GUEST: So, I'm an architect.

It happens that a client of ours bought a warehouse in downtown Denver.

The seller of the-the warehouse had owned it for at least 40 years.

GUEST: And he was a well-known car collector.

At one point there were 70 Porsches in there.

APPRAISER: Oh, wow.

GUEST: Also just a lot of odd, interesting pieces that he'd found, uh, during his life.

APPRAISER: Including this.

GUEST: (stammering) Yes.

And he had to surrender it all.

He was in his dotage and didn't have anybody to leave it to.

APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: So at some point you surrender it.

So our client said, "Hey, see what you can do with this."

And I tried to save as much as I could from going in a landfill.

APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: And this was a piece that I found that I-- that just absolutely fascinated me.

Luckily it had a tag on it that it is a prototype model for a mold to make alkali balls, presumably for water treatment.

The only thing I can find for the inventor or for the object at all is in the patent registry...

GUEST: ...that there it is in 1881 with a scan of the, the little hand diagram.

APPRAISER: This was patented on February 22, 1881 by, I believe, it's Minard M. Smith.

GUEST: Smith.

APPRAISER: It's carved from wood.

It has some metal elements-- the hinges, the springs, the wires and a little set of latches there that allow us to close and open the mold.

You can see all the cavities inside.

There you've got one of the original wires which, uh, I suppose, once you're done making those alkali balls, would allow you to remove them... APPRAISER: ...from the mold.

Patent models, very sought after by collectors because, by definition, they're one of a kind.

In a auction, a well-advertised auction, I would expect a patent model like this to sell somewhere in the range of $2,000 to $3,000.

GUEST: Ah, okay.

Okay.

APPRAISER: Yeah, so not bad for saving it from a, a building or...

GUEST: From a dumpster, exactly.

APPRAISER: Yeah, from a dumpster.

GUEST: Yeah, it's fascinating.