About Ernest Koken

Ernest Koken is the famous inventor of the first hydraulic barber chair in the late 1800s. He started business by hand painting shaving mugs in 1874. Mr. Koken also started distribution of unique personalized copper coins for barber customers. This very rare treasure token coin is stamped "Koken's CO; St. Louis" with # 2 for discount on products and on other side it is stamped "GRACEY'S BARBER SHOP; with .85 cents" discount on hair cut and shave. An original Koken Shaving Mug is near priceless and this original Koken Brass Token is also a very rare treasure that is seldom found from 125+ years ago. These are highly sought after and seldom found. It will be the highlight of any collection of antique barber supplies by the most famous Koken name. A Koken was the acme of craftsmanship, a symbol of elegance -- in short, something a barber could be damn proud to own. "The Koken chair was always the standard of the industry," says Roach, owner of Earl's International in Clayton and St. Louis' only inductee into the Barber Hall of Fame. "They had the classiest look, the highest quality, and they gave a solid guarantee. And that was a local company that did that." The Koken chair, by its very ubiquity, has ensconced itself in American culture: Working miniatures have fetched more than $50,000 at auction, and at least one has been exhibited as an objet d'art. (It was said that's the chair in which Albert Anastasia, the feared hitman of Murder Inc., became the most ventilated barbershop patron one day in 1957). Oh yes, the Koken Manufacturing Co. still operates in St. Louis, with administrative offices and a 120,000-square-foot factory at 1631 Martin Luther King Dr. As ever, the workforce -- currently 87, includes woodworkers, machine operators, designers and engineers -- produces stylish and durable chairs for the beauty and barber industry, though that is about all that remains constant. In its 125-year history, the company has gone through more changes than Madonna has gone through hairstyles. The often-intrepid company has tried myriad different products, changed locations several times and opened adjunct factories and foundries, only to close them again. For most of the last century, it has gone through a succession of presidents almost as varied as certain banana republics'. A member of the Koken family has not been at the helm for more than 65 years. Indeed, the company is no longer American-owned. It is now a subsidiary of Japanese manufacturer Takara-Belmont, the world's largest producer of barber chairs and dentist chairs -- a turn that a young German immigrant named Ernest Koken could never have envisioned. Today the company makes beauty-salon furniture, dental cabinetry and, yes, tonsorial chairs, only they're called "styling chairs" and look like something you'd find on the bridge of the Enterprise. The showroom contains many compatible industry-related items, such as the Rollerball hair dryer, sort of a revolving electronic halo, which are not manufactured on site but may be speedily ordered from the New Jersey plant, Takara USA. From hand-painting fine china mugs to designing salon furniture for the 21st century, Koken has weathered the vicissitudes of a fickle industry. Even the product line has drastically evolved. "At one time this company was 90 percent barber," says Rauckman, a third-generation beauty-and-barber salesman. "Now it's 5 percent barber." But the Koken chair, as Granddad knew it, is far from extinct. Many worn but functional specimens are still in use in barbershops all over the country. The legacy, it seems, is virtually assured says John Anich, a purchasing agent who started with Koken in 1955, "It always surprises me. You go to these little towns, and there's always a shop that has a Koken chair."