Priceless junk from 44 rue Vivienne?

Monsieur Jean-Michel Labiche of Versailles, France is the proud owner of this rare Trouvé electrical apparatus for dentistry which he came across in a flea market in northern France. It has survived complete with its patented Trouvé dry battery.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect is the address on the box. Instead of 14 rue Vivienne, it appears to indicate 44 rue Vivienne, most probably a fault on the part of the maker of the box.

Yet Trouvé was not known for his inaccuracies.

As Monsieur Labiche comments, « Funnily enough, I now realise that I must have been “enlightened” to have bought this “junk” because I would never have imagined that an illustrious inventor would be so completely abandoned by his own country despite all his inventions which form part of our daily life.”