Cocobolo Desk are some of the rarest and most desired high-end desks which features an exotic wood from Cocobolo located in Central America. This tropical hardwood is cherished amongst collectors for its rich colors and expressive grains. Most are shades of brown, but the accent grains can be yellow, red, purple even black. Its high sheen has earned cocobolo desk wood status as a favourite of designers who will typically either lacquer it or polish it to retain the maximum shine.
The unique visual characteristics of the surface, along with a limited availability, have helped to draw cocobolo desk as an extremely appealing product. Now it is one of the world’s most expensive timbers, carrying a price tag on par with other exotic woods such as rosewood. Don S. Shoemaker, a noted Mexican furniture designer, was one of the most illustrious designers to use cocobolo extensively on organically modernist designs in the 1960s and 70s. Shoemaker’s most iconic designs have fetched upward of $10,000 dollars in recent times.
What is Cocobolo Wood?
Cocobolo wood used to be Mexican rosewood or other Central American rosewoods; this comes from the home range between Mexico and Panama. It is seen as a genuine rosewood. Only the African Blackwood is denser.
The workability and colors of cocobolo desk is popular with craftsmen, which goes along why it’s such a commonly used furniture. Due to its widely recognized sound-reflecting and absorbing properties, it is also a favorite of string instrument builders.
Cocobolo wood is highly regarded for its deep, variegated color and figure. The swirling pattern is made of lines with all the colors of the rainbow, and right after cutting the wood emits a vibrational osmosis. As time passes, the colours mute, darkening to an almost uniform colour. The wood is also known to have a floral scent, thought of as being rather bold!
Is Cocobolo Furniture Rare?
Cocobolo trees do not grow everywhere in the world, thus furniture thats made out of it is very highly desired making cocobolo desk somewhat on the rare side. Indeed, the demand even accelerated the building of the Panama Canal around 20th century so that suppliers in Central America could export Cocobolo to the entire world.
However, with some controversy that continues to exist surrounding the toxicity of cocobolo desk, many craftspeople will also avoid working with it making pieces in cocobolo even more rare. In this case, the arguments against toxicity were based in the dust of the wood (so only harmful when cut or sanded). Different woods produce different amounts of dust and cocobolo dust is disproportionately huge. A disclaimer has been associated with large amounts of dust for cocobolo wood because, by nature, this dust is health threatening.
One of the other contributing factors to the high price and rarity of cocobolo desk is that the cocobolo desk itself is classified as a “vulnerable” species by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Coocobolo trade is strictly controlled by many countries’ governments in the hope of giving the tree a fighting chance.
For instance, Who Are Some Famous Cocobolo Designers
Many makers have toiled with cocobolo desk, yet few are better known than Mexican designer and woodworder Don S. Shoemaker, who was born in Nebraska and developed his love of design at the Art Institute of Chicago, traveled to Mexico on his honeymoon in the late 1940s and became enchanted by the country. Around the time Shoemaker was back in the U.S. he made a move with his new wife to Santa Maria de Guido, Mexico as an official base.
Shoemaker was a horticulture hobbyist in Mexico and began to develop an interest in the tropical woods native to that region. Combining his new passion with his design background, Shoemaker created Señal S.A., a cocobolo desk company that would focus largely on Mid-Century Modernist interpretations of localized Mexican pieces.
At its peak, the firm employed over 100 people and made everything from wood accent chairs and desks, to cheeseboards and salt-and-pepper shakers. Except for working also in other dark woods like walnut, the company mainly worked in mexican rosewood.
Along with mass-production goods, the firm churned out small-batch bespoke models against such as the legendary cocobolo desk. The table desk, with its diamond-inlaid half-octagonal-shaped top and two connected chevron-arranged legs — provided the shape pillars of the notion when on Mexican. news anchor Jacobo Zabuludovsky infamously appropriated it. And as if that weren’t enough, just 25 Diamond Line Desks ever saw the light of day.
Most Señal S.A. furniture also has a maker’s tag, identifying it as an original. These tags can be as simple of a small gold foil sticker or more formal black-colored placards with gold infill lettering a maker would see.
More Mid-Century Modern Rosewood Designs
If you love the way a Don Shoemaker cocobolo desk looks, but aren’t quite ready to drop five figures on one, prepare to be valiently steered in other directions.
Rosewood was heavily used by many Danish Modernist designers. Rosewood was quite probably the second most popular wood in Mid 20th Century Danish design after teak. Erik Buch, Johannes Andersen, Kai Kristiansen and Niels Koefoed were some influential Danish designers that used rosewood almost exclusively.
For a truly iconic piece to sit alongside the cocobolo desk opt for an Eames Lounger with a rosewood shell. Launched in 1956, the original Eames Lounger skimmed shell was made from five-or-more layers of Brazilian rosewood. Production of the Eames Lounger was suspended in 1992 when an embargo on Brazilian rosewood was imposed, adding to these chairs’ rarity.
Other American Mid Century Modern designers who used rosewood were Florence Knoll, Edward Wormley and Harvey Probber. If you are looking for something a little more wallet friendly, the Kent Coffey “Perspecta” may be your best option. Although made mostly of walnut, some Perspecta pieces sport elegant rosewood pulls with an aerodynamic look. A touch of rosewood gives these pieces an upscale quality, but all walnut construction keeps prices reasonable.
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