GUEST: It was built by my father’s maternal grandfather. He was an ironworker, and I guess this is what he did in his spare time. We got it about 25 years ago and have been hauling it around the United States since then. We just call it the monstrosity because it’s so large and so heavy-- it seems to fit.
APPRAISER: And his name was?
GUEST: William Himsel.
APPRAISER: We believe this is a scratch built birdcage/aquarium; scratch built meaning one of one by a mechanical artist in the 19th century. And where was he an ironworker at?
GUEST: I think it was in New York.
APPRAISER: Well, that answers one of the questions that we didn't know, which was is it European or is it American. And that really takes us back into a time in America where we had much more focus on the mechanical arts, and there were more people that could do these complex projects. It begins with this clock tower, descends down to these balconies with the railing, with the initials of your great-grandfather. It’s flanked on each side by a birdcage, and these are really quite unique, too, in the sense that they-- you could see how you feed the birds through here. Underneath it, then, is an aquarium that's completely water sealed and to our left, and we can see that this is interesting, that this is canted where this side is flat. And that's to house the steam engine. And this was, our thought, is to power the aquarium, to aerate the aquarium. But I'm thinking it had more function than that.
GUEST: Yes, quite a bit more. The piece of furniture beneath it, it’s actually a dry sink that this sits in. And underneath is a whole bunch of machinery that runs the pump for the aquarium and the motor for the elevator.
APPRAISER: Correct. And let's take our viewers back behind and they can see this elevator. You've got the staircase modeled after a commercial building that you'd see in America at the end of the 19th century. The shaft is there, the car is there. My thought is that this was built in 1886, and then remodeled at some time, or re-renovated at some time. There was electricity added at a later date. And the coating on the deck of the cabinet, I think, appears later. You did bring us a very visual image that helps us out quite a bit. It shows us exactly what it would have looked like at least in the mid-20th century. Another thing that we didn't show our viewers on the inside of this, because it’s difficult to get to, this is a gasolier.
GUEST: Oh, okay. I didn't know that.
APPRAISER: That is lighting the cage and is also providing light to the aquarium as well.
GUEST: So the small pieces coming up out of the chandelier, that's to emit gas that you would light?
APPRAISER: Correct.
GUEST: Wow, I didn't know that.
APPRAISER: As one appraiser said, it's really a torture chamber for birds. Equally confused about what it was as we were about price, we didn't necessarily agree on it. I think the consensus is that we feel safe with an auction estimate of three to five thousand. And I think one of the reasons we're keeping it down a little bit is simply because it would take a lot to get this functioning again and showing the way it was intended.
GUEST: Right. And we're actually interested in doing that. We're determined to keep it in the family and keep it up as well as we can.
