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271 patch....bricks = "blowing thru the wall" to the Truck kitchen..... http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-York-City-NY-Fire-Dept-Engine-271-Battalion-28-Patch-v2-/261866305078?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cf872b636
FD ITEMS ON E BAY.
- Thread starter 68jk09
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I'm accepting "Best Offers" on this one. Someone else was selling an older one from E276 for $1000 last week. BTW, I just shipped a set of three E319 company report books from 1948 thru 1952 to a collector in Kentucky.
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Nice photo of Dad's old Ahrens-Fox from back in the day.
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OLD #1 IN THE APPLE BN*46 PATCH... http://www.ebay.com/itm/PATCH-NEW-YORK-CITY-FIRE-DEPARTMENT-BATTALION-46-OF-DEPT-FD-RESCUE-EMS-COMPANY/262232869236?_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131017132637%26meid%3D053fc7f5f3e34406a8856c6c107d1074%26pid%3D100033%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D321950751146
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This is an old "double action" box.....these were later upgraded (in the late '50s / early 60's) by replacing the door w/the more common "spade handle" w/or w/out a guard....the reason was that some people trying to transmit an alarm would not or could not read the directions & would only twist the handle which would trigger an internal bell sound but unless the door was opened & the interior hook pulled down the alarm was not transmitted to the CO but because they heard the bell they mistakenly thought the alarm went in..... http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-York-City-Fire-Department-Call-Box/252247813983?_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131017132637%26meid%3D4328a766089b4850885d588dffed5cbd%26pid%3D100033%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D311526704032
68jk09 said:
Not really, $6,000 and up is the going price on these, mine was $5,400, and several have sold for at least $7,000, mine was originally on a NJ antique salvage outfit's web site priced at $10,000
This pedestal in the auction came from a restaurant whose deceased owner had it on display with lots of other stuff and when the flood from the big storm hit the city a few years ago the restaurant was under 3-4 feet of water which means the fire alarm box was sitting in that dirty water too.
The guy who is trying to sell it bought it cheap at an auction of the restaurant contents, some auction outfit that sells off contents of restaurant equipment etc so you know no one but this guy bid on the box and his only interest in it was to kick it over for profit. There's no indication there's even any guts in the thing at all, it could be an empty shell, the guy has zero feedback too, not exactly inspiring to send $7,000 to!
When the city wins court approval to decommission the street boxes, likely hundreds of these will flood the market one way or another, some salvage outfit will get a contract or pay the city scrap value to remove them as sidewalk obstruction/safety concerns, and offer them for sale.
The biggest issue is the weight, @ 900# these are not very viable to take them up to your apartment, most people lack the means to move something this heavy and if they have to hire people to do it it doesn't come cheap, neither does shipping.
I had mine shipped to Iowa from NC, it cost several hundred dollars for the freight alone, and about $300 for the UPSstore to go get it from the seller and palletize it, so the shipping all together ran me about $1,000 and the pedestal had an ERS door so I had to find a guarded spade handle door and guts separately, the door was about $250 and the guts about $250.
2nd photo is my pedestal, restored.
Only one judge has stood in the way and only because of the deaf, but as someone in the media reported- when the new cell phones come out that address that one issue, they are confident the court will approve the decommissioning.
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68jk09 said:
LOL! I have a story to tell about THAT thing! it was one I bought a year ago on Ebay for $383 , it's made of aluminum and appears to be a re-cast, but it's severely damaged by a car strike, the box is out of square so badly the doors cant be shut and there's 2 cracks in the case. It never had a torch on it, the cast itself clearly showed that.
I thought I might be able to repair it but it proved impossible and no weld would ever hold the amount of force it took me with 3 large bar clamps to even flex it enough the cracks could close, so I stuck it on ebay and the clown who is trying to sell it now for a ridiculous $2500 bought it from me for under $300.
What is really funny is how he references a complete pedestal selling "recently" on Ebay for $7,000, to justify his $2500 price, but $7000 is for a COMPLETE 900# cast iron unit not a damaged empty shell of just the top half!
