Tick..tick..tick...tick...tick...Keeping the American economy really ticking has been the job of a self-winding stock ticker like this one. Long before the computer age, there was a 3/4 inch wide piece of paper tape (yes, it’s where the concept of the Wall Street ticker tape parade comes from). Wall Streeters would hang around the ticker tape looking at the prices of everything from AT&T to IBM to Xerox and of course, thousands more. Known simply as the self-winding stock ticker it came to be identified with Western Union. Why? The heavy cast iron black base has gold capital letters that read, “Quotations Furnished by the Western Union Telegraph Co. Apply to local Manager.” The metal and spring ticker tape itself was housed in glass. A big glass globe, clear, of course, so lots of people could hang around and see how much money they were making (or losing!). The ticker tape itself is a piece of mechanical engineering that’s as intricate and detailed as a fine Swiss watch mechanism. This unit has the number 1133774 on it and is a working unit. The ink pad is enclosed in a metal housing unit. The stamp “MF’D by T. A. Edison, Inc.” also has the number 9896 stamped under the Edison stamp. Why the Edison name? One of the ticker’s manufacturing vendors in the early 1900s was Thomas Edison’s West Orange New Jersey plant. These “Western Union” self winding tickers are sometimes thought by people to have been invented by Edison because they were manufactured in his plant. The fact is that it is doubtful that Edison had any involvement with Western Union’s self-winding ticker. Of course, the history of Wall Street and the Stock Markets could fill volumes. But without a doubt, a little piece of streaming ? inch wide paper tells a big part of the market’s history. If you want to see and feel the ticking sensation of Wall Street’s real history, you’ll want to get your next market rush from this historical and ultra-rare piece of The Street!!