A pair of rare Bermudian cedar chairs are to be auctioned in New York with a price tag of $5,000 to $7,000.

The Queen Anne side chairs, made between 1720 and 1730, are being sold by Bermudian author Mr. Brian Burland on October 24.

Mr. Burland said they were part of a set of 36, made for Benjamin Darrell of Darrell's Island.

"I have lived with these chairs for 60 years,'' he said. "They're the subject of part of my poem `The Bermudians'.

"There are no chairs like them in the world. These are the most fascinating and deeply Bermudian chairs in existence.'' Mr. Burland believes their creator was a slave and that the chairs show a "marriage of African and Bermudian cultures''.

"The maker was a designer and shipwright of genius level,'' he said.

Mr. John Hays, vice-president of the American decorative art department at the auction house Christie's, said a similar set of six chairs had gone for $28,000 in 1987.

"They rarely come up,'' he said. "More than likely, I think the buyer will be someone interested in bringing back furniture to Bermuda.

"In the 18th century there was a quantity of furniture in local wood, in the most high style and up-to-date fashion. The leading families in Bermuda who wanted the most up-to-date styles and didn't import them could have copied some of the imported forms using local craftsman.

"You find little idiosyncracies special to Bermuda, and that's fun.'' RARE CHAIRS -- One of two 18th Century Bermuda cedar chairs which will be auctioned in New York City later this month.