GUEST: I brought a Royal typewriter that was presented to my grandfather, and he worked at Royal for many years. For his ten-year anniversary as vice president of sales, he was presented this typewriter by his staff, and all the top salespeople were able to sign it, and then get it-- and so it was engraved at Cartier. And it's gold. (chuckles) And my dad also worked at Royal, and so it went from my grandfather to my father to me.
APPRAISER: And they do refer to this as the Gold Royal.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: So Royal Typewriter Company was founded in 1904, but it wasn't until the 1930s, when your grandfather was in charge of national sales, that they really started to take off.
GUEST: Right, right.
APPRAISER: Which, as a result, led him to be the top salesman, and then eventually the president of the company.
GUEST: Right, and he actually only had an eighth-grade education and became president of a Fortune 500 company.
APPRAISER: Right. There's 1,064 names inscribed in this.
GUEST: Oh, wow.
APPRAISER: And they're inscribed by a fellow named Warner MacDonald by hand, individually. The typewriter itself has 2,257 different parts. What Royal did is, they then took a completed typewriter, took it to Cartier...
GUEST: Yes, okay.
APPRAISER: And every exposed piece, large and small, was plated in 24-karat gold. That was in 1939 at a cost of $5,000. When I asked some of the appraisers at the jewelry table...
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: "What would you think it would cost to have something like this commissioned today?", they couldn't even put a number on it, barely. Because of, the cost of labor was less back then.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And the cost of gold was less back then. $150,000, $200,000, perhaps, they speculated. It was exhibited in the 1939 New York World's Fair.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: Then it went on tour all around the U.S. at the offices of Royal sales agents. And it was presented in 1940 to your grandfather. Half a dozen appraisers were all involved in this with me...
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: As we tried to talk about the different components to it. We would put a value, at auction, of $30,000 to $40,000.
GUEST: Oh, my God. (laughs) Awesome! That's amazing, wow-- I had no idea. It's been in my closet. (chuckles)