Isotta Fraschini Model Car, ca. 1940
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GUEST:
I don't know a lot about it. I picked it up at an estate sale. The man collected the most unusual items. He had recently died, his wife had a great story. She said that her husband told her that when he purchased it, he was told that it had been used as a movie prop, supposedly on a Chaplin film.
APPRAISER:
So, your feeling is it was a miniature used in a motion picture, and possibly "The Great Dictator."
GUEST:
That's what they thought. Like, for a long-distance scene where this would be seen driving across the horizon.
APPRAISER:
It really is an absolutely stunning model and amazingly detailed. I could just barely make out on the grill here "Isotta Fraschini," which is a classic Italian car, which was really the Rolls Royce of Italy.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Now, as to whether or not it was used in a movie, I really think it's the case. When you see movies from the '30s and '40s, sometimes you'll see those shots where, all of a sudden, this truck is on a mountain road.
GUEST:
Sure.
APPRAISER:
And you know it's a prop.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
It has the level of detail that would work in that kind of a long shot.
GUEST:
In that shot.
APPRAISER:
The giveaway is right here in this little metal hook. They would have created a landscape for it to travel in, and probably have a chain drive that would drag it up the road. Now, was it in "The Great Dictator"? I think it just well might have been, because, you know, "The Great Dictator" was a satire, a take-off on Hitler.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
And even though this is an Italian car, it bears a very close resemblance to one of the big Mercedes cars that Hitler favored. All you'd need to do is buy a DVD of "The Great Dictator," look at it very, very closely.
GUEST:
Very carefully, right.
APPRAISER:
So you paid $300.
GUEST:
Paid $300 for it, yes.
APPRAISER:
Just as a model of a classic, classic car, I think it would be easily worth $1,500 to $1,800.
GUEST:
Well, that's great!
APPRAISER:
So, now, if we could establish that this was actually a prop from a movie as great as "The Great Dictator," and a Chaplin film to boot, I think you're more in the $5,000 to $6,000 range.
GUEST:
Wow! I need to watch the movie, then, don't I?
APPRAISER:
You need to look at that movie.
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