THE Largest Antique Decorative Thermometer Collection The Worlds Premiere Antique Decorative Thermometers Start Price USD 428,000.00 Current Price USD 428,000.00 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Wednesday, July 30, 2008 End Time Saturday, August 09, 2008 Location State Capital of California - Sacramento See more about 'THE Largest Antique Decorative Thermometer Collection' Description World’s Largest Antique Decorative Thermometer Collection Far right and left figural reveal artisans’ attempt to work within mechanical constraints of tube shape. The premiere antique, decorative thermometer collection, the Harris Thermometer Museum, is now available for sale for the first time at a price of $430,000. This is the rarest of all antique collections; yet thermometers are the most ubiquitous of all commercial, scientific, and advertising mediums. The Harris Museum of Antique, Decorative Thermometers, located in Sacramento, California is a pristine collection of 600+ antique thermometers and related ephemera amassed over a period of 35 years.  The collection is both spectacular and curious. WE'LL BE ADDING MORE PICTURES + VIDEO COMING SOON! The Harris Thermometer Museum is the only antique thermometer collection to have been featured on national TV. It is a perfect collection/exhibit for the collector who wants a prized, turn-key collection of objects that are eminently displayable, rare, and artistically stylish. Like barometers, they have charm and historical authenticity. But because thermometers have never been rigorously cataloged (i.e. they lack pedigree), they are exceedingly moderate in cost. A beautiful array of desk thermometers. Crystal ball thermometer is a most unusual and elegant piece. One of a kind.   About the Thermometer Collection The Museum’s thermometers represent the full range of artistic design elements and construction materials. Most of the thermometers were crafted around the turn of the century in Europe, but a fair number were produced by American artisans. Twenty five percent of the thermometers are one-of-a-kind specimens. The rest comprise the remnants of a very small family of existing devices, perhaps 5 to 10 survivors of each design type. The thermometers reflect many diverse construction materials: Brass, parquetry, sterling silver, bronze, glass and ivory. Amazingly, a few are mounted on deer horns and chicken legs. All of the finest thermometer makers from the U.S. and abroad are represented in this fine, museum quality collection. Travel therms, encased in sophisticated, carved boxes, traveled securely to far climes.  Englishmen wanted their creature comforts with them at all times. Mantle thermometers, like the massive granite clock-cased device on far left, exemplifies a classic theme (and good taste)in late 19th century estate. About the Owner / Collector The collection is truly unique, not only because it is the museum’s founder, David Harris, has collected the choicest specimens for the last 35 years, but because it would be impossible to replicate the breadth and depth of the collection. Antique thermometers are simply not in the market today, not that they have ever been plentiful. The reason for this survival problem is that thermometers, by their very nature of design and construction materials, are inordinately fragile. You look at them and they break. They broke often and completely. Consider the likelihood of a desk or wall thermometer surviving 100 years of jostling and brush-ups without breakage. And when they did indeed break, they were unceremoniously discarded – thrown in the trash heap of history- because, after all, they were primarily intended to tell weather conditions, not look pretty. Literally hundreds of millions have been thrown away during the 400 years of their existence. And to put a finer point on their ephemeral beauty, when the functionality of the decorative thermometer was lost, their inherent beauty was not enough to save them. Unique, Rarities and One-of-a-Kind Treasures! One only has to look at daily eBay thermometer listings to appreciate their rarity and exclusivity. On any given day, the 5,000 to 6,000 general thermometer listings feature only a smll handful of decorative, antique devices. Furthermore, as a testament to their rarity and esoteric appeal, documentation about thermometers is exceedingly rare. No book or price guide has ever been published on antique, decorative thermometers. And none will be because nobody other than the famous Harris Thermometer Museum has ever assembled enough of the core thermometer holdings to constitute a collection. No author, in other words, is going to write a book about the ten or twenty thermometers they may have in their own personal collection; it’s too meager. And finally, the numbers of remaining antique thermometers are too few and their artisans too distant and unknown to write about them. Each thermometer is a miniature gem. You can almost sense the craftsman’s guile in trying to create a totally new design construct while inhibited by the requirement that the design completely surround and embellish the stark thermometer tube of mercury or alcohol. While the purpose of the device was obviously to impart temperature information, the goal of the artisan was to make the device appear something other than a purely functional object. Hence, the wide variety of the shapes, sizes, composite materials and design motifs. A 24-hour recording thermometer was a curiosity at home but far more comfortable on a shelf in the well-appointed scientific lab.   Who will be interested in buying the Harris Thermometer Museum complete inventory? Well, it should be prized by an equally eccentric individual like David Harris, the Museum’s founder. Mr. Harris has valued the eccentricity of the collection as much for its earthy, mechanistic appeal as for the delicate intricacies of its natural beauty. Antique, decorative thermometers represent a class of tools (scientific instruments) which have transcended their technical characteristics only to be appreciated as artistic icons of another age.   