Lot Essay
In 1858, Charles Tiffany bought 20 miles of cable from the first Atlantic telegraph between Europe and North America in order to sell souvenirs of the historic event. Tiffany & Co. advertised in Frank Leslie's Weekly on September 11, 1858:
"TIFFANY & CO., No., 550 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, announce that they have secured the entire balance of the ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH SUBMARINE CABLE, Now on board the U.S. STEAM FRIGATE NIAGARA.
In order to place it within the reach of all classes, and that every family in the United States may possess a specimen of this wonderful mechanical curiosity, they propose to cut the Cable into pieces of four inches in length, and mount them neatly with brass ferules.
Each piece will be accompanied with a copyrighted facsimile certificate of CYRUS W. FIELD, Esq., that it is cut from the genuine Cable. Twenty miles of it have been actually submerged and taken up from the bottom of the Ocean. This will be first sold in precisely the condition for which the great Cable now lies in the bed of the Atlantic."
"TIFFANY & CO., No., 550 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, announce that they have secured the entire balance of the ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH SUBMARINE CABLE, Now on board the U.S. STEAM FRIGATE NIAGARA.
In order to place it within the reach of all classes, and that every family in the United States may possess a specimen of this wonderful mechanical curiosity, they propose to cut the Cable into pieces of four inches in length, and mount them neatly with brass ferules.
Each piece will be accompanied with a copyrighted facsimile certificate of CYRUS W. FIELD, Esq., that it is cut from the genuine Cable. Twenty miles of it have been actually submerged and taken up from the bottom of the Ocean. This will be first sold in precisely the condition for which the great Cable now lies in the bed of the Atlantic."