Rare Brass 1927 National Cash Register (NCR) Bookends

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This is the second pair I owned. The first pair was auctioned off last month. This pair of bookends has the name of the building "THE N.C.R. SCHOOL HOUSE". They are circa 1927 and heavy cast brass with a plate that removes with four inset screws. The pair weigh in at nearly 10 lbs. The size measurements are as follows: 4 7/8" H x 3" W x 5'' L. They are listed in several of Kuritzky's Bookend Collector's Guides with a rating of 5 out of 5. This rating means they are RARE and "in online sales they are seen a few times a year. Seen at shows and antique shops rarely". Furthermore, Kuritzky says that the "NCR School House was made or distributed over at least a four-year period to foreign contest winners as early as 1927 and US recipients as late as 1931. Additionally, Kuritzky adds: "That a Company historian indicates that the "smokestack" contest for which these bookends were awarded was so titled because the employees were exhorted to get the factory smokestacks puffing away through their sales of machinery. The NCR School House was a building in which many of the Comapny's training sessions were held. According to the historian, no more that several hundred sets and certainly no more than 1,000 were cast." Kuritzky values this pair at $400. Please look at the pictures closely. I think they adequately detail these bookends. Please e-mail with any questions. Do not bid if you have any reservations about the quality of these bookends. You may see some of these with inscriptons to contest award winners. These DO NOT have such an inscription. This pair DOES NOT have felt pads. T is a "scratch" on one bookend that has exposed the shiney brass metal. This can be seen in the pictures and is on the first landing. With time, this will delvelop a patina and will stand out less. These are in very nice condition with a few rub marks from contact with books and shelves. These contact points have worn the patina and exposes the brass. Also, t is some dust and dirt which I leave to the winner to clean. A very beautiful pair of architectural bookends that may have special significance to NCR employees. NCR History Timeline 1884 - John H. Patterson founded the National Cash Register Company, maker of the first mechanical cash registers. 1894 - NCR opened one of the first sales training schools. 1906 - Charles F. Kettering designed the first cash register powered by an electric motor. 1914 - NCR developed one of the first automated credit systems. 1926 - NCR became publicly owned. 1952 - NCR acquired Computer Research Corporation (CRC), of Hawthorne, California, which produced a line of digital computers with applications in aviation. 1953 - NCR established the Electronics Division to continue to pursue electronic applications for business machines. 1957 - NCR announced first fully transistorized business computer, the NCR - NCR's John L. Janning invented liquid crystal displays (LCD). 1974 - Company changed its name to NCR Corporation. 1974 - NCR commercialized first bar code scanners. 1982 - The first NCR Tower supermicrocomputer system was launched, establishing NCR as a pioneer in bringing industry standards and open systems architecture to the computer market. 1991 - NCR acquired by AT&T. 1991 - NCR purchased Teradata Corporation, acquiring its advanced and unique commercial parallel processing technology. NCR Teradata becomes the world's most proven and powerful database for data warehousing. 1994 - NCR name changed to AT&T Global Information Solutions (GIS). 1995 - AT&T announced spin-off of AT&T GIS by the end of 1996. 1996 - AT&T GIS changed its name back to NCR Corporation in anticipation of being spun-off to AT&T shareholders by January 1997, as an independent, publicly-traded company. 1997 - Signaling its evolution from a hardware-only company to a full solutions provider, NCR purchased Compris Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of store automation and management software for the food-service industry, and Dataworks, a company that dev... read more

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