Q: My mother, who is 94, got this bed when she was a child. Her parents bought it from a man who drove around the Doylestown, Ohio, area (where she was born) with antiques in his truck to sell. It is stamped "Manufactured by Hart & Malone, 2 & 4 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, O." Can you give us any information about the makers of this bed, its approximate age, and how much it might be worth?

A: William Hart established a furniture business in Cleveland in 1834. When his niece married Hezekiah Pennington Malone in 1865, Malone became a partner in the business and the name of the company became Hart & Malone. The company called itself “the best furniture manufacturing house in the country” and claimed to be the largest furniture manufacturer west of the Alleghenies. The business was located on Water Street (now West 9th Street) for several years before moving to Euclid Avenue, where it was located from at least 1873 to 1879. The addresses on Euclid were changed from the single digit numbers “2” and “4” to “301” and “303” by 1875, so your mother’s bed was probably made in the early 1870s. Renaissance Revival beds like this sell for $2,000 to $3,000.

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