He also bought an O'Brien door from me for about $72 on Ebay after I had to relist it 4 times to get rid of it, and stripped the lock and hinges off it, put some primer on it and has been trying to get rid of the stripped door for $299 for the past year!
Here's some pics proving what I said:
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wolff good info on the boxes & restorations ...i am glad you are keeping history alive w/restored FDNY Alarm Boxes however we NYC residents are fighting to keep the NYC Alarm Boxes working hopefully the ruling to remove them will never occur.....there is too much to re-type right now about the reasons why (aside from the deaf) many more but quickly the cell phone alternative has been proven time & again as a BS replacement for a tried & true alarm Box system... i hope the system in NYC gets back on line 100% & is fully maintained .....also the price in the original post is overpriced since back in the 1980's when original Boxes replaced by updated aluminum posts etc were sold by the ton under one of the Bridges on Water St at the DCAS yard one itself priced that high is amazing.....JMO.
Well you know, from what I've read the street boxes have about a 90 plus % false alarm rate, almost everyone today has a cell phone too. It would be nice to see the old boxes remain in use but the fact is the above plus many cities and towns have been removing their entire systems, I even see it with the FDNY where boxes once were on lamp posts and wood poles in older Google Street views you now see the boxes are completely gone, I only see that continuing as boxes get hit by vandals or cars, or no longer work they are being removed and not replaced.
I've seen many photos of boxes with their doors gone and just an empty shell remains, or a piece of plywood is strapped over the hole where the doors were.
What they are doing is removing them by neglect now one box at a time.
On the prices, yes, back in the 1980s that's how it was, in fact I bought one of the 7 foot 900# VF posts at an antique store on Spring street in 1980 for $750, and I bought one of the inner boxes at a FDNY auction for $10, I bought a dozen other inner boxes on Canal St for $5 each, but that was 35 years ago, now there's a HUGE collector's fan base for all of this stuff, that $5 and $10 inner box now goes for several hundred dollars when you can find them, that $750 pedestal goes for $7,000, I see a Gamewell stamped instructional brass key tag on Ebay going for almost $300 now due to the bidding on it, and there's 6 days left to go- crazy! There's one guy who is bidding on every single FDNY item, including that silly key tag, he seems to be buying up everything he can get his hands on, since he has over 6,000 feedbacks he must be a rich collector of some kind, it only takes one like that to drive prices up.
I saw one oddball inner box sell recently for about $1200- that guy bought it, a pair of door hinges were selling for almost $100, the spade handle doors usually seem to sell for around $300 when you can find them, and that's the thing, there's a limited supply, these items are not made any more and more people getting into collecting these items.
in 1980 I paid $331 a month for my 1,000 sq ft loft on the 7th floor with a fantastic view at Broadway at W Houston St in the Cable Building, back then my full time day job paid $5 an hour, now that same space rents for about $7500 a month so it's all relative and it's supply and demand.
I can see $5000 for a complete one of those pedestals, $7000 is asking premium price for what are usually incomplete units.
I've seen many photos of boxes with their doors gone and just an empty shell remains, or a piece of plywood is strapped over the hole where the doors were.
What they are doing is removing them by neglect now one box at a time.
On the prices, yes, back in the 1980s that's how it was, in fact I bought one of the 7 foot 900# VF posts at an antique store on Spring street in 1980 for $750, and I bought one of the inner boxes at a FDNY auction for $10, I bought a dozen other inner boxes on Canal St for $5 each, but that was 35 years ago, now there's a HUGE collector's fan base for all of this stuff, that $5 and $10 inner box now goes for several hundred dollars when you can find them, that $750 pedestal goes for $7,000, I see a Gamewell stamped instructional brass key tag on Ebay going for almost $300 now due to the bidding on it, and there's 6 days left to go- crazy! There's one guy who is bidding on every single FDNY item, including that silly key tag, he seems to be buying up everything he can get his hands on, since he has over 6,000 feedbacks he must be a rich collector of some kind, it only takes one like that to drive prices up.
