Out of curiosity, we moved the chest of drawers and looked behind it. There we found a small label with a production date (probably 1963) and the name of one of the Polish state-owned furniture factories. There was also the model name – quite enigmatic – and when I searched for it online, nothing came up.
The mystery intrigued me so much that I spent several hours going through old PRL-era catalogs and online auctions. After quite some time, I finally came across a photo on an auction site where someone was selling a similar piece – another item from the same furniture set. The description was very detailed; the seller even claimed it was a unique piece and included an extensive history of these furniture items.
It turned out that they were designed by Marian Grabiński, and the set was originally a wedding gift for Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA. Kamprad liked the gift so much that the furniture went into mass production – but only in Sweden. They were never available in Poland!
The auction also included scans from one of the old IKEA catalogs from 1964 (pages 111–114, see thread link). But how did these pieces end up in Poland? I don’t know if the Polish company actually produced them for IKEA, but according to the description, at least prototype series was made in Poland and distributed among some communist party officials in limited number. This was never available to buy in Poland.
As I later found out from my friend – his aunt actually was a communist party member and even held a fairly high position there so it made perfect sense.