Determining the Age of a Murphy Cedar Chest?

Pghgirl40
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November 25, 20180 found this helpful

I know more about the Lane's than the Murphys. If I remember correctly, they made the chest from the late 1940s to the early 2000s, and I believe the company is still around.

Perhaps they can help you understand their numbering system. Most numbering systems I am familiar with the last 2 digits are the year...so if that is the case here, this would be from 1973, I have not found anything to prove that with the Murphy's however.

This is the contact info I found:

www.manta.com/.../murphy-furniture-manufacturing-co...

Please post back what you learn!! I am very curious!! Always looking to learn more about neat old items!! Thanks!

Judy
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November 25, 20180 found this helpful

This looks to me like it was made in the 1940s. Make sure any restorations do not take any value away from the piece.

cybergrannie
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November 26, 20180 found this helpful

I'm not sure of the year this chest was made but I agree that it seems to be a style from the 40-50s because the heavy ornamental styles changed to more simple lines in the 60s and later.

I have seen Murphy cedar chests in older catalog advertisements from the 60s and the chests were very plain.

There is very, very little information about the Murphy Manufacturing Co available - not even on Wikipedia - so dating these chests may have to be done from personal knowledge or from older company catalogs that are sometimes found on eBay.

• Everyone likes to state the company is still in business and from the ads on the Internet that show this company's "profile" it would seem so.
• However, these ads seem to be from companies trying to sell their business ads or some other reason and are never verified by anyone from this company.
• Also, there are two addresses shown (different sites) and two telephone numbers given for the company.
• In the past and as late as today, I have tried to verify these numbers as belonging to the company to no avail.
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• One address: 1003 15th Street W. has number: 205-221-5340 and this number is not in service (same response as last year). This address also shows number: 205-384-6723 which rings but no answer.
• www.yelp.com/.../murphy-furniture-manufacturing-co...
• www.whitepages.com/.../b-1e5sp7x
• Second address: 1604 n 10th Ave with same number 205384-6723 - no answer over several days.
• www.manta.com/.../murphy-furniture-manufacturing-co...
• I cannot believe a company is still in business that does not answer their telephone so I hope that if someone can verify this business still exists they would post a reply so we would know how to answer Murphy cedar chest questions in the future.
• There have been a lot of questions asked on ThriftyFun in the past so you may check some on the answers from past postings. There is one comment from a Murphy family member about the company. (The comment about the numbers relating to the year of manufacturer is not true for Murphy chests.)
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• www.thriftyfun.com/tf14273541.tip.html