Trying to find more information pricing vintage tank

I have a huge aquarium and stand that I have no room for anymore, but I'm having a hard time figuring out its value if I have to sell it.

As for the aquarium itself, best I can tell, it's stainless steel. It's kinda shiny polished looking metal, just looks like heavy duty stainless steel. The bottom/center of the aquarium says "METAFRAME", and "MAYWOOD N.J. + MOUNTAIN VIEW CALIF". It weighs a ton. The aquarium has a slate bottom and the glass is hard to measure the thickness of, but somewhere between 1/4 inch and 1/3 inch thick. Measuring inside the tank for cubic volume, it's 17 & 1/4 inches wide, 59 & 1/2 inches long, and could fill up 18 to 18.5 inches height before meeting the lowered center brackets for the tops. If you just stopped at 18 inch height water, ye olde google-found calculators say that's just over 10.69 cubic feet or a hair under 80 gallons. Filling to the bracket only brings it to about 82.2 gallons, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess this is an 80 gallon tank.

As for the stand, it's some heavy duty iron. It looks more like wrought than cast to me, but I'm definitely not an iron expert. It has little accent bars that go a ways then turn 90 degrees and connect back elsewhere, and looks like a great wrought iron fence, minus the toppers of course. ;p The bottom shelf of the stand previously held for a long time, on each side, 2x5x2 (20 each, 40 total) heavy (lead?) battery UPSIs (now called battery backup units) and it's not bent or warped anywhere at all. I don't remember how much each of those weighed, but around 40+ lbs each would be my guesstimate. That's over 1,600 lbs which sounds maybe crazy I dunno, but this thing's a beast.

My father says he thinks the aquarium with water and gravel and stuff weighed a thousand pounds or just over, and he doesn't remember how much my grandfather paid for it. He thinks his father got it in the mid 60s because he remembers grandpa having it before he (my father) went to the Vietnam war. He now says that could have easily been a different aquarium. Unreliable narrator much? ;p Personally, I vaguely remember my father once saying he either won the aquarium or was gifted the aquarium from Sears Roebuck back when he was like a department or store manager long ago before he broke his back. I think the aquarium had been setup and used in a Sears corporate office until Sears moved everything to their new (at the time) Sears Tower in Chicago, IL. One or both of us are remembering things incorrectly. Am I crazy for thinking about selling this? Googling 80 gallon metaframe aquariums has seemingly random prices all over the places, ebay to craigslist to other sites. My terrible internet researching on metaframe is that it was a brand/company of aquariums and pet stuff that was popular but expensive, Mattel bought it in the early 70s and sold it in ...1979? Seems like while Mattel owned the brand, "metaframe" was slapped on various toys like little metal cars. I dunno, I could be super wrong, I have no real idea about any of this stuff. Hoping maybe someone here was a knowledgeable hobbyist during that time period and has a memory superior to my father's. ;-)

 

Post a picture of the tank and it will be easier to appraise.

Unless you come across the very rare aquarium hobby historian/collector it will be hard to find someone willing to buy it at a similar price to the now fairly standard 75/90 gallon sizes. It sounds like a beast but this may be a case of the dusty piano, which will only be taken away if given away (though the work would all be done for you at least). Not saying it's worthless, it sounds far from that but the majority of aquarists are looking for tank space rather than a collector piece, and while doing so try to minimize risk.

If you want to get rid of it I'd post on marketplace or CL without a price and discuss details with interested parties.

 

Had to hit her with ten seconds of Swiffer dusting and Windexing before her beauty shot. Was 80 gallons never really a thing? Would this be a 75 gallon tank with the water level below the metal of the top of the frame? Or would the displacement from the filters and gravel etc. on the bottom put the water level of 75 gallons above that visible threshold? That or maybe 80 gallons was once a thing and now isn't? ;p

 

It's a nice tank, but finding the person who will appreciate it and pay accordingly may be difficult. Many people won't trust the seals on a tank that old, and would want to completely re-seal the joints before using it, which is a considerable amount of work.

 

I guess I should acetone and rebead the joints with ...silicone? Aquarium specific silicone or jointing compound maybe? Then soak the slate and fill the tank to see if she holds? It's looking like I maybe need to do a ton more googling/learning; then maybe just keep & setup this aquarium someday. I'm heading in for surgery in a few minutes actually so it's gonna be a while, was just finalizing moving things around the house before I'm laid up for a while.

