Antique motor - valuable?

A friend once told me he attended an auction where an old motor went for over $1000. So I'm curious. I have an old Emerson 1/2 hp single phase, capacitor start, very heavy, cast frame. What interested me was "Alternating Current" on the nameplate.

Are some old motors valuable? Might that include this one?

Thanks,
Jeff

Your motor is not particularly valuable. Motors that are worth over $1000 would have to have been built in the 1890's or earlier.

Jeff_G said:

A friend once told me he attended an auction where an old motor went for over $1000. So I'm curious. I have an old Emerson 1/2 hp single phase, capacitor start, very heavy, cast frame. What interested me was "Alternating Current" on the nameplate.

Are some old motors valuable? Might that include this one?

Thanks,
Jeff

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Man I recon it's worth at least a million.........NOT!!!!

Make your friend a deal. $500 and it’s his. Tell him he still has $500 profit in it, you’re such a nice pal.


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Was it wound by Edison himself ?

Was it used at Graceland ?

Kind of hard to tell by just the tag.

I think it is the old bi-polar motors that bring the big $$$, odd, bi-polar people are not worth much

My first thought was, have I ever seen an old electric motor that might sell for $1000 at auction?

Well, I have certainly seen some at the Henry Ford and Greenfield Village; very big and very old, and some originally owned by Edison and built by his workers.

To put it in perspective, I priced a new Baldor 1 HP motor recently and saw the "list" prices were as much as about $1200. And a 100 HP lists for about $17,000. I remember a used machinery dealer in the 1980's that charged $15 a HP for his used and new surplus motors, so 100 HP would cost $1500.

Personally, I saw, at an antique flea market about 30 years ago, a strange old thing that looked like a little motor with exposed terminals at each end. It had a strange configuration and unusual nameplate. I could have lifted it, but I did not want to carry the dirty, heavy thing a block back to my truck. The price was something like $10, so it was just the weight that made me walk away. It was some time later that the penny dropped and I remembered that the nameplate said Mills Novelty Co. You see, that was the maker of the Vilolano-Virtuoso, a 1905-1930 coin-operated electric violin/piano that was and is worth many thousands of dollars. In fact, people pay many thousands of dollars to get them restored and original parts must be worth a bundle. Maybe even $1000 for the converter by now. The Vilolano internal circuits ran on 110 V DC and Mills supplied a converter to let it run from a 110 V AC supply.

A Mills converter: Antique Mills Novelty Co.Electric AC/ DC Motor Converter Violano-Virtuoso Piano | #181653839

About the Violano-Virtuoso: Gameroom Antiques: Mills Violin Virtuoso Mills Novelty Company - Wikipedia

Larry

L Vanice said:

. It was some time later that the penny dropped and I remembered that the nameplate said Mills Novelty Co.

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Larry -

I only wish the ice cream machines that Mills made - and I grew up operating in the 50s and 60s - would have become collectors items. If I remember correctly the one that was the 'spare parts' machine went for scrap at the family auction. Mills made a wide variety of items over the years.

Dale

moonlight machine said:

Man I recon it's worth at least a million.........NOT!!!!

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Heck put it on ebay.. It still has the patina.. Ebay buyers have lots of money...
lol...Ramsay 1

As a general rule of thumb it's usually the case that if you own it, it isn't worth anything. Hope this helps.

An aluminum nameplate doesn't bode well for the motor having value beyond utility or scrap value.


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Frame Number ?

+1 on what Snowman wrote: the early motors usually had brass or even bronze (!) name plates.

I can't quite read the frame number on the motor data plate, but if it is a National Electric Manufacturer's Association (NEMA) frame number, then you might be able to find the date at which NEMA system of motor frame numbers, in general, first came into use. The motor would be newer than that date.

IMHE, older motors seem to be built more heavily that newer motors of the same HP, and oddly seem to be more powerful for a given horsepower and design. (Ex: Comparing capacitor start motors) They certainly seem to have more copper and iron in them, again for a given HP.

An old bi-polar motor would be "way cool", even if it wasn't owned by a famous person.

John Ruth
Writing from within sight of the monument at the site of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park lab.