Back in the 1890s, craftsmanship in dental manufacturing meant chairs that were built to last.

Larry Cohen, Benco Dental Chairman and Chief Customer Advocate, has over the past half-century collected hundreds of unique dental artifacts, which reside at Benco’s home office in Pittston, Pennsylvania,

A FEW MONTHS AGO, I spied at an auction something I’d never seen before: a dental chair with a legged base. With a cast-iron and a pump base, it weighs several hundred pounds, but it’s elegant nonetheless, with plush maroon upholstery and hand-painted filigree. It represents perhaps the best $5,000 I’ve ever spent.

It was also a bit of a leap of faith: Unlike most of my collection pieces, to which I have personal connections, I knew very little about this chair. Putting on my Sherlock Holmes hat, however, I started investigating my new purchase.

It turns out I now own a Wilkerson Dental Chair, patented and manufactured in around 1890 by the SSWhite Dental Mfg. Co. The upholstery seems to be original — as it was marketed in those days, “in finest green or maroon plush for $135.” You could also get it in leather or cane for the same price. Unfortunately, the original owner didn’t see fit to spend the extra seven bucks for seal skin — that was a lot of money back before cars and airplanes or ubiquitous electricity.

To make the purchase go down easier, “boxing [was] free.” I expect Wilkerson likely freighted it to the dental practice, first by rail, then by horse — and then by human. Most dental offices then were on the second floor, above a drugstore . . . and I pity the men who had to lug this beast up the steps.

In the late nineteenth century, SSWhite was a manufacturing behemoth, with locations in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, Brooklyn, Atlanta and Rochester, plus offices in Berlin and Buenos Aires. Given the nature of dynamic capitalism, the mighty have certainly fallen: All that’s left of SSWhite is its complete line of excellent carbide burs. But the team there would surely be heartened to know that almost 130 years after their forebears made this beauty, it’s worth almost 40 times what they originally sold it for. Quality always wins out in the end.