FDNY fire alarm boxes (collector, paintings, prices, how to)

[Knightly Knight]

This is a great thread, I can't wait to to knock off duty at 1500 or some time over the weekend to find the guy and the pictures In the New York Post who restores them to their actual look and colors. Awesome. Thanks,

[Sculptor]

Originally Posted by Knightly Knight

This is a great thread, I can't wait to to knock off duty at 1500 or some time over the weekend to find the guy and the pictures In the New York Post who restores them to their actual look and colors. Awesome. Thanks,

I'm pretty sure I know the one you speak of, I hate to say it but that guy is in no way restoring anything, these antiques never had such crazy "circus wagon" paint jobs on them, nor were they ever meant to. Needless to say I am most certainly NOT a fan of what he is doing. He paints on a psychedellic color scheme that is completely wrong.

I own one of the fire alarm boxes as pictured in the stories on his painting them on the streets, and this is exactly what they always looked like from the day they were installed, and were meant to look like over periodic repaintings, I restored it to it's correct condition, the city crews didn't always take the time to repaint the instructional lettering but the white as well as silver as an alternate- depending on the year and contract and specific foundry involved were how they were originally painted.

If I ever wound up buying one of them that had that kind of painting done on it I would strip the paint back to bare metal for sure.

[Sculptor]

1929 VF fire alarm post anti false alarm bell demo (loud)


The door in the video only had primer on it, I wanted to fit it and do any re-working on it that it needed before applying the finish paint. It doesn't quite close correctly yet and needs a little more adjustment.

All of these older boxes originally had a mechanical bell operated by a wind-up mechanism inside the door, it was an attempt to create local noise to discourage false alarms (failed, and most were eventually removed) the next idea in the 60s was a series of stickers (also failed)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKnzW7zSCkY

[Sculptor]

Here's the door on it, after restoring and before as-purchased



The inner box mechanism



The post weighs 809# plus this inner box.

[flower54]

That is AWESOME. What a great job.

[dotlinvintage]

Hi, I was wondering if someone here could help with a value on this FDNY firebox with pedestal? Thanks in advance.

[Sculptor]

Originally Posted by dotlinvintage

Hi, I was wondering if someone here could help with a value on this FDNY firebox with pedestal? Thanks in advance.

Between $5000 and $7500 at least for now, in the future it's likely to decrease substantially.

Thats the one that came from that crab restaurant in Brooklyn whose owner died and a restaurant equipment auction outfit sold off the entire contents of this unique restaurant.
The pedestal was sitting in 6 feet of water when the flood hit after hurricane Sandy, the internal mechanism if it has one, is probably rusted and ruined from the salt water.

The city wants to remove ALL of these boxes and have gone to court several times to do just that, the only thing holding it up is one judge who claims the deaf won't have a way to get emergency help if they are removed, but that argument is rapidly going down with everyone having cell phones and text messaging.
When the city inevitably gets approval to decommission the system, hundreds of these pedestals could suddenly hit the market via a variety of avenues- auction to the public, or salvage to some firm who removes them and turns around and sells them.
There's only "so many" people interested in buying something like this, they are 7 feet tall and 900 pounds, not exactly something you can park in your apartment or in a small house, when hundreds of these suddenly hit the market and with so few wanting one, I only see the price dropping substantially.

These pedestals can be found in many neighborhoods on every other street corner, I don't know how many there are but I can go in google street view and "walk around" neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Upper Manhattan and elsewhere and find one of these every two blocks.

I paid $5800 for mine, it was at that price quite a while before I bought it.
Mine was on an antique salvage outfits' page for $6500 for over 3 years, these weigh nearly 900 pounds, most people don't have a place to put something like this or want to deal with shipping even if they do.
About 2-3 a year come up on Ebay for sale alone.

[Sculptor]

Mine had to be shipped on 2 skids via freight, it was close to $900 from N Carolina to Iowa, not a real far distance.
The weight, cost to ship etc are two big reasons why you got this pedestal as cheaply as you did at that restaurant auction. The guy I bought mine from for $5800 a couple of months ago probably didn't pay $4000 for it.

[Delawaresteve]

I have an old fdny telegraph box on a large cast iron light pole.. I can't find another one like it anywhere.. I can't post a pic on this forum for some reason.. could someone please help me out.. ? I'd like to know how old it is, what it's value is, and possibly where it was from.. could someone email me at [email]steveparrill@gmail.com[/email] I'll send pics.. I'd like to preserve it, but don't know where to turn.. it's outside my realm of expertise... tia

[fyr1]

Today a friend bought a keyless door vf box on a pedestal he paid $ 5800 for it which I thought had been a record price paid for an FDNY box only to find out of sales of $ 6500 which I was unaware of but which I think is well over value for something that can be found. It is not like you were buying a metropolitan box on a Smith post which I could see worth $ 7500- 10000 being they are from the 1800's. I had collected alarm equipment that was made prior to 1900 or there about. I had a few one of a kind early boxes the earliest
an 1857 Channing and farmer Boston fire alarm box, and several rare FDNY boxes Nov 4 2017 in Nashua NH my collection will be auctioned off. Perhaps I am wrong about what the market is for these instruments , but I never would have thought I would see the day a vf box and post which could hardly be called rare would sell for more than $ 5000.