Unlike George Nakashima's pieces, the new Nakashima studio furniture doesn't have much of a secondary market -- yet.

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On May 24, 1989, the day before George Nakashima's 84th birthday, the second-largest collection of his prized wood furniture was reduced to a pile of ash in a house fire.

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George Nakashima designed and built its Japanese-influenced buildings himself.

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You are not seeing these crazy prices for furniture makers like George Nakashima anymore, but he will remain a blue-chip name in American furniture in the future, regardless of the vagaries of the market right now.

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"George let the wood speak for itself, " says Gerald Everett, a Nakashima studio woodworker for 29 years.

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