Sit Right Down and See a Mania in Miniature : Hobbies: A New York consultant came slowly to his passion, then bought recklessly as he explored the designs of chairs.

No one would dare make a chair from beads, theater ticket stubs, plastic forks or wheat stalks. Unless it’s a miniature chair such as those in George Beylerian’s collection.

Beylerian is a design and marketing consultant in the home and office furnishings industry in New York. His first miniature came by way of a trade promotion during a trip to Italy in the mid-1980s. It sat alone on a shelf in his beach house for a couple of years until, browsing through a curiosity shop, he bought a tiny love seat made of twigs.

He’s added about 1,000 chairs since, all carefully documented and displayed on custom shelves that line a room in his New York townhouse.

“The main idea behind my years of collecting is my interest in exploring the tremendous variations in the design of a chair,” he says.

The collection ranges from finely crafted early salesman’s samples to salt-and-pepper shakers, key chains, pin cushions and souvenirs.

Chairs in miniature have been made for centuries, according to David McFadden, curator of decorative arts at Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design in New York. McFadden wrote the text for “Chairmania: Fantastic Miniatures” (Abrams, $19.95), a book that shows and tells the story of Beylerian’s collection.

A few of the extant miniatures date to the 17th Century, but most are from the 19th Century or later. In addition to salesman’s samples, there are dollhouse chairs and toys and models submitted to the U.S. Patent Office between 1836 and 1880 to support applications for patents, according to McFadden.

Beylerian has some 19th-Century miniatures in his collection, but most are of more recent vintage. He no longer recalls the exact date he acquired his first miniature, but he remembers the circumstances.

“It was given to me as a trade promotion gift during a trip to Udine, Italy, the chair manufacturing capital of the world,” he says.

Although he was slow to start collecting, it ultimately added focus to his travels.

“It gave me an excuse to enter any shop, antiques or otherwise, in pursuit of my new hobby,” Beylerian says. “I had been in chairs all these years, but I had never realized that there were so many miniatures. Now, I found them in abundant supply and each find brought a sense of great fulfillment. I became passionate about it, and I bought recklessly.”

Eventually he drew his family and friends to the hunt, and artists and craftsmen began sending chairs as gifts because they wanted their works to be part of the collection.

While unusual, his chair collection is not unique. He knows about 10 other collectors who, like him, haunt antique and junk shops. To some, he says, the thrill of the hunt exceeds the concern for price.

But, he adds, “the moment of gratification comes when the seller asks for a ridiculously low price, and I know that I am getting a great bargain.”