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Up For Auction: Vintage Bonnie & Clyde Crime Show Banner

Posted in art, Artifacts, Auction, tagged Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow, crime show, gangster, outlaw, sideshow banner on September 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Bonnie and Clyde Crime Show Banner. Photo via RR Auction, Amherst, NH

Among the popular attractions on carnival and park midways in the 20th century were crime shows featuring life-size figures of 1930’s gangsters like Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. A vintage sideshow banner used to advertise one of these shows will be sold at RR Auction’s Gangsters, Outlaws and Lawmen Sale on September 30. The painted banner, which is said to date back to the early 1930s, is the work of a Kansas City painter named Gene and has a pre-sale estimate of $10,000 – 12,000. The banner’s lurid headlines enticed customers inside and at the same time instructed that crime does not pay: “Crime Wave… Boy & Girl Gangsters… See Inside… The Wages Of Crime Is Death.”

Why aren’t Bonnie and Clyde mentioned on the 12 by 9 foot banner? According to the auction catalogue:

It