Expert: Mike Palmer - 9/4/2009

Question
Mr. Palmer,
We have what appears to be an old Wells Fargo vault door. I believe it is a steel door. On the outside of the door, it has a combination dial and lever to open it. There are 5 round metal "prongs" that recede into the side of the door to open/lock it. The inside side of the door has a wheel-type mechanism that turns to open from that side. It is black and has in brass individual letters "WELLS FARGO" with a carriage and horses underneath also in brass. I have the door and complete frame, I think. Would this be valuable at all? We are selling the house and want to either include value for that or have it removed prior.
Thank you!

Answer
Eve,

Wells Fargo was never a manufacture, Here is a little of their history: On March 18, 1852, in New York City, Henry Wells, William Fargo and others signed articles of association for a joint stock company to do a banking and express business in distant California. Rushing for gold and silver in the West, overland by pony and stagecoach, coming through for miners, merchants, farmers and ranchers, building on the frontier, offering “Ocean-to-Ocean” service by 1888, the rest is history.

Now the first thing that we have to do is identify what you have.

We never identify, evaluate or appraise your safes or vault doors without seeing them.  In order to rate or evaluate your safe I am going to need pictures.  Evaluation photos should consist of full exterior / interior views, and detail photos of the dial, handles, hinges & acorns, wheels or castors, locks and bolt work (you may need to open the back panel of the door to photograph), cabinetry, art work and any special details or damage.

Photos should be high resolution digital pics, to allow me to zoom in, to study in detail the safe you are requesting evaluation of.  Please review your photos before sending them.  If they are out of focus, or you can’t see them – then neither can I.  If the photos are larger than 2mb you may need to send them two at a time per email.

We try to be as unbiased as possible when evaluating and appraising, or offering possible restoration options to you.

Send the photos of the safe to andy@securitysafeusa.com

Informal evaluations are no charge.  If you need a formal evaluation or an appraisal for insurance, estate or resale purposes, we have an administrative fee for the extra work.

I will need all of the requested photos, so don't skimp!!!

andy

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Hi Eve

As Wells Fargo vault doors have never been marketed in the UK, this is outside my area of speciality so I have passed it to my colleague Andy Adreasen in California and I am sure he will respond very soon.

Regards,

Mike Palmer FSyI