term unhappy results.

Send your comments, questions and pictures to Fred Taylor at P.O. Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423 or email them to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Visit Fred's website at www.furnituredetective.com. His book How To Be a Furniture Detective is available for $18.95 plus $3 shipping. Send check or money order for $21.95 to Fred Taylor, P.O. Box 215, Crystal Fiver, FL, 34423.

Fred and Gail Taylor's DVD, Identification of Older & Antique Furniture ($17 + $3 S&H) is also available at the same address. For more information call 800-387-6377, fax 352-563-2916, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . All items are also available directly from his website.

Furniture Specific: Mess hall duty

Since dedicated eating space is such a relatively new innovation in American architecture and since the idea of all matching furnishings in that space is even newer, it is interesting to note how much tradition and importance have been assigned to the space and the furniture. Even the area designated for dining in Thomas Jefferson’s masterpiece, Monticello, was not set with a permanent table. Small tables were arranged from storage along the wall to accommodate the correct number of diners for each event. After Jefferson, things got a lot more ritualized in America. In fact during the mid-Victorian period in America the Dining Room accumulated so much symbolism and mystery that the former Chair of the Office of Advanced Studies at the Winterthur Museum, Kenneth L. Ames, wrote a book in 1992 to help us make some sense of it all. The book is titled Death in the Dining Room & Other Tales of Victorian Culture, published by Temple University Press. Despite the daunting title it is an easy, entertaining and rewarding read and actually sheds light on several complicated Victorian customs, rituals and traditions. It also explains a lot about my grandparents who were born in the early 1880s.

But most of us don’t have an example of the magnificently symbolic sideboard made by A.G. Fourdinois in Paris in 1851 and exhibited in the Great Exhibition in London the same year. We don’t even have the American version, made by Bulkley & Herter, which was shown at the American Crystal Palace in New York in 1853. It’s just as well. We generally wouldn’t have neither the time to study the symbolism nor the energy to clean all the majestic little “dustable” places incorporated into the designs.

What many of us do have, however, is a room, or at least some space, reserved for those eating occasions that require a more formal atmosphere than the kitchen bar or the breakfast nook. It may not be fancy. It may not be expensive. The furniture is probably not what we would see at the White House or even at a smart private club, but it is ours and we probably spent more on it than we care to admit. So now the problem is to take care of it so we don’t have to spend that outrageous amount of money again before we are ready.

Here are some general thoughts about maintaining your dining room furniture on a regular basis. Most of it is common sense coupled with a little elbow grease mixed in with some people skills.

Other than water, the greatest enemy of your fine furniture, dining or otherwise, is strong light – primarily sunlight. We all love to see the sunbeams twinkling brilliantly across the polished surfaces in our dark caves, but learn to think of those sunbeams as laser guns or atomic blasters. While they may deliver a warm mellow glow to your skin after a day outside, they will do the opposite to the color in your antique dining table – and chairs – and sideboard – and corner cupboard. Over a period of years exposure to exterior light from a window or sliding door will seriously drain the intensity of the color of the wood in your furniture. This is especially true of harsh direct sunlight but it even includes incidental light that manages to pry its way in through a north window.

One of the most obvious things you can do is to pull the drapes on the offending window or door. Yes, it will be darker but you aren’t in that room very often for very long. When you are not there close up the room. Open it when you need the space and feel free to turn on the electric lights. That source of light, while not ideal, is not as harmful as sunlight.

Aside from light source protection one of the one simplest but most beneficial things you can do for your dining set is to rotate it. No matter how careful you are with light pollution and exposure to heating and air-conditioning vents, the components of a set of furniture eventually will start to exhibit minor differences in color, cleanliness and wear based almost exclusively on how the components are arranged in their space and how they are used. The backs of chairs exposed to a window for many years will eventually fade, while the fronts of the chairs on the opposite side of the table will too – not to mention the sides of the table if it is not covered. And if you use your set on a regular basis and the same people sit in the same place every time, sooner or later the location of the sloppy eaters becomes apparent from the condition of the table itself, the tablecloth, the chair and the carpet. Pick a single date in the year, like your birthday or the first day of spring – anything as long as you are consistent from year to year – and use that day to completely rotate the orientation of your dining room set – table, chairs, carpet, china cabinet, art work – the works. Just keep telling yourself “change is good.” The major caveat for this operation is not to attempt to move all this stuff by yourself. Sure you can move the chairs and the artwork and the plant stand but it takes at least two people to move a full-size dining table. Do the same for a china cabinet and sideboard, especially if you are moving them out of the room to rotate the area rug under the table.

One of the best acquisitions you can make for your dining room table is a set of custom-made high quality table pads. You can mess around for years with rubber sheets, quilts, blankets, tablecloths, placemats and all the other low-cost substitutes, but eventually you will grow tired of the bother and disgusted with the inadequate results. When that happens call a good furniture restoration artist (you should know one anyway) and ask what brand of table pad he or she recommends and who sells them. It will be easier than you think. In most cases the company will send a local rep to your house to measure the table and show you samples of the bottom suede or velvet lining and let you pick your color of top vinyl covering. After placing the order your pads normally arrive in about two weeks. Good ones will come with latches or locks that hold individual sections of the pad together while they are in place on the tabletop. But do not leave the pads installed permanently. They should be stored in their original box in a horizontal position when not in use.

Finally you should produce a filmed inventory of most of your household belongings, but especially of your expensive and better furniture and antiques. If you can afford it have this done by a professional who probably has better equipment than you do and who can edit and label your final product. Keep this inventory in a safe deposit box along with the professional appraisals you have had done of your better stuff items.

Send your comments, questions and pictures to Fred Taylor at P.O. Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423 or email them to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Visit Fred's website at www.furnituredetective.com. His book How To Be a Furniture Detective is available for $18.95 plus $3 shipping. Send check or money order for $21.95 to Fred Taylor, P.O. Box 215, Crystal Fiver, FL, 34423.

Fred and Gail Taylor's DVD, Identification of Older & Antique Furniture ($17 + $3 S&H) is also available at the same address. For more information call 800-387-6377, fax 352-563-2916, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . All items are also available directly from his website.