What's It Worth: Wire recorder once was cutting-edge.(Chicago Tribune)

Q. This Webster Chicago wire recorder still works, but I don't know how old it is or anything about it. Do you?

_Willie Mitchell, St. Petersburg, Fla.

A. Before there were tape recorders, there were wire recorders such as yours, also known as electronic memory wire recorders. Their development dates to about 1900, when the Danish inventor Valdemar Poulsen first patented a machine called a telegraphone that used steel wire as its main recording component. By the mid-1940s, numerous companies, including Webster Chicago and Silvertone (a Sears Roebuck brand), were making wire recorders for military purposes.

After the end of World War II, Webster Chicago began to sell its recorders for use as a dictation machine at the office and a fun novelty at home. Webster machines such as yours were introduced about 1947 and were the finest on the market. They came with a Shure MM-35 crystal microphone and originally sold for almost $150 (which was a lot of money back then).

Magazine ads featured a boy pointing at a recorder, saying, ``Our Webster Chicago Electronic Memory Wire Recorder is the best piece of equipment in our house. The gang and I put on some swell cowboy shows with it, when Sis isn't using it for her cowboy lessons ... Gee, I guess we all use it! You ought to have one at your house!'' The ads worked, too, because theThe wire recorder was so popular in the postwar years it even makes an appearance in Arthur Miller's 1949 play, ``Death of a Salesman.''

Its popularity was not destined to last, however, as other audio machines made their way onto the market. By the time ``hi-fi'' made its way into many of our homes in the mid-1950s, the days of the wire recorder were over.

According to Joe Pfeifer, an antique electronics specialist in Sandy, Utah, collectors look for machines such as yours that are in good, working condition, with little rust or corrosion. Most collectors, he says, prefer units that are small because they are easier to use and display. The lettering on the machine itself, as well as the fabric beneath the speaker grill, should be intact. Having the original packaging or ...