Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

It was my husband's aunt's. She had passed away about 20 years ago. And the immediate family was allowed to go through the house to see if there was anything they wanted of hers. And my husband was so interested in this that he really wanted this-- it was different. We've had it in his den for about 20 years, collecting dust.

APPRAISER

And was there any reason why your aunt had this particular piece in the house that you know of?

GUEST

We have no idea. No idea. We were semi close with her, you know. Okay. So we didn't know a lot about the stuff that she had in the house.

APPRAISER

And what we're looking at here is, it says very clearly, it's a Western Union Telegraph Company, and it's a ticker tape machine.

GUEST

Right.

APPRAISER

If you look very closely right over here in the brass section...

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

...is Edison's name in there with a patent number.

GUEST

Is it?

APPRAISER

And Edison patented this machine in 1869. It's a great example of this machine. It's done in the early 20th century, 1920s or so. Condition is phenomenal. When you look carefully at it, right along the lip here, you can see this black tape. That's the original tape that was there...

GUEST

Yes.

APPRAISER

...to protect the glass from breaking along the side.

GUEST

Oh, okay, yeah.

APPRAISER

When you turn the whole thing around, you can just look how clean this whole machine is from the back. Some of the tape is in it as well.

GUEST

Yes. The ticker tape.

APPRAISER

It's a little bit too heavy to lift, because it's quite a heavy machine. But it was wired from underneath. And this was made to keep up to date on the stock quotes. The values on these machines do fluctuate, sometimes kind of coordinating with how the stock market is doing, because some of the buyers of these are stockbrokers, people in the stock industry. And if I had this at auction on today's market value, based on condition, I would probably put an estimate somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000.

GUEST

Wow. That's fantastic.

APPRAISER

They have sold higher at times, and they have sold a little bit lower, but $8,000 to $10,000 is a fair kind of median range.

GUEST

Oh, yes.

APPRAISER

So, it's a great machine.

GUEST

Wow.

APPRAISER

Beautiful condition, and glad you brought it in.

GUEST

Yeah, I'm glad I did, too.