Gold Bond Mattress Review
Most people associate the Gold Bond mattress company with futons and futon mattresses. That is only natural. For one thing, Gold Bond, along with Bedworks, is credited with developing and popularizing the modern Western futon and futon mattress from the original Japanese foldable sleeping mat (Gold Bond, in 1980, actually beat Bedworks (1982) by two years). For another thing, most of the Gold Bond products listed on Amazon are futon mattresses. Their history begins 81 years before they designed a futon mattress.
Gold Bond (GB) began a long time before Americans knew much about Japanese culture and products beyond silk, bamboo utensils, rice, and porcelain. In 1899, before there were any national brands of mattresses, Isadore Naboicheck began making mattresses in Hartford, Connecticut. He sorted and blended cotton for filling the mattresses and as batting for innersprings.
There may have been no national brands at that time, but many of the nation’s wealthy lived in Hartford or had summer homes there. It was through these customers that Nabiocheck’s mattresses gained a national following. The Nabiocheck family still owns Gold Bond, and Isadore’s grandson Bob Nabiocheck is the current President. True to their tradition, organic cotton is still used in many Gold Bond mattresses, though more modern materials are also used.
Mattress Lines
All mattresses then were two-sided, and Gold Bond still makes two-sided mattresses. This gives them a longer usable lifetime than one-sided mattresses. It allows the flipped-over side a chance to recover its form while the sleepers are using a fresh sleeping surface. Combined with regular rotation, turning the mattress more evenly distributes wear among the coils of an innerspring model.
Gold Bond has four mattress lines: Innerspring Mattresses, Juvenile Mattresses, Specialty Sleep Mattresses, Futon Sofa Sleepers. Each line has more than one collection or series. The listing on GB’s website is not exhaustive, but representative. Gold Bond puts it this way: “Gold Bond is constantly developing new sleep products. Not all products are listed on our web site.”
Innerspring Mattresses
Gold Bond has nine series of innerspring mattresses
Premier Series, Sacro Support Encased Coil (2-Sided), Adjustable Friendly Sacro Support Encased Coil (2-Sided), Comfort Collection, Two-Sided Power Program, Anniversary Series: Superior Comfort, Encased Coil Series: Outstanding Support, Classic Collection, and Organic Cotton Series.
They call these “conventional” springs, but some of the springs used employ recent innovations. Here are the kinds of springs used (some are used in the Juvenile Mattresses):
- The Balanced Rest Smart Coil System uses alternating offset coils.
- The 12¾ gauge Body Balance innerspring and the 13 gauge innerspring consist of Bonnell coils.
- Encased Coils and the Bolsa® Spring System by Leggett & Platt are individually wrapped pocket coils.
The edge support for most GB innerspring mattresses is provided by butterfly springs. - Some models have microcoils, the 1110 Micro Coil innerspring unit and 1” Nano Coil 1386 Micro Coils.
Juvenile Mattresses
Juvenile Mattresses is the newest line of Gold Bond products. It has only two series, Natural Support and Natural Support 2.0. This line of innerspring mattresses for children, youth, and young adults was introduced at the 2016 Fall High Point Market. Bob Nabiocheck told BedTimes Magazine, “We have considered every safety angle when developing this youth line because, as parents and grandparents, we know providing children with a safe place to slumber is top of mind when shopping for a mattress.”
A unique feature of this line is the cover fabric. The threads in this stretch-knit cotton are 10% infused with copper filaments. This is to take advantage of copper’s anti-microbial property.
Mattresses in the Natural Support series are named after prestigious universities. The innersprings are Bonnell innersprings, either 448 (full size) of the heavier 12¾ gauge coils, or 390 of the not-as-heavy 13-gauge. They differ by the fabrics in the quilted covers, the composition of the comfort layers, and the overall heights.
All models in the Natural Support 2.0 series have the heavier coils. To these they add All models have the same cover of copper-infused cotton stretch knit over 2” of polyester fiber and 1” of cotton fiber. The models are differentiated by the comfort layers: 1” Nano Coil 1386 Micro Coils, soft polyurethane foam, Vytex, gel memory foam, and high resilience convoluted foam.
Specialty Sleep Mattresses
These are the non-coil mattresses in five collections: Brilliance Collection, S-Series Featuring Serene Comfort Foam, Hybrids (Smart Series), Latex, and Cool Gel and Memory Foam. The signature materials are memory foam, latex, air-cooled foam, gel, Bonnell coils, and pocket coils.
The Brilliance Collection features Vytex Organic Latex (described below) as the comfort layer. Two models are hybrids, adding pocket coils. One, with the Bolsa Coils, is designed for use on adjustable beds. These each have a fiberboard base pad under the coils.
The other six models are non-coil mattresses. One has a polyurethane foam support core, while the other five have support cores of Vytex with different firmness levels.
Futon Sofa Sleepers
This is the mattress line for which Gold Bond is now better known. It was their futon mattresses in 1980 which began the rise of futon sofa sleeperss in this country. This is the point where a company says, “Don’t forget our other lines.”
