Nikola Tesla Autograph Note Signed.

TESLA, Nikola.

Item Number: 114948

Rare autograph note signed by and entirely in the hand of brilliant inventor, Nikola Tesla. On Waldorf Astoria letterhead, the letter is dated December 2, 1904 and reads in full, “Dear Mrs. Dodge, Please accept my thanks for your kind thought. I’m very sorry to miss the pleasure yesterday. All my time is now taken up with very pressing work and I can only hope for a more favourable opportunity. Yours sincerely, N. Tesla.” From 1900 to 1922, Tesla resided at the Waldorf Astoria and made the rounds of New York looking for investors for what he thought would be a viable system of wireless transmission using electrical energy, wining and dining them at the hotel’s famed Palm Garden, Players Club and Delmonicos. In March of 1901, he was successful in obtaining $150,000 from J.P Morgan in return for a 51% share of any generated wireless patents and so began the race between Tesla and rival Guglielmo Marconi to develop the first wireless transmitter, a race Tesla would lose in December of that same year when Marconi successfully transmitted the letter ‘S’ from England to Newfoundland using a radio-based system. In fine condition. Exceptionally rare and desirable.

Inventor, electrical engineer, and physicist, Nikola Tesla is perhaps best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. A brilliant inventor, Tesla conducted a range of experiments involving mechanical generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early x-ray imaging, in an attempt to develop inventions he could patent and market. He became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures. Throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and Colorado Springs. Tesla's inventions had varying degrees of success and, later in life, he earned the reputation of the archetypal 'mad scientist' for his claims that he was in communication with entities on Mars and in the process of developing a variety of implausible inventions.