These are not just “inspired by” repros, it’s clear these share the exact same dimensions and design. These are copies.

The plastic shell is the first stop. The shell on Mr Pennies is not quite the nice original chalky colour, more a brilliant white — but it’s clean and consistent across all four chairs.

Lets talk about colour fade. Mr Vitra is said to never change colour. But at least in the reproductions, it’s such a common problem that it should be considered an expectation ✢. I actually look at the cream tinted Mr cheap now and feel it has more character than the brand new Mr Pennies — a little like leather furniture does after time. You may feel differently.

Mr Pennies has a smoother satin texture than the others, but all three have identical dimensions and shapes. To sit on, you’d never tell the difference, and the suspension effect of the base means that none of the chairs will ever be unbalanced once you sit down. And they all creak in pretty much the same way when you sit on them.

Injection moulding nub, clearly visible on Mr Vitra and Mr Pennies

Mr Vitra has clear manufacturer stamps on the bottom with a serial and date of production, as well a faint injection moulding nub, where the plastic entered the mould. Mr Pennies has a similar nub in the same place, although rougher and much more obvious. So what we have here is production tooling designed to give large scale production, consistent quality and a quick turn-around — inject, cool, snap-off, repeat.

Strangely, the middle cost chair has no visible nub so I can only assume it’s somehow hidden and/or machined off. Was this a case of a production engineer feeling they could improve on the original? Whatever the reason, it would inherently add extra time and an extra process so it’s unsurprising that in the later, cheaper, Mr Pennies, the nub returned to somewhere uglier, quicker and less likely to cause rejects.

Sink holes, where the leg joints cool at a different rate to the rest of the shell

All three variations have visible sink holes on the top surface where the leg joints cool at a different rate to the thin skinned shell, although they’re less visible on Mr Cheap.

The legs on Mr Vitra are nicely finished in maple with all the chamfers and slots smoothly cut. The finishing on the reproductions’ wooden legs are quite frankly close to that of the dearer cousin, but Mr Pennies is much more pink colour which is obviously not maple. In addition, both the cheaper chairs have rough cuts to fit the top brackets, which are also clearly of lower quality than Mr Vitra. Like the other parts of the reproductions, it’s neat where it’s visible, and cheap and quick where it’s hidden.

Legs bolts vary massively between the chairs. As with all photography, different light can alter the apparent colour, and Mr Pennies’ legs do not generally appear as pink as they appear here.

The outside leg fixings (above) show the clearest differences between the three. Mr Vitra has black powder-coated cross head bolts that match the rest of the fixings (Herman Miller versions often use chrome instead). The bolts on Mr Cheap are different — but not unattractive — allen bolts in more of a dark steel colour. On Mr Pennies however, the bolts are quite clearly cheap, chromed allen bolts that don’t fill the holes as nicely as the others.

The inner leg nuts show the different production design descisions

But it’s the nuts on the inside of the base (above) that tell the real story. The bolts on Mr Vitra are capped with black powder-coated locking nuts. Mr Cheap can’t stretch to the additional cost of colour, but instead has some smart stainless steel domed nuts. And as the legs are tapered, both chairs have a shorter bolt at the top where the leg is thinner, and longer bolts at the lower, thicker, anchor point.

Here’s where Mr Pennies has a stroke of evil genius. It replaces the expensive coloured or domed nut with a cheaper locking nut and a black plastic cap to make it look like a domed nut ✧. As well as costing peanuts, this has the second pay-off of allowing the bolt to be the same length top and bottom, as it hides the excess thread in the cap. Less variations of bolts used, bigger economies of scales, less buckets of different size bolts to keep track of on the shop floor and less mistakes on the production line. As an aesthetic choice, it sucks (if you look close enough). But as a production trade-off, it rocks hard.