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Thread: What an amazing desk!

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    Member Kurt S's Avatar
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    Default What an amazing desk!

    I would love to have this desk!!
    http://youtu.be/MKikHxKeodA
    Got ink?

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    Senior Member Rusty888's Avatar
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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    Way too many hidden compartments. I'm sure I left my pen in one of the 1.2 billion hiding places.

    Hate to see the price of this

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    Senior Member Tracy Lee's Avatar
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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    Wow!!!!

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    Incredible. Thanks for sharing this.
    Beware of oblique conclusions.

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    If I had one I might finally have room for all my junk!
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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    Great desk. I agree with rusty...too many hidden drawers. I would forget either the drawers or what was inside them. What's the history on the desk? Must have been made for royalty.

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    Senior Member cwent2's Avatar
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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    One of the finest achievements of European furniture making, this cabinet is the most important product from Abraham (1711--1793) and David Roentgen's (1743--1807) workshop. A writing cabinet crowned with a chiming clock, it features finely designed marquetry panels and elaborate mechanisms that allow for doors and drawers to be opened automatically at the touch of a button. Owned by King Frederick William II, the Berlin cabinet is uniquely remarkable for its ornate decoration, mechanical complexity, and sheer size.

    This cabinet is from Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens:

    Footage courtesy of VideoART GmbH and Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
    Last edited by cwent2; December 21st, 2014 at 10:46 AM.
    Cw



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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    HOLY CRAP!! I literally lol'd at 1:15 when the 2nd little hidden drawer swung out from under the 1st little hidden drawer. It's like a moment from a Dr. Seuss cartoon.

    The thing probably weighs more than my car.

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    Fascinating. How many keys do you need to operate it ?
    It is great the way the easel unfolds too.

    I can imagine "Damn bedtime already, I've spent 4 just hours playing the desk and haven't had a chance to write any letters yet"
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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    Now thats the desk i need. The easel alone would be great for calligraphy practice. although i could see spending far too much time trying to remember where i put everything. Thanks for sharing!

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    Senior Member Tracy Lee's Avatar
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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    I loved the easel too. Really a work of art.

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    That is wonderful. There's something so satisfying about having a secret drawer... I've never seen so many in one piece of furniture! It's particularly nice to see how the mechanisms work.

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    That is a feat of engineering genius. Awesome.

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    The other amazing thing is, apparently, it all still works.

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    I would settle for an MP3 file playing the opening music from the video every time I sat down to write! LOL

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    Thanks for resurrecting this post, that desk is impressive indeed.
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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    Roentgen is one of the greatest cabinet makers of all time.
    I had seen another cabinet perhaps, with less hidden stuff than that one on German TV. Or they didn't take the time to show as many compartments as this showing.

    The real problem was it was a status item, where you showed it off to various Kings and Princes....so it was never quite as secret as it could have been.
    Cost. Then it was cheap...WAG the life time work of a village; labor was cheap....even the best labor.

    Cost.
    I obviously saw the Puskin desk on TV way back in the when of 40 years ago. There is a furniture museum in Frankfurt Germany, that had some secrete compartment ancient desks, but because I had 'seen' the Puskin desk, I was less impressed than I should have been. They had no Roentgen desk.

    Don't know if that was the writer Puskin but thought it was the cabinet maker Puskin's desk.
    I expected to find it; when surfing, easily. But didn't. It amazed the hell out of me some 40 years ago, not only for the well justified real money price of a million dollars.

    Well a 'old' Puskin desk....looking like a nice flat good wood boss desk....went for over $1,000,000, 40 years ago.
    The six foot by 4 foot top of the desk rotates out for all sorts of shallow little compartments underneath it. Everywhere you can think there is a secret compartment, there is. Everywhere where you think there couldn't be a secret compartment, there was.
    It looked like your basic large heavy doable pedestal sleek 20's boss's desk...you know the basic 250 pound desk. Don't think it weighed more than 50 pounds in they showed someone picking it up with one arm. Even had secret compartments down in the six inch high legs, both sides.
    Last edited by BoBo Olson; October 13th, 2021 at 08:24 AM.

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    Default Re: What an amazing desk!

    what a tremendous bit of design! thanks for the post ... the level of craftsmanship is downright intimidating - i can't even get proper dovetails yet...

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