Auction Date:2013 May 15 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
DS, signed “Thomas A. Edison,” four pages, 8 x 13, February 24, 1885. An agreement between Stephen D. Field and Simeon G. Reed (“parties of the first part”), Thomas A. Edison and S. B. Eaton (“parties of the second part”) and the Edison Electric Light Company (“party of the third part”), regarding the Electric Railway Company of the United States. Document concerns an agreement “to form a corporation to whom should be transferred certain inventions to be used only upon the Elevated Railroads in the City of New York.” Signed on the final page by Edison with his trademark ‘umbrella’ signature and also signed by Reed, Field, Eaton, and Eugene Crowell. Document is still stapled into its blue legal folder. In fine condition, with an ink spot above Edison’s paraph and some tape reinforcement to folds of folder. An embossed orange seal of the Edison Electric Light Company, depicting a radiant light bulb, has been affixed in the lower left of the signed page.
During the first half of the 1880s, Edison focused a great deal of effort on developing an electric railway, successfully installing three miles of track with two locomotives, a freight car, and a passenger car at Menlo Park. Convinced that electric transportation was the way of the future, Edison combined his talents (and his patents) with those of Stephen D. Field, whose early electric streetcars could already be found in New York City. United as the Electric Railway Company of the US, the team successfully exhibited an electric locomotive at the 1883 Chicago Railway Exposition, giving over 25,000 people a ride on their prototype for the world’s first elevated electric railway. Despite their initial enthusiasm, support and finances soon gave way and the company was dissolved in 1889, assigning Edison’s patents to the new Edison General Electric Company, selling Field’s to Westinghouse, and liquidating the remaining assets. An incredibly interesting and rare document—the first we have offered regarding Edison’s work with the electric railways.
Auction Location:
5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
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