Vintage IKEA furniture from the 1940s is selling for a small fortune with chairs going for up to £50,000
The shockingly high prices are ironically down the poor sales at the time of original production
VINTAGE Ikea furniture is fast becoming a desirable collector's item, with a single chair selling for up to £50,000.
The high prices are a result of a growing market for furniture from the time when the Swedish company made its name.
Within the last year prices for many of the flat pack manufacturer's most iconic designs have rocketed past their retail cost.
Recently Ikea's 1944 "mushroom" or "clam chair", measuring 30ins by 30ins, has appeared at numerous fine art and design auctions around the world.
Made a year after the store was founded in 1943, it's now selling for up to £50,000.
Ironically many of today's most sought-after items are those that flopped back in the day due to high production costs or low sales figures.
Their swift discontinuation means there aren't many examples still around, so folk are digging deep to scoop up the rare items.
The lower production numbers also meant goods were produced to a higher standard with better materials, which is partly the reason many still survive today.
Another reason for the surge in prices is that so many historic Ikea products have the names of famous designers attached to them, a shrewd business move by founder Invar Kamprad.
Colourful flatpack chairs designed by futuristic Danish designer Verner Panton worth £60 in 1993 now sell for £700.
Now 91, Kamprad continues to collaborate and Ikea art work by Ernst Billgren sold in store for £147 this year recently fetched £1,125 at auction.
Sofas and armchairs from the mid 1950s are worth ten times more than they were at the time while a flatpack shelving unit from the 1970s recently sold for £3,000.
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Leather chairs from the 1980s are worth £875 and and a simple flatpack sideboard table from the same period is valued at £2,275.
The surprising trend has been revealed by Barnebys, a search engine aggregator that tracks sales from 2,000 auction houses.
Pontus Silfverstolpe, Barnebys co-founder, said: "Our records show that there is a huge demand, greater than ever before, for vintage Ikea furniture.
"There has been a big boom within the last year that has been felt in markets all across the world.
"Unlike many of their items today, Ikea's older products were actually made very well and have stood the test of time.
"Also many of the examples we have cited were made over a very short period of time, so there aren't many of them around.
"When a new generation becomes financially established and begins to trade at an auction, they usually start to buy what they saw around them when growing up."
Ikea's first store opened in Sweden in 1958 and the operation was relatively small scale for the next 15 years, until the first one outside Scandinavia was opened in 1973.
The company has enjoyed booming success ever since and now, with 392 stores, it is the largest furniture retailer in the world.
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