In 1971, the affordable Swedish furniture retailer IKEA introduced the Impala, a low-slung lounge chair with a chrome frame. At the time, it retailed for the equivalent of about $354 dollars, adjusted for inflation, according to IKEA. Fifty-five years later, the piece is a rare collectors' item, listed for over $12,000 on the vintage marketplace 1stdibs.

IKEA built its brand on the premise of bringing affordable furniture design to the masses. Paradoxically, its vintage stock is now often out of reach for many buyers.

For years, collectors have sought out items from the Swedish retailer's early decades, especially products made before IKEA's 1985 arrival in the U.S., which tend to be both rare and difficult to locate in the States. But a growing cohort of millennials and Gen Zers is fueling the market's expansion, driven by a combination of nostalgia, appreciation for good design, and recognition of future value.

The average IKEA item listed on the online marketplace Chairish now carries a price tag of nearly $1,000, said Chairish vice president of brand and merchandising Noel Fahden, while LiveAuctioneers, an auction platform owned by Chairish's parent company, has seen growth for vintage IKEA across virtually every metric over the past five years.

Alex Greene, a 28-year-old interior stylist, has gained a following on Instagram for creating content about her colorful, vintage-heavy apartment in White Plains, N.Y. The home includes many older IKEA pieces like the Flabb, an early-2000s lamp in the shape of lips. Greene said she's drawn to older IKEA pieces because they "feature bold, often eccentric, modern design motifs."

The most valuable item in her collection is the Enetri, a linear bookshelf designed in the 1980s by IKEA legend Niels Gammelgaard. Purchased for $500 in 2022, it is now worth around $1,000 on eBay. Greene first discovered the piece after seeing it on Instagram and "became obsessed with tracking one down," she said. "When one finally appeared on Facebook Marketplace, my boyfriend and I practically raced into Manhattan to pick it up the same day."

While some enjoy the thrill of the hunt, others manage to strike gold in the wild. Gina Fuchs, a 30-year-old, Brooklyn-based marketing director, began researching vintage IKEA when she moved into her first "adult space." So in 2021, while browsing a backyard vintage pop-up, she immediately recognized a rare chair Verner Panton designed for IKEA in the early 1990s. She didn't hesitate over the $350 purchase; similar pieces are listed for as much as $2,900 on Chairish.

Like Greene, Fuchs is reluctant to view the chair primarily as a financial asset. "I really appreciate that there's a limited number of them," she said. "I definitely see it as an investment piece and a piece of art, but I wouldn't sell it."

Even IKEA pieces from the 2000s and even the 2010s are beginning to appreciate dramatically in value. Had you purchased a set of metal chairs from the PS 2012 collection for $335 (adjusted for inflation), you could potentially sell the pair for over $2,000 today. Just 17 years after it was introduced, the August daybed designed by Nike Karlsson is now deemed a rare collectible.

What many of these pieces have in common is they were originally released as part of special collections, and were eventually discontinued. Items from the PS repertoire -- IKEA's more experimental lines -- have proven to be especially covetable.

In 2023, IKEA launched the Nytillverkad collection -- an assortment of reissues often updated with new colors or materials. While IKEA clearly recognizes the allure of its archive, company executives stop short of saying reissues are selected based on secondhand performance. Karin Gustavsson, creative leader for Nytillverkad, said she targets current trends. The reissue of the Enetri bookcase (rebranded as the Byakorre in 2024), she said, was due to "a trend for much more open storage."

The latest PS collection, which arrived mid-May, is already being snapped up by design enthusiasts, with items like the folding chair and adjustable birch stool selling out in several major markets across the U.S. in just under two weeks. Sellers on eBay are already looking to turn a profit -- although just because there are opportunists (or "scalpers" as the IKEA Reddit community calls them) doesn't necessarily mean that a recently produced piece will reach iconic status.

IKEA shoppers hoping to obtain future collectibles should start by looking at the materials, says David Rosenwasser of the furniture dealer Rarify. Many of the IKEA pieces that command high prices now survived not because they were necessarily the most popular items of their era, he said, but because they were durable enough to withstand decades of use.

His comment also hints at a prevalent criticism of IKEA: Its offerings are affordable, but not everything is -- ahem -- well-made, or engineered for longevity. Rosenwasser suggests avoiding IKEA upholstery and furniture made from softwoods or particle board, and instead choosing pieces that are made of inherently resilient materials like glass or steel.

In response to the criticism that IKEA products aren't well-made, the company said: "We understand that affordability is sometimes associated with lower quality or shorter lifespan. At IKEA, we aim to challenge that perception. Our ambition is to design products that are made to be used and lived with for a long time."

IKEA's own designers are well aware of the thriving markets for collectible IKEA, but they don't design with collectibility in mind, said Johan Ejdemo, IKEA's global head of design. "You don't think like that when you're in the development of a project," Ejdemo said, "although you're very happy if they become a collectible." Ejdemo does admit to some patterns, though. Lamps often become collectibles, for example.

The irony is palpable. In its mission to democratize design, IKEA has inadvertently created a sub-economy of collectible products available only to those with the means to acquire them.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 08, 2026 12:05 ET (16:05 GMT)

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