Beautiful....late Victorian...early 20th century. looks like fine quality, note the 4 legs across the front. No idea of value....it would need $1000 worth of upholstery....so any buyer will consider that.

It looks like a relatively easy piece to re-upholster, if the seat is still comfortable. When you get into replacing springs in the seat, the price adds up. I see old sofas for a couple hundred bucks in vintage stores. Generally, under $500, unless there's new upholstery. If you redo it for sale, pick a neutral.

This piece is certainly well above average as Victorian Era sofas go, in terms of style and design.

It's certainly a nice one.

I can't actually tell much about its condition or if it needs to be reupholstered. Unwrap it and clean it.

It's not the style people are willing to spend money restoring currently, but if it's usable as is, you might be able to find a home for it. I could make it work. :)

You have a fabulous piece. Notice the ribbon trim between the nail heads. Your mother was smart to keep it. Paine's furniture was top of the line. Beautiful showroom in Boston, by the Boston Common, and everyone who wanted quality furniture went to Paine's. Just about all my mother's furniture was purchased at Paine's, and my Mom was old Boston and knew how to choose pieces to mix and match with family heirlooms.

The building itself was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

You can research your piece. Familiarize yourself with Paine's. I bet you will keep it and work it into your scheme somehow. Lucky, lucky.

https://lettiandco.com/how-to-date-paine-furniture/

Paine's Furniture, as I knew it growing up, is gone, (not the gorgeous Neo-Classical building). but the Shearer family still owns and operates Paine's Patio Furniture, where my business partner and I shop to furnish the patios/decks for a 5* resort here in Mass.

Your post is so much fun. Over the moon, just thinking about taking the train into Boston, walking across the Common, with my Mom, to shop at Paine's.

This is a Paine's Library table from the Victorian era...$2,000.00 at auction.

Awesome piece as is. I had a standard sofa reupholstered right before lockdown, cost $1600.00, it would certainly be more now. Worth every penny to reupholster if needed, for the right buyer.

Did Mom or family come from the Boston area?

My in-laws had a similar style L shaped Victorian antique sofa reupholstered 10 years ago. It was $3,500 back then, in a simple white fabric...because everything had to be redone! It was taken down to the frame and rebuilt...which would be the case here also.

Wow thanks everyone! Quite a conversation going here! My Mom bought it in Los Angeles, but she and her parents are from the Boston area by coincidence! Now I will have to really think about keeping it. I did have a deco 30's-40's sofa that I had re-done in dark purple velvet many years ago and let go of it recently since it was not comfortable. I do miss it....

You decide if it can fit in with your decor; just want you to know it does have value.

Try one of the on-line auction houses or chairish , 1stdibs. See if you get any bites.

If it's been in LA all these years, stored or not, it'll be in better shape and smell better than if it had stayed back east. Climate matters!

Go on...try it out...sit on it!

Fori how did you know I have not even sat on it? You are correct! ;)

Is that the original fabric? If so what type would you call it? It's got a sort of Berber carpet look to it.

The padding of the seat may be horsehair? I say that because I am vaguely familiar with antique car upholstery and for a 1920 car you could have a horsehair pad over springs, and the cover material be wool or mohair. Supposedly horsehair is very long lasting, nothing at all like modern foam which deteriorates rapidly.

I wonder if it even has springs for the seat, or if it is a wood base with a horsehair pad.

And Judianna20 that is a great idea. Thanks for those site names. I sold a vintage camera on Etsy recently for $3700! So there are buyer out there!

Good questions Michael! I think it is the original fabric. It is kind of a nubby type. I'll look at it closer. Thanks Michael.

I know you haven't sat in it because there isn't a hole where you fell through. :)

Fabric looks like a boucle? It has a midcentury feel but could certainly be older. It doesn't have the froufrou floral or striped pattern one would expect it to have had originally.

@Fori I agree that the boucle has a definite mid-century feel including the somewhat "two-tone" shading and the blue-green color.

I don't think this would have been original to a Victorian piece as it would have typically been done in a solid - probably velvet of some kind.

I think someone had it done in the 1960's or possibly the 1970's although earth tones were more prevalent in the 1970's than a tealish boucle.

Maybe that fabric makes it more desirable since MCM is the current fad. Nobody will even notice the legs!!

I always think of upholstered pieces (esp that style) with ribbon and nailhead trim as obviously reupholstered, because that is an easier/cheaper way to finish off a piece when reupholstering. It doesn't look quite as refined as the original upholstery probably did. The boucle' looks to me like something from the 1970's with that blue and green combo...familiar to me, but I cannot recall exactly why.

That "ribbon trim is called "gimp" and is indeed the sign or a reuphbolstered piece. The style of the sofa and that nubbley fabric are not compatable. It would have had perhaps a velveteen or a matlessee fabric originally.

So much knowledge. It all makes a lot of sense. So do we think it is of the age of late 1800's? Or early 1900's? Would like to re-cover it in fabric matching the era better. Thank you all!!! What a great forum!

I did check out Chairish website, wow I could get in trouble big time on there!

The upholstery is supposed to look like this, without exposed nails holding down the edges. I think it is stapled with fabric folded back over to hide the staples. At least I would assume so.

That sofa is early 20th century....sort of the ragged end of the Victorian styling era. Likely af airly flat solid, or nearly solid, colored mohair would be appropriate.

Gimp at the edges is the lazy way. As Michael stated, there should have been one or 2 strips of the upholstery fabric, cut on the bias and filled with cording....called welting. The edge of the upholstery folded under and the edge of the welting slipped under and stapled in place....I know fiddley which is why the use of gimp.