Gee Whiz! A Vintage High Chair!

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IMG_3332I like vintage stuff. A lot. A couple years ago I wrote a post about vintage baby products, in which I mentioned that I wanted a 1950s high chair in aqua to match my retro kitchen.

Well, my dreams have come true. Actually, they came true about 18 months ago, but I had forgotten about it until recently.

One day around Halloween 2013, I was perusing eBay, something I rarely do because I wind up making impulse purchases when I should really know better. Then I saw it: A vintage aqua high chair in fantastic condition. Christmas was coming up, so I decided to buy it for myself and have my husband “give” it to me as my gift. When it arrived it looked amazing, but unfortunately it reeked heavily of cigarette smoke and there was no way we could put it in the house. So instead we put it in the rafters of our garage and promptly forgot about it.

I didn’t give it another thought until this past Christmas when my husband was getting some decorations out of the garage and asked what I wanted to do about the high chair. At first I didn’t even know what he was talking about, but then he said, “I think the cigarette smell is gone.” Oh yeah! My high chair!

IMG_3337I stuck my nose in it, and indeed, the odor had disappeared. I moved our spare aqua-colored vinyl kitchen chair out of its spot next to the counter and replaced it with the high chair. It matches my kitchen set almost perfectly—so well, in fact, that my 3-year-old came over and started yelling at us, “Fix it! Fix it!” apparently thinking that we had somehow altered the regular chair.

I emailed Dorel rep Ryan Hawker to see if it was a COSCO high chair. I told him the only information I could find was the name “Peterson” stamped into the front of the tray. He said that the companies COSCO and Peterson had merged to become “COSCO Peterson,” and then they dropped half the name to become just COSCO. He thinks the high chair is from the 1950s and was likely made in their plant in Columbus, Indiana. (Fun Fact: “COSCO” stands for “Columbus Specialty Company.”)

In case anyone out there is fretting over the potential dangers of using a 60-year-old seat that doesn’t meet current safety standards: Not to worry. It’s in my kitchen solely for decoration. We keep stubbing our toes on it, so I can’t guarantee it’ll be there much longer, but I’m holding out. Sometimes we need to sacrifice for beauty, or at least cool retro appeal.

3 Comments

  1. Teeka February 5, 2015
  2. Peggy Randen February 5, 2015
  3. Shannon Karren February 5, 2015