Thermometer Facts & Story Lines For many hundreds of years men have instruments for determining temperature. Although the fact that liquids expand and contract with temperature change was known and used to open temple doors as early as a hundred years B.C., the great physicist Galileo is usually credited with making the first liquid-in-glass thermometer in the late 1500s. Since then, man’s ingenuity has created thousands of temperature devices. Few large collections of thermometers are known to exist. The Corning Glass Center Museum of Glass is the world’s largest assortment of clinical thermometers. At the Glenn Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, N.Y. are strut thermometers that were strapped to the girders of early aircraft. The largest collection of early household functional thermometers is located in the Rochester Museum of Science Center in Rochester, N.Y. The largest collection of antique, decorative thermometers is owned by David Harris in Sacramento, Calif. For the first time, this unique and valuable collection is now for sale. The most complex and extravagant thermometers date from the late 18th century to the first part of the 20th. They include traditional mantel thermometers in wooden or metal, peaked-roofed obelisks and castles and extravagantly fanciful forms like a crystal ball mounted on filigreed base of ormolu. Wall mounted thermometers continue the crazy diversity with thermometers mounted on chicken legs (of all things) and machine-turned brass frames. The sheer variety will astound you. A thermometer for all its outward appearance of simplicity is a complex thing. It’s an appliance and a decorative object. It can be a work of sculpture or a daringly engineered object of symmetry and structural technology. The main interest, of course, is what these instruments look like on the outside. To a certain extent outer form follows function, as in tall grandfather clocks which, like thermometers, were designed to accommodate the length of the tubed liquid. The maker of the liquid-in-tube and the maker of the housing displaying the tube were often two different people, and the more imaginative housing makers took full advantage of their freedom from functional constraints. Travel thermometers reveal an amazing feat of miniaturism, and the variety of styles and designs is dizzying. A moral dimension emerges. Some thermometers—particularly the French—unashamedly flaunt luxury and sensuousness. One wall version is enamel on glass surrounded by a delicate oval brass frame. The thermometer tube itself is a mercury spiral which unmistakably says what it is: Thermometer.   More Photos and Detailed Description: A complete and comprehensive description of the Collection is available on DVD for a nominal shipping/handling charge of $25. Please use the "Contact Seller" link to request your copy.  Questions & Answers you may want to know... Q:  What is the extent and quality of the ephemera accompanying the Harris Thermometer Collection? A:  The ephemera portion of the Collection is as exacting and comprehensive as the core thermometer part of the Collection.  Ephemera materials include original thermometer manufacturer’s catalogs (very rare), thermometer manufacturer in-house correspondence and thermometer manufacturer history.  The ephemera collection is also one of a kind and represents the largest assemblage of thermometer-related paper materials ever collected.  The ephemera collection will be sold separately from the Harris Thermometer Museum Collection.   Q:  What’s the mystery and allure behind antique, decorative thermometers? A:  Really, there’s no mystery.  It’s just that antique thermometers have never been plentiful, not even in their 19th century heyday.  And now with their numbers vastly diminished because of inevitable breakage and obsolescence, nobody sees them anymore.  Another practical reason why they’ve disappeared is the cost of repair.  Nowadays it costs at least $100 to replace a broken mercury tube….and only company in the world (in Philadelphia, no less) can fabricate mercury tubes.  From a collector’s point of view, however, it’s exciting to have something you won that’s unknown, rare and elegant.  From an investor’s point of view, the value of the collection can only grow exponentially. Q: Who is AdventureIT2?A: The selling party has retained Rick Engvall to manage this auction. Rick Engvall is known on eBay as both AdventureIT2 and ScreenDreamsDVD with a combined Feedback of over 400+ successful transactions. AdventureIT2 has been actively involved on eBay since August 2003 in United States. In 2004 Rick became an ”Education Specialist trained by eBay” and has been conducting eBay training classes and consulting with small businesses on utilizing the global eBay marketplace. To contact Rick or get more information please visit ... MyWorld on eBay! Q: Is bidding open internationally?A: Yes, bidding is open internationally. Q: Can I purchase a portion or particular item from the collection?A: No, the owner wishes to sell the entire collection at one time. Q: With such an extensive collection can you claim any that may be your favorites. A:  Yes, I have exquisite, intricately carved, ivory English thermometers.  They’re fantastic!  And nearly worth every penny I paid for them.  I’ve also have two circa 1790 therms that pardon the expression, reek of age (another age to be exact).  I’ve got about 20 traveling thermometers that people took with them on trips.  They’re neat because they all fold up one way or another into some kind of fabric-lined case.  Other favorites include those having a figural motif of an angel and those set in a sterling frame.   Q:  How are they stored? A:  I keep them locked away in a very secret location and totally protected from the elements.  I’m paranoid about them because nearly all are irreplaceable.   Q:  Can you tell us any stories relating to your Museum collection? A:  Well, a number of years ago a public relations firm in Texas asked me if I had any picture of Gabriel Fahrenheit, the father of the modern thermometer.  I knew that no picture exists of Fahrenheit, but I didn’t want to disappoint the company.  