 

it's a Metaframe, the metal is stainless steel, the bottom is slate. I'm guessing you gave outer dims of the tank, but by inner dimensional volume it's a 65 gallon class aquarium.
they were made in the mid 1960s and gone buy early 80s.
there were also stainless steel full hoods for them.
No idea if the stand is original and by metaframe also, not saying it isn't, just saying I don't know, the ones I've seen have scrolling metal decorations to them or were also stainless steel. They sold all kinds of stuff. there was an interesting set of different bubbler divers for instance, many variations, The company was bought by Mattel, and it went into obscurity, Mattel didn't do anything with it, cheapened the products,eventually sold off product lines of Metaframe to like Hagen, and San Francisco Bay Brand, and others and that ended it, products moving forward without Metaframe branding.

The guys (Harding and Allan Willinger, Brothers) went on to found Second Nature Aquarium Products, Second Nature becomes Tetra and the Whisper air pumps are created.
Old timers might remember the "It's Second Nature with Whisper" slogan? that's them.

the negatives of these tanks, the seals were done with a product called "asphaltum" it's a bitumen, mineral pitch or a "tar".
these tanks leak unless they have been stripped and completely resealed with silicone.

they are boat anchors, extremely heavy and require a full tear down and resealing for them to be usable.

It is "vintage" and it is aquarium history, The Willinger Brothers, founded marketing and packaging for retail of many products for the aquarium hobby and were huge in aquariums for a short time in certain parts of the U.S. , and founded one very relevant company that's gone through some name changes. They didn't make the aquarium themselves though, they had their company doing that along with all kinds of other things, like an all in one aquarium heater, which was a series of components linked together to heat an aquarium before their design. Without Metaframe, the hobby might not be where it is today.

No idea what the value of it would be. They made aquariums all the way down to 1 gallon.
Ebay,
20 gallon, $49.99 no guarantee on seals or glass making it if shipped.
2 gallon, resealed and tested, $49.99
4 ft length, rough condition, $52.00
10 gallon size, resealed and restored and water tested $149.00.
30 gallon as is, $34.00

if you are restoring and resealing, you'd need to strip off every bit if the old stuff, and I'd suggest doing it really nicely with a black silicone, so it will maintain it's original look without the terrible asphaultum, but without the look of white or clear silicone in it.

I don't know how much someone would pay for it, but getting top dollar hinges on restoring it and water testing it.
The hoods, called "stow-a-lite" are stainless steel and have a compartment with a lid that you can put small things into they also look sharp for what they were and what was out there at the time. they sell for anywhere from like $40 on ebay on up depending on condition and size. like, the plug is two prong, no ground pin yet. LOL there was also the "Hobbyist Hinged Hood". a basic model, clever folks!

Your stand could use some scrubbing and sanding and then repainting with a flat black. get the rust off, and make it look good again also, cheap fix and will look nice again.

Oh and I might be wrong, but that piece of glass on the right in the picture, that might be sized to be a top for this tank, can't really see enough if it, but people did that to cover a tank and hang lights above it rather than buying a light fixture hood.

 

Sorry but no value. Yes it’s big but no one want it. A collector would want it with the stainless top (if there are collectors).Not that that makes it worth much. I like the boat anchor name . I’ve got a 35 in my attic that will be there when I sell. Stand is the standard stand for it and may be easier to sell by itself. Please don’t fix it unless you plan on using.

 

Sorry but no value. Yes it’s big but no one want it. A collector would want it with the stainless top (if there are collectors).Not that that makes it worth much. I like the boat anchor name . I’ve got a 35 in my attic that will be there when I sell. Stand is the standard stand for it and may be easier to sell by itself. Please don’t fix it unless you plan on using.

to be fair that tank probably cost like $20 in 1964. about the price of a brand new 1964 mustang convertible. hahahahahahaha!
cars weren't that cheap, I kid, I kid!

 

Lol the mustang was under 2k. But a more realistic thing would be a top of the line camera. Which now is worth about the same as the tank!

 

Lol the mustang was under 2k. But a more realistic thing would be a top of the line camera. Which now is worth about the same as the tank!

But I have a camera on my cellphone,,, same reason I don't wear a watch or carry a day planner. LOL.

 

I guess I should acetone and rebead the joints with ...silicone? Aquarium specific silicone or jointing compound maybe? Then soak the slate and fill the tank to see if she holds? It's looking like I maybe need to do a ton more googling/learning; then maybe just keep & setup this aquarium someday. I'm heading in for surgery in a few minutes actually so it's gonna be a while, was just finalizing moving things around the house before I'm laid up for a while.

Keeping it and restoring it yourself will probably be the best option. Restoring it and trying to sell it probably won't bring in enough money to pay for your trouble.