Museum of Science and Industry auctioning pieces of closed circus exhibit
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A popular exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry is no more, but there will be a chance to bring a piece of the circus home.
The MSI closed its circus exhibit on Tuesday of last week after nearly 50 years.
Several items from the circus featured at the museum are going up for auction. They include motorized dioramas showing the circus parades and the three-ring performances, carved models of circus wagons, and fun house mirrors.
As noted by the Hyde Park Herald, the MSI circus exhibit opened in April 1973 – and was originally displayed in the East Pavilion rotunda before being moved to a corridor on the ground floor in the mid-1990s.
Potter & Potter auctions noted that the motorized dioramas that constituted some of the highlights of the exhibit were created over several decades by Chicago railroad worker Roland J. Weber.
They were developed "in exacting detail and feature hand-carved animals and human figures, as well as finely-constructed model circus tents, wagons, animal cages, and accouterments that make each diorama both remarkable accomplishments, but also, to a degree, accurate representations of how a circus looked and felt in the first quarter of the twentieth century," according to Potter & Potter.
The Hyde Park Herald reported Weber sold the collection to disabled veteran and circus fan Ken Idle – who in turn sold it to Sears, Roebuck & Co. Sears first loaned the collection to the MSI, but later donated it, the newspaper reported.
The MSI exhibit evoked a scaled-down version of the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, or the Ringling Circus Museum in Sarasota, Florida. The Wisconsin museum assisted in research and graphic elements for the MSI exhibit, the Hyde Park Herald reported.
The animated miniature scenes included a sideshow, a big top, a menagerie animal tent, and of course, the Ringling Brothers Circus Street Parade. At the MSI exhibit, brass band and carousel organ music would play on an alternating loop that filled the room – switching up as the miniature bandwagon and calliope wagon each went by on the parade track.
Those animated miniatures are all up for auction – along with everything else down to the whimsical sign that hung over the the middle of the exhibition hall.
The estimates very for different items. A mechanical coin-operated wagon and big cat display that sat for many years in the exhibition's entryway could fetch $3,000 to $6,000. The display showing a group of clowns where you may have put your head for a photo op could fetch $1,000 to $2,000. The motorized circus parade and big top could each fetch $5,000 to $10,000, according to Potter & Potter.
The auction begins next weekend, but you can place an absentee bid online now through Potter & Potter Auctions. The full catalog, which also includes John and Jan Zweifel's separate and extensive circus memorabilia collection, can be found here.
