My dad made a lot of projects over the years, one of them got kind of pushed to the back… I saw on auction at Christie’s a pencil sharpener that was shaped like a teardrop … and it sold for $95,000. I said, someplace around here there’s a prototype ashtray for the 1953 Sandcruiser bus, and I think there’s only one, so I wonder how much that’s worth. I found it again. […] It’s for the Sandcruiser bus but it never made it, so it’s just a prototype… I took pictures of it farther away for Christie’s, and I took pictures closer up; they rejected it. […] I took it to Richard Wright, with a $2500 minimum and nobody even bid, so much for my rags to riches story.

Hal kindly showed us all how the ashtray works and its design in reference to the needs of an ashtray on a bus! The prototype is still fully functional today.

Exhibited by hal Chaffee

Transcript edited by Serena Washington