GUEST: My grandfather was a salesman for the York Safe and Lock Company.

It's my understanding that he used to lug this model around... APPRAISER: (chuckles) GUEST: ...to prospective customers, trying to sell them full-size vaults and safes.

'Cause it's so heavy, my mom was afraid to put it up on the shelf... APPRAISER: (chuckles) GUEST: ...for fear that it would fall.

GUEST: It's always been a conversation piece.

APPRAISER: It is a, a little gem, honestly.

It's what we would call in the trade a salesman sample.

It's got all the company information on it.

York, uh, Safe and Lock Company, York, PA. And then it has a patent date of July 31, 1906.

It's actually a working model, it's not just a, a toy model.

It's, it's got-- it's so highly detailed.

It's meant to represent the full-scale model.

So we open the door and we can see the interior is exactly like the full-scale would, would appear, with this glass over the mechanism, so you could see it working.

And that inner part would rotate to lock it inside the cabinet here.

And it's even fitted with shelves inside.

The patent on this was because of the, the circular design.

Most safes at the time, especially if you watch cartoons, are big rectangular things that fall on your head.

But those were easy to break into with explosives.

This was harder to do with explosives because of the round shape.

It would deflect a lot of the blast, and even if you did, you, you'd likely not be able to get into it like you could a paneled safe that would have had welded sides, and in fact... Close it back up, and we look on the back, it has this decal, which tells us it won the highest honors at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

What's great about this is that it says "manganese steel safe."

So manganese steel is a special kind of steel.

It's less brittle than traditional steel.

It's also non-magnetic.

In fact, it was used during the war for soldiers' helmets so it wouldn't interfere with the compasses.

Another selling point that they had painted on the front.

A little bit of wear, but just enough wear to make you know it's, it's period, but not so much wear that it's lost some of its value because of, uh, of the loss of the design.

Your grandfather carried it around for many, many years.

And actually we have a picture of him, too.

Is he, he's right, standing in front of a larger version of this, with a circular door.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

That's him.

APPRAISER: Did he ever talk about it?

GUEST: No-- unfortunately, he passed before I was born.

I think it also had a case, at one point, that he would carry it around in.

APPRAISER: Is that anywhere in the attic?

GUEST: That's... APPRAISER: (laughs) GUEST: No, that's, that has never been... As long as I can remember, it was just this item.

APPRAISER: Got it.

If this were to come up for auction today, I think a reasonable auction estimate would be $30,000 to $50,000.

GUEST: Oh, my goodness, that is... (laughs): That's amazing!

APPRAISER: It's a gem.

GUEST: And I might actually build a shelf for it now.

APPRAISER: I love it.

GUEST: That is remarkable.