Carla Hall: Benedict Indestructo Ice Cream Scoop & Blue Seltzer Bottles
Watch
GUEST:
So these seltzer bottles were bought at a flea market. They were five dollars each. You know, nothing precious. Just, "Oh, hey, I love the color." And this ice cream scoop was my grandmother's. When I looked at it, I was thinking, "Oh, my gosh, look at the hardware on this thing." It's nothing like the ice cream scoops that I have today that are just so flimsy. Plus, I was a scooper at an ice cream store, back when I was a teenager.
APPRAISER:
I have the scoop for you.
GUEST:
Oh, you have the scoop for me?
APPRAISER:
I have the scoop for you.
GUEST:
Okay, Reid.
APPRAISER:
On both of, on both of these things.
GUEST:
Okay, well, for me, it's like the old soda fountain.
APPRAISER:
That's exactly what I thought of when I saw these things.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
The soda fountain was a place, often a counter inside of another store, that you would go to get a fresh, fizzy drink. And the soda fountain craze first came about in the 1850s or so, and then it continued for over a hundred years, to the 1950s. There has been a resurgence in popularity, with this kind of thing as a collectible. We're seeing a revival in classic cocktails again. The bottle in the middle is rather interesting in that its label actually has a Star of David on it. A lot of the deliverers of seltzer bottles and the people who owned the refilling stations for seltzer bottles in the early 20th century had Jewish backgrounds. And they deliberately put the Star of David to show how proud they were of their Jewish heritage. Very interesting.
GUEST:
Wow! That is so interesting.
APPRAISER:
So let's talk about the ice cream scoop. The ice cream scoop was invented in 1897 in Pittsburgh by a man named Alfred Cralle. And Alfred actually was working in a hotel and a restaurant, where he noticed, behind the soda fountain, that the soda jerks were having a lot of trouble separating the ice cream from the spoons they were using. So Alfred came up with the ingenious idea of putting a mechanism inside of the bowl to eject the ice cream.
GUEST:
Brilliant.
APPRAISER:
He was, interestingly enough, the first African American man in Pittsburgh to patent anything and hold a patent. Sadly, though, he never became famous for it, and he didn't get rich, because it was such a simple, easy, brilliant idea that everybody did knock-offs.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And soon enough, everyone had forgotten who had come up with this genius idea.
GUEST:
Of course.
APPRAISER:
Now, your ice cream scoop was manufactured by the Benedict Manufacturing Company, located in Syracuse, New York. And they were in business from 1894 until 1953. So it was definitely made before 1953. Uh, the brand is called Indestructo. The ice cream scoop, I see those available online regularly, vintage ones, anywhere from $15 to $25 or $30.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
They don't bring a lot of money, but they sell. People really-- and people prefer the old ones to the new ones.
GUEST:
Because they're good.
APPRAISER:
And they don't break.
GUEST:
And they're indestructible.
APPRAISER:
Now, the seltzer bottles, there are a lot of people that collect them. People like the blue bottles better, and they tend to bring, on a retail level, anywhere from $40 up to $120 or so per bottle.
GUEST:
What? I love these things. I still love the blue just as much as I did 20 years ago, when I bought them, and I will definitely continue to use my granny's ice cream scoop.
Appraisal Details
Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.
Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.
Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.
Verbal approximations: The values given by the experts on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW are considered "verbal approximations of value." Technically, an "appraisal" is a legal document, generally for insurance purposes, written by a qualified expert and paid for by the owner of the item. An appraisal usually involves an extensive amount of research to establish authenticity, provenance, composition, method of construction, and other important attributes of a particular object.
Opinion of value: As with all appraisals, the verbal approximations of value given at ROADSHOW events are our experts' opinions formed from their knowledge of antiques and collectibles, market trends, and other factors. Although our valuations are based on research and experience, opinions can, and sometimes do, vary among experts.
Appraiser affiliations: Finally, the affiliation of the appraiser may have changed since the appraisal was recorded. To see current contact information for an appraiser in the ROADSHOW Archive, click on the link below the appraiser's picture. Our Appraiser Index also contains a complete list of active ROADSHOW appraisers and their contact details and biographies.
