IKEA customers are being urged not to throw away their old furniture as it could be worth a small fortune.
While most IKEA furniture pieces are cheap and cheerful, people may be guilty of thinking that they're not worth anything at all. The Swedish home shopping chain is known for having functional and stylish items.
But beyond the flatpacks, some items are iconic and have become classics in people's homes. The most sought after pieces have an eye watering price tag.
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An Ikea armchair that sold for £20 in 1959 recently reached a staggering £15,500 when sold at auction, reported The Mirror. The Bengt Ruda Cavelli armchair set the record for the most expensive piece of Ikea furniture ever when it was auctioned off. The chair is striking, but also rare, with just five ever made.
Pontus Silfverstolpe, antiques expert and founder of Barnebys antiques website, said: "The flat package fortune continues to surprise the auction world, but we have more peaks to look forward to. It is especially designer furniture from the 1950s and 1980s from Ikea that costs more and more on the second-hand market."
The furniture that is most attractive to collectors and design enthusiasts is an innovative design for its time, made of good materials and in a limited edition or manufacturing period. Ironically the most expensive Ikea auction items today are almost always Ikea's flops, which were quickly discontinued due to lack of sales figures or expensive production costs, says Pontus Silfverstolpe.
Among other valuable early designs of the Ikea furniture range sold at auction is the furniture group Åke. Åke was manufactured in 1952-1956 and included sofas and armchairs.
In 1956 an Åke armchair cost just £8, but just over fifty years later, its price is significantly higher. In April 2022, a copy was sold for as much as £2,863 when it was auctioned off at Wright.
Another hit is the 1972 'Impala' armchair, which sold for £80 at the time. But these chairs now sell for £2,000 at auction.
Teak furniture was very popular in the 1960s, when Ikea brought out its 'Monaco' series of dining chairs. At the time, a set of four chairs would cost £20 - but recently sold for £412.
It may not be to everyone's taste, but two of the Ikea 'Oti' armchairs, designed in 1986, sold for £875 in 2016. That's a big step up from the £46 it would have cost to buy the pair of chairs back in the 1980s.
The lacquered metal armchair was the brainchild of now-famous designer Niels Gammelgaard. Ikea hiked the price of products in its UK stores in December 2021 - blaming rising supply chain costs for the increases. The flatpack furniture giant says it has raised prices by 10% on average, which is above the global average of 9%.
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