Gorgeous piece of old L.A. turns up on eBay

Before the Wilshire boys, Gaylord and William, became known more for the street they put their name on in 1887, they ran a safe company in San Francisco and Los Angeles. (More William than Gaylord, who was a billboard mogul, publisher and all-around Socialist rabblerouser as well as a land developer.) This beaut is the first Wilshire Safe and Scale Company safe that Eric Lynxwiler, my partner on the Wilshire book, has seen come across eBay. It stands five feet six inches, is four feet wide, and was probably made between 1888 and 1891. The owner in Malibu is asking about $5,000 and shipping charges alone were estimated at $1,000.