Hello, sorry have not been able to post. Must have been that global warming post...

I have not looked at Thomasville in a long time but reports here are that the quality has slipped. You cannot go wrong with Mobel or Sumter Cabinet. I would add one more to the mix, Cresent. Good luck.

John, Sumter has closed its plant or maybe plants here,so the dealer tells me and has moved mfring to China. They had a bedroom suite from a new line, made in China on the floor. It looked good from the front but the back panel had a hole in it, probably busted during moving which is OK but there was evidence that it was not nailed correctly since there were gaps. Should floor samples be an indicator of quality?

Also Sumter apparently didn't use glue in addition to the nails for the back panel. However they do use english dovetails front and back on the drawers. The Sumter dresser that was made in the US standing next to the Chinese piece did not have any defects. Mobel uses french dovetail on the drawer fronts I believe and their drawers do seem to slide effortlessly (well that's empty and it is a showroom sample).

Sumter has gone offshore too? Guess it is a sign of the times. It does not necessarily mean that quality suffers but let's face it, cost reduction is the goal typically, not quality. My Favorite is Mobel anyway. They still manufacture in Indiana which is home to some good furniture companies. Mobel uses French dovetails. Honestly, I prefer English dovetails but if the craftmanship is good, French dovetails are fine.

And yes, floor samples are indicators of quality. The longer it sits on the floor the better. Nothing like drawers being opened and closed several hundred times.

jrdwyer has posted on Mobel several times. Perhaps if he is around, he will chime in.

We'll take a closer second look at Mobel this weekend. I'm pretty sure they use a french dovetail to the drawer front and on the back it's english. The US made Sumter suite we were looking at is still available, so they must still have inventory. Sad state of affairs.

Mobel is still making good furniture in Ferdinand, IN.

They use either red oak or red alder woods for the edge-glued 3/4" thick solid wood drawer fronts, top, and side panels. Both wood species take a stain well and are abundant, which is why they are popular for furniture making. Red oak is a denser wood than red alder, so the oak drawers will have a heavier feel than the alder drawers and total weight will also be greater for each piece.

On our set, all the drawer sides and some backs are 7/16" thick edge-glued solid American sycamore with a rounded bottom edge for smooth sliding. Many of the drawer backs are 1/2" thick (9-ply) hardwood plywood that looks to be either tulip poplar or white birch. The front drawer joints are French or blind dovetails and the rear are box joints. The drawer design is open sliding with a tilt rail, which means there are no guides to break. Drawers do not have stops, but this is not really an issue as the drawer wells are very deep (16.5" interior drawer length) and the tilt rails can support even the largest drawer that is full and open 12-14 inches.

The queen sleigh bed is all solid wood (no plywood like most imported stuff) with properly floating raised panels. In fact, it was the sleigh bed that sold me on the quality of Mobel furniture as it is very heavy and solid feeling. So many beds in furniture showrooms are rickety!

We've had our red oak bedroom set since 1999 and not one problem. Mobel now has semi-custom which allows for more finish and hardware options.

If you want different style options and/or hard maple furniture, then take a look at Durham furniture. They are based in Ontario, Canada and have a very new and modern manufacturing facility there. I think they were the last factory-type Canadian or USA furniture maker to invest in new facilities here.

Thanks dwyer and john for the info. The Sumter suite is 750 bucks cheaper. Sumter is solid cherry (after watching the program on INside Edition last night - I begin to wonder). They do have drawer stops on Sumter and english dovetails front and back. The Mobel drawers do slide more easily than the Sumter. How would they do when loaded I wonder. Can't make up my mind at this point.

What was Inside Edition about?

I saw this while surfing channels. They bought various items of casegoods from stores where one would mostly NOT shop for good quality furniture (Target, K-Mart and Pottery Barn), then took a chain saw to the pieces. Some of these stores had asserted 'solid mahogany' or 'solid cherry' and after cutting open, the truth was mostly particle board and in the case of the mahogany about 1 mm veneer of mahogany. Some of these companies did have fine print that said 'finish' others didn't and said they would 'fix' their advertising. Moral: read the fine print

By the way I found a store in High Point that is selling their Mobel line a lot less than what my local is offering.It's now cheaper than the Sumter suite. Dwyer or John can you tell what would be a good price for Kingbed+miror+dresser+chest+nightstand in the American Images (red alder) line? Thanks

axg9504,

I read your Inside Edition link and I wasn't surprised by what it said. Retailers commonly use the Maple/Oak/Mahogany*(see fine print) as a sleazy sales tactic to get people to buy. I saw this at a Sam's Club 3 or 4 years ago. The big sign on the piece said Maple hutch. It was made out of rubberwood. In much smaller print on the box were the words "Maple finish". Let the Buyer Beware!

The price we paid in 1999 for a Mobel queen sleigh bed in oak was around $1,000 at a local retailer. I can't recall the prices for the rest of the bedroom pieces.

This place I mentioned seems to be pretty aggressive compared to local. The King bed in the American Images is priced at under $1000. Now that's not oak but alder so I guess it would be cheaper (?) What are the properties of Alder as compared to the other hardwoods. I have seen links where people describe it as a clearly inferior wood, yet it seems to be, according to other sources, used in furniture in volumes second only to oak.

With good construction techniques, I think almost any hardwood can make fine furniture.

Red alder is a soft hardwood. It's density or specific gravity is about the same as tulip poplar. It is fairly easy to dent with a finger nail, but then again, so is black cherry. The wood has nice straight and minimalistic grain. It does not darken with age like black cherry.

Alder is called "poor man's cherry", because it is a cheaper alternative to black cherry. 10 years ago it was used by only a few companies like Mobel. Now it is used heavily in Asia for many products and in the western USA for kitchen cabinets.

Red alder is now worth more than red oak which has been in a price decline for the last 2.5 years due to changing consumer preferences. This is hopefully just a temporary trend, because red oak makes up 1/3 of the standing tree volume in the eastern USA. Landowners, who I work for, have been seeing price declines for their red oak trees. Imagine if the S&P 500 dropped for two years straight and then had the possibility of no major increases after that.

oh oh, just ordered a Mobel Am. Images suite (I believe it is alder wood). I think we'll stick with it.

Mobel is horrible and cheap almost every drawer rail has broke on me and the bed rails have broke on me CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP