You don’t have a guest like this every day: none other than the mayor of Gütersloh stopped by “Bares for Rares”. Horst Lichter was delighted – the dealers, on the other hand, were at a loss.

“Hello Horst, hello Detlev!” Horst Lichter had not expected this casual greeting. The moderator of “Bares for Rares” had to collect himself briefly before he replied: “Now you know our names, we don’t know yours yet.”

The confident salesman introduced himself as Nobby Morkes. And he’s no stranger. At least in his hometown of Gütersloh, almost everyone should know the 70-year-old: Morkes has been mayor of the East Westphalian city since 2020.

And he brought something unusual to the junk show: three voting machines from the 1960s. They have long since been sorted out and should actually be disposed of. But the busy mayor campaigned to be allowed to sell the monstrous devices at “Bares for Rares” in order to earn a little money.

Expert Detlev Kümmel explains that this is the electromechanical voting machine TN scheme, manufactured by Müller

“Bares for Rares”: Timid bids

Mayor Morkes believes that technical museums could be happy about this and gives 500 euros per machine as the desired price, i.e. 1500 for the three. But Kümmel doesn’t want to go along with that: he estimates the value at just 600 euros.

Afterwards, Morkes admits that he pulled the 500 euros out of thin air and lets it be known that he will be happy when he gets rid of the monsters. Which will not be a sure-fire success, because the dealers are also faced with the question: Who can use something like this?

However, there were a few hesitant bids, and Julian Schmitz-Avila finally got the bid for 300 euros. Norbert Morkes is satisfied: He wants to donate half of the money to the Tafel and half to the soup kitchen in Gütersloh. And he also got rid of his junk along the way.

So the mayor has still achieved all goals. “Nobby, you’re a grenade. I know why you were chosen,” Horst Lichter called after him to say goodbye.

Source: “Bares for Rares” in the ZDF media library