Alumni Chairs builds its chairs from American woods, exclusively. Our oaks are American White Oak and American Red Oak – all sourced from Ohio. All wooden components of our chairs are truly and exclusively American.
One college chair company builds its chairs from a wood that they call “Malaysian Oak”. It is NOT oak. It is wood of the Hevea species which is otherwise known as rubberwood, plantation hardwood, or para wood. In 2002, the Malaysian Ministry of Primary Industries began promoting rubberwood under the contrived name of “Malaysian Oak”.
Some chair makers ship maple from the American Midwest to Asia for milling at reduced production costs, and the finished products are return to the U.S. for assembly or sale. Alumni Chairs does not do this. Our chairs are made of American woods and are milled and assembled in the United States, exclusively.
The largest prodicer of captain’s chairs builds its chairs of maple exclusively. Therefore, its chairs that boast “cherry” arms and/or crowns merely offer maple arms and crowns that are plain maple merely stained to appear as “cherry”. The areas of those chairs that are stained to look like cherry do not really look like cherry; they certainly lack the chracteristic grain of cherry wood.
We at Alumni Chairs make all of our captain’s chairs with true, solid cherry arms and crowns. Our clients who request cherry arms and/or crowns receive exactly that – real, solid, cherry arms and crowns that display beautiful, rich, interesting cherry grain which is much more attractive than inexpensive white maple parts merely stained to look like cherry. Our clients deserve real cherry. You should demand real cherry.