Brass Plaque From Old Occidental Life Building On Auction Block

By Staff Writer

August 16, 2001 at 08:00 PM

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NU Online News Service, Aug. 16, 2:16 p.m. – An anonymous resident of Ontario, Calif., is selling a brass plaque from an old Occidental Life Insurance Company of California on the eBay Inc. auction site, at http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1455760572

An engraving on the plaque shows a man, woman and child looking up toward a star.

The seller says the plaque seems to have from the elevator area of an Occidental Life headquarters building that stood in Los Angeles from around 1908 to 1962.

The workmen who demolished the building gave the plaque to a woman who had worked as an elevator operator in the building for 12 years, according to a letter that came with the plaque.

Other life insurance-related items now for sale on eBay include a book of nursery rhymes published by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York, and an old, gray Bakelite plastic bank made as a marketing tool for a New York Life Insurance Company insurance agent.

The New York Life bank features the name and telephone number of the agent who originally used it, along with a slot for business cards, according to the anonymous Mechanicsville, Va., resident who is acting as the seller.

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