Trouser Press Dresser

Q:         I am stumped by a piece of wooden furniture I inherited. It looks like a three-drawer dresser, but the dresser’s top and the hinged front of the top drawer lift up to reveal a trouser press next to a small storage bin. And the bottom drawer front opens on hinges, too. The only mark I can find is “Pat. No. 112843.” It’s impressed on both the press and the back of the dresser. The press can be unscrewed from the dresser. Can you tell me who made it, how old it is and what it’s worth?

A :        The patent number refers to a British patent, not an American one. The patent application was filed in England in 1917 by Frank Henry Miles, a “cabinet manufacturer, Crown Cabinet Works, Redcross Street, Bristol.” The patent was granted on Jan. 31, 1918. It relates to Miles’s invention of a “trouser press & cabinet combined.” The patent application states that the press could be “adapted to any piece of furniture as desired or if required made as a separate press.” It is likely that your combination trouser press-dresser dates from the late 1910s or early 1920s. The storage bin was meant to be used for “small wearing apparel (such as collars, &c.).” As a piece of furniture, your press-dresser might sell for $200 to $300.