I saw one oddball inner box sell recently for about $1200- that guy bought it, a pair of door hinges were selling for almost $100, the spade handle doors usually seem to sell for around $300 when you can find them, and that's the thing, there's a limited supply, these items are not made any more and more people getting into collecting these items.
in 1980 I paid $331 a month for my 1,000 sq ft loft on the 7th floor with a fantastic view at Broadway at W Houston St in the Cable Building, back then my full time day job paid $5 an hour, now that same space rents for about $7500 a month so it's all relative and it's supply and demand.
I can see $5000 for a complete one of those pedestals, $7000 is asking premium price for what are usually incomplete units.
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Once again ...cell phones are not a reliable replacement for working Alarm Boxes....cell phones have crashed on many occasions not just 9-11-01....a few examples were NYPD LOD Funerals where many Officers were on them ....the 2 tornadoes of 9-16-10....a tv report of an earthquake many states away not affecting NYC.....these are just a few & the Alarm box system was not affected (except certain areas during the NYC tornadoes)... also an ERS box can provide 2 way communication w/a Dispatcher.....the Dispatcher can also issue emergency instructions to a person or group of people w/in earshot of an ERS box....if a child escapes a burning house at 4 AM in pajamas they probably will not have a cell phone on them & the Alarm box may be their only way to get help.
68jk09 said:
You don't have to convince or "sell" this to me neighbor, I don't have an iron in that fire I moved out of NYC in 1984 it doesn't matter to me what they do in regards to the boxes and system, I'm just reporting what I've read abbout the whole thing and what I know about similar street box systems across the country- they have been and are being removed at a rapid constant rate, town by town city by city because the mechanical boxes are no longer made, and parts can't effectively be just ordered off the shelf, the mainsprings on these get brittle with age and corrosion, and tend to snap without warning, when they do they often damage the mechanism. I had one of these main springs literally "explode" into dozens of short pieces in my hands just cleaning the mechanism with a soft brush.
In addition, underground wiring on these boxes is usually original to the systems and many have failed due to corrosion, loss of ground, water infiltration, contractors accidentally severing an old wire etc.
Boston is an exception, they restored and have their system, but NYC is gunning HARD to get rid of theirs due to the tens of thousands of false alarms, the costs, lack of parts for the mechanical boxes.
All of the mechanical street boxes in Manhattan as I've read have been replaced with ERS/police/fire intercom doors, the deaf can't hear the speaker any better than a cell phone, I'm not even sure a blind person could find a box on the sidewalk at random.
Where Manhattan paved the road, the other boroughs are following, the mechanical guts of these are obsolete and being removed.
Even if they leave the red shell/pedestal/case all they have been doing since the mid 70s is putting in basically an intercom system with a speaker, the antique the boxes were have been all but destroyed by discarding the doors and mechanical guts and that's been going on since the 70s.
The era of the wind-up telegraph box was in the 1890s
I'm not even sure you can really call them fire boxes any more, they are more like intercoms to police/fire dispatch.
The fact is the city is going to do what the city is going to do, a few hundred protesting and writing letters is unlikely to change whatever the city decides to do, money talks and money is at the root of everything, it will all come down to costs and money with this issue and what some number cruncher at City Hall says needs to be done to save "x" dollars a year in a tight budget.
Here's some examples of what is going on all over the city, one box at a time the city is killing off the system, these boxes are dead and won't be revived:
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the guy with 6000+ feedbacks isnt a rich collector... just someone who knows what this stuff is...
FDNYTRUCKScom said:
Well if you look at his feedback profile he bid on like 150 items in the last 30 days all in the one category, that's a rich, big time collector, or else someone planning to open up a store with inventory! He paid over $1200 for one inner box followed by a few other high ticket items in rapid succession, you'd have to have plenty of money to afford a buying spree like that and bid on 150 different items in 30 days, I see his bids on almost everything, including a couple of items I outbid him on
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