Old lounge suite for sale for $100,000

Fancy paying at least $50,000 for a 50,000-year-old lounge suite?

Bay of Plenty couple Doug and Sue Frahm are selling theirs.

The four-piece suite, a couch, two chairs and a coffee table, is made from solid kauri recovered from a Far North swamp. The kauri has been carbon dated and a framed certificate verifies it was built from 50,000-year-old timber.

It was carved by the Ancient Kauri Kingdom at Awanui, north of Kaitaia.

They have set their required starting bid at $50,000 on the auction website Trade Me, but Mr Frahm says he will not part with his wooden treasure for less than $100,000.

The Frahms have owned it for the past 12 years and say they never get sick of looking at it. However, they are trying to sell it to prevent it being damaged by an increasing number of their grandchildren.

Mr Frahm said he always had a liking for wood and the couple bought the suite as an investment before it was even finished.

When it arrived, the couch, which weighs more than a tonne, took five hours to manoeuvre into position in their Kawerau home.

Last week, Ancient Kauri Kingdom production manager Shane Buchanan said a newly-crafted couch similar to the Frahms would fetch about $40,000, the single chairs $15,000 each and the coffee table perhaps $3500.

The company sold about one kauri couch a year and the last one was bought by a Lotto winner, he said.

"It could take a while to sell it but there's probably a buyer out there," he said.

Mr Buchanan said buyers should treat the Frahms' kauri furniture as an investment.

"This is a limited resource and it will run out one day. It will become more and more expensive as it depletes."

Mr Frahm said he had to take a wall out to create a space large enough to accommodate the suite.

He said he was "not really in a hurry" to part with it.

"I'm not sure whether I really want to sell it."

- NZPA