Looks like there’s a few cool Nissen mills, a GC Dansk mill, and the rest by JHQ, although not any super rare ones. Nice.

It’s interesting to me that he’s got almost 30 mills that I don’t have.  Considering we each have quite large collections, it’s pretty amazing that I can’t duplicate about a third of his collection. There’s a lot of them out there!

Thanks so much for sending these in – I’m sure everyone will enjoy!

You can see the it at Wright along with the rest of their Scandinavian Design auction.  They have put together an amazing collection of works – it’s worth checking them all out here.

My one gripe is that they have mis-appropriated two pieces to Jens Quistgaard. Or is that two gripes? He did not design that Lovig desk or those removable top tables. Usually Wright is pretty solid in that regard.

UPDATE:  The lot sold for $11,250.  And, a Quistgaard Dansk magazine rack sold for $1,000.

By the way, does the Flash “enlarge” function on the site work for anyone?  It doesn’t work for me, so I can’t see the mills very well. Strange, since Wright does some cool things with HTML, but they use Flash for this. Ooops, I think that is three gripes.

See the mills >

Here’s my two favorites.  The top one is cocobolo and the bottom wenge.

I hope to find them for myself, someday!

Just wanted to let my readers know I listed a bunch of stuff on eBay.  Only a few Dansk pieces, mainly stuff I got thrifting or at garage sales or just clearing out some space.

There’s a cool tube guitar amp, some California pottery, and other mid-century finds.

Check out my auctions >

From the Dansk International archives exclusively for Crate and Barrel, Jens Quistgaard’s award-winning mid-century designs are reinterpreted just for a new generation in eco-friendly acacia wood. With the same warm look and rich grain as the original teak, they’re so true to their museum-quality heritage that the original names live on. Mills display as sculpture and functional objects, with ceramic mechanism that grinds both salt and pepper.

You can find them at Crate & Barrel for $39.95 each.

First of all, the wood grain is somewhat different than most Dansk mills.  It does not feel like the nice teak Dansk used.  It’s teak, but the grain is not as straight and not as fine.  Perhaps it is not old growth teak.  The grain of the top portion doesn’t match the bottom as well as it should, either.

Second, the grinders look exactly like the grinders Dansk used during its run when it produced mills in Thailand, but all of the writing on the plastic has seemingly been sanded off – except the word Thailand. Perhaps someone in Thailand bought a bunch of Dansk grinders off the back of a truck and went into production for themselves after grinding off the brand?

Third, although the design is quite good, it never felt exactly like a JHQ design.  The scale and heft is right, but it’s not quite as refined and the quality is just a bit off.  That plug in the top sure looks right.  However, the way the top meets the bottom is not how JHQ did it.  Either the seam is hidden in some way by the contour of the wood or it is accentuated by a small bevel on each piece.  The top of this mill just sits on the bottom.

Fourth, the finish on the bottom is quite rough.  Most Dansk mills are finished equally fine on both the top and the bottom.

Lastly, most of the mills from that era are quite common – this one seems quite rare.

Today there was a new listing for the mill on eBay which has solved the mystery.  This mill clearly has a label which reads “Selandia Designs – Teakwood from Thailand”.  Selandia is a Danish company that made teak and stainless steel accessories, similar to Dansk, but probably a bit later in the era – perhaps in the 70s judging from some of the packaging I’ve seen.  It’s usually pretty good stuff, but much more utilitarian and not the quality of Dansk.

The mill is quite nice, but it it’s Dansk.  The good news is that the mystery is solved.  The bad news is that I have identified it as a Quistgaard mill in my book. It is in one of the illustrations, and in my defense, I had only seen poor photos of the mill at the time and was not aware of most of these issues.  I’ve found a few errors in the book, and will surely correct them if I do another edition.

Of note from the first round of sales was a Nissen mill that sold for $300, perhaps a record for his mills (or at least near – I seem to recall one selling for more before).   This is a very cool one that I would love in my collection

Dansk Pepper Mill and Salt Shaker Jane at Amazon

First of all, the collection.  If both of my cameras hadn’t broken before my trip, I’d have better photos, but the iPhone did a good job.  You can see from the photos that the collection is quite extensive.  He’s got a great selection of Jens Quistgaard for Dansk mills as well as those by other designers.  As I wrote about in my previous post, he’s got some very rare mills that are highly sought after by serious collectors, some I’ve never seen in person and it was great to be able to hold them in my hand.  They are also displayed beautifully.  Each mill sits on it’s own little shelf on the 8′x8′ wall, painted cream or ecru color to offset the mills’ wood.  It’s a display Sam himself designed and had built for the collection.  And of course, the whole thing is for sale…

Then there’s the rest of Sam’s gallery.  The place is filled to the rafters with cool stuff.  Lots of smalls and furniture, much of it I didn’t recognize (that is, rare pieces).  He’s got a ton of ceramics by Stig Lindberg and others, as well as art pieces large and small.   I didn’t have a lot of time to go through everything, but one could spend a lot of time there.

One of the most interesting pieces in the shop for me was a rosewood walking stick designed by Jens Quistgaard.  There were only 6 made, and they were given to the top Dansk executives by Quistgaard himself.  Sam has the whole story on it, and there is one for sale currently if anyone is interested.

And speaking of Sam, what a great guy.  He’s full of enthusiasm, information, and entertaining stories on Quistgaard and much more.

If you are planning to visit, you can find the contact info here.  Even if the gallery is closed, you can see the mills – they are near the front door.  The neighborhood is very cool, too.  They are right near the super hip Swingers Diner, the Grove, close to all the LA modern stores like Denmark 50 and Modernica, and the Melrose shopping district is close by as well.  A great place to visit.