Futon Sofa Sleepers is a very diverse line, with four categories: Organic Futon Mattresses, Futon Mattresses, Futon Frames, and Futon Mattress Fabric Options.
The Organic Futon Mattresses category has five models with two basic constructions, each featuring organic cotton and wool, while the Futon Mattresses category has the widest diversity with 18 series (or models) listed with 7-to-9 (depending on how you count then) different basic constructions. In other words, Gold Bond has just about any kind of mattress that can be made for a futon.
Futon Frames has seven models. Four are solid oak, and the rest are made with other hardwoods. All are named after cities.
The fourth category is really an option to preview and select colors for a futon mattress. There are ten colors, and hovering the pointer on one shows how it would look on a mattress. These are all upholstery colors, since the futon serves as a sofa when not laid out as a bed.
Foam Materials
Memory Foam
Memory foam (sometimes called “visco”) is used in several Gold Bond mattresses. The actual weight of the memory foam is named for some models on the cutaway view, but not indicated for others. Among the densities names is 3-lbs, which is the lower limit for memory foam that is both effective and durable. On several models, the memory foam is infused with gel for cooling.
Latex
Gold Bond uses Vytex Organic Latex. This is natural rubber latex supplied by Vystar Corp. What makes this unique is the removal of allergens and impurities before the latex is processed, while it is still a liquid. According to Vytex, this means a totally allergy-free final latex product. A few Gold Bond mattresses have gel-infused latex.
Polyurethane
Polyurethane is a very versatile material, which can be engineered to have many different configurations and properties. This diversity can be seen in flexible polyurethane foam (PUF). One example is memory foam, which is in a class of its own. The firmness of PUF can range from extremely firm to extremely soft. And PUF can be infused with any of several substances, such as graphite and phase change materials, to add their own properties to the foam.
In several of its mattresses, Gold Bond uses polyurethane foam which is convoluted (has one surface with an egg crate contour). This is for pressure relief, motion isolation and airflow. Where airflow is the intent, this works better if the air can also flow vertically though the foams layers above it, having an effect similar to that of the Airflow Transfer System used in Tempflow mattresses and demonstrated in this video.
One Gold Bond mattress series is named for and features foam configured for airflow – the S-Series Featuring Serene Comfort Foam. Serene Foam is a new polyurethane foam developed by the Carpenter Company. Its cellular structure allows more air to flow through than open-cell memory foam. And its support properties are between those of memory foam and latex. The top layer in one of the S-Series models is perforated to let even more air flow through.
Fibers and Fabrics
Several natural and synthetic fibers are used in Gold Bond mattresses. The most used is cotton. Organic cotton is the featured material is many of the models, including some all-cotton futon mattresses. One Innerspring Mattresses collection is the Organic Cotton Series, with each model having an organic cotton cover and organic cotton batting. This harkens back to the origins of the Gold Bond Mattress Company, when the owner selected and blended cotton for the mattresses.
Another natural fiber used by Gold Bond is wool. It is used both as a batting and as a natural fire retardant. Some models feature wool, especially among the futon mattresses. Each model in the Organic Futon Mattress sub-category has both organic cotton and organic wool, with wool being the primary supporting/cushioning material.
Polyester, rayon, silk, and Tencel are other fibers found in or on Gold Bond mattresses. These are in the cover fabrics. Polyester fiber is also found in some of the quilting and comfort layers.
Gold Bond uses a variety of fabrics, both in composition and in type. Most cover fabrics are knit. Some forms of knitting include Belgian jacquard, matelasse, damask, and 4-way stretch knit.
Other materials
Fiberboard is used for base pads under pocket coil units. Fiber insulators are used between coils and foams. Some of the insulators are polyester mats.
Bed Foundations
Gold Bond provides foundations designed for specific sets of their mattresses. One is the helical cloil boz spring, with large, heavy-gauge tapered coils. The other type is a limited deflection boxspring, with squared-U supports instead of coils. They have designed a few models specifically for use with adjustable beds.
Marketing
Gold Bond does not sell their mattresses directly to consumers. They sell through retailers. Many GB mattresses are listed on Amazon, mostly for futons.
Evaluation
Gold Bond offers many choices for mattresses to consumers. Their emphasis is on innovation and quality. They are not hesitant to identify the sources for their signature materials, such a Leggett & Platt, Carpenter Company, and Vytex. Several mattress manufacturers have their own trade names for all the materials they use, masking the source manufacturers.
Although they do not cite certifications, it appears that Gold Bond’s materials do meet the qualifications. Customer reviews on Amazon indicate an above average rate of customer satisfaction for their innerspring mattresses.
Even though Gold Bond Mattress Company is an older form in the bedding industry, it has been and still is innovative.
One weak spot in customer ratings of Gold Bond products is for wool futon mattresses, including wool wrapped models. This has more to do with wool as a support and cushioning material than with the manufacturer. Wool serves better as an insulator than as a cushion, as is acknowledged by other makers of wool mattresses and pillows.