So, I cut out a portrait of an old timer (what I thought Fahrenheit might have looked like) from a library art book, and sent it to the company.  They were absolutely delighted with their faux Fahrenheit and sent me a bottle of  champaign in appreciation.   Q: Where did all your thermometers come from? A: Most are from England or France.  A few from Germany.  The rest, maybe 10% from the U.S. The European models, without any question, are the most ornate and show the highest level of craftsmanship.   Q: Are any modern day thermometer replicas available for sale? A:  No.  When a line of thermometers was manufactured, the mold and design were destroyed.  There appears to be no interest in collecting antique look-alikes.  Everything today, anyway, is digital.  Tube thermometers, of any vintage, will never return.   Q: What’s your collection really worth? A: The collection is invaluable because it can’t be replaced…at any cost.  Come to think of it, how many collections…of anything…are one-of-a-kind, artistic in nature, worth less than one good painting and can be housed in a single display case? Q: Who is well-suited to own this Thermometer Collection?A: Individual collectors, Antiques / Collectible shop owners and Museums curators would make ideal owners of such a rare collection of artifacts. Q. What will it cost to ship the collection? A. Winning bidder will pay all shipping costs which will depend upon final destination. Since all of the Thermometers are currently on display, packing and shipping has not been determined at this time. Q: Is local pick-up possible?A: YES! Pick up is acceptable in Sacramento, California. We would prefer that you make arrangements before placing any Bids. Q. Payment TermsA. All funds must be in US dollars. 5% of the purchase price is due within five business days of auction close, and the balance within thirty days. Q. What are the accepted methods of payment?A. We accept certified check and bank wire transfer. Q. Is there sales tax? A. Residents of the State of California may be responsible for sales tax. Please consult with your personal tax advisor. If you have any further questions please contact us at . The three wall thermometers shown at left contrast nicely with the two travel thermometers. Before Placing a Bid - Please Read This Information All bidders must communicate directly with the eBay Member “AdventureIT2” (a.k.a. Rick Engvall). We highly recommend potential bidders attempt to view this collection in Sacramento, California before placing a bid. We will try to assist you as best we can in making your decision to purchase. You may request a private viewing of the collection, request more photographs or more details about the collection before you bid as time allows. To request additional information please contact Rick Engvall at MyWorld on eBay! Payment terms are 5% of the purchase price by certified check or bank wire transfer within five business days of the End of Auction paid directly to the Owner. Additionally, the balance will be paid directly to the Owner by certified check or bank wire transfer within Twenty days. The buyer pays actual packing and shipping costs from Sacramento, California USA. Possession of entire Thermometer collection will pass to the buyer upon full payment. Buyer assumes all risk of loss or damage on completion of sale. Buyer agrees to have all Thermometers removed from property within 30 days of Auction Ending or negotiate additional storage / transfer terms and costs between the buyer and Owner. Additional Terms & Conditions – Please read carefully: AdventureIT2 is performing a management service on behalf of the selling party and as such is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for any warranties or guarantees either explicit or implied herein. The purchaser/high bidder agrees to pay 5% of the purchase price within five business days of auction close, and the balance within thirty days. It is the buyer’s responsibility to read this entire Auction Listing and understand their responsibilities before placing a bid. Buyer is responsible to preview any items and determine condition, authenticity, and content. While descriptions are believed to be accurate, AdventureIT2 does not provide any warranties or guarantees, express or implied, as to the genuineness, authenticity, or accuracy of description, condition, or defect, of any, of the items auctioned and will not be held responsible for discrepancies or inaccuracies in item descriptions provided. Buyer may be required to sign a release acknowledging this provision as a condition of purchase of the items. Buyer’s sole recourse shall be the warranty, if any, provided by Seller, as stated in the item description. This collection is sold as is and where is. Winning bidder will pay all packing and shipping costs from Sacramento, California, USA. All bids are binding. All bids are in US dollars. Buyer assumes all risk of loss or damage on completion of sale. Buyer agrees to remove all property by a mutually agreed upon date. This auction does not include any items or services that are not detailed above. Please note that due to the nature of high profile auctions, we will not tolerate any activity that may appear to be fraudulent in nature. If you are contacted by anyone other than Rick Engvall / AdventureIT2 about Second Chance Offers, this item or items similar to this auction, please contact us immediately at ... MyWorld on eBay! AdventureIT2 reserves the right to block a bidder for any reason including but not limited to, feedback, non-paying bidder, bid retractions, and recent bid history. Your participation in this auction constitutes acceptance of these terms and conditions. Additional Key Words for this listing: Thermometer, Collection, Vintage, Rare, Unique, Collectible, Collectable, Collectors, Decorative, Advertising, Hobby, Scientific, household, commercial, Thermodynamics, Mercury, Measurements, Standards, World’s Largest, thermometer mania, Thermometry, Wood, Wall, Decorative. Thank You for Looking and Good Luck!   Place a Bid!

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