Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

This is my friend Albert. I came across it in a... quite frankly, a junk pile. Albert had been thrown away. And I rescued him, and I've had him since the early '70s. I actually was stomping on him when I found him. I didn't realize what I was stepping on.

APPRAISER

Ever since around about the 1920s, people have been obsessed and really interested with robots-- good robots and bad robots. So what we've come to the conclusion on this is it is a store display. Who would not walk into a store if you saw this robot in the window? And he's got a little... a little... it looks like he was in a cage fight or something.

GUEST

Well, he had been laying outside in the weather for years. The motors that operate the arms and the head were disintegrated. They just rusted apart. So I went in there and pulled those motors out, and replaced them with Volkswagen windshield wiper motors. Which seemed to work fairly well because he's happy with having different motors in him.

APPRAISER

It seems that way.

GUEST

And the cord is on a... a long cord, so I guess the person could hide... maybe behind a curtain if they wanted to do that kind of a thing. His arms do move. And his head goes... very fast. He's... he's paranoid, I think.

APPRAISER

And have you ever had it appraised?

GUEST

No, no.

APPRAISER

I love it. All of my colleagues here love it. We think it's so cool. It's such a great piece of like 1950s... whether it's folk art or Americana, it's just so cool. If I saw it in a store today, I would expect a price, a retail price of around about $2,500 on it.

GUEST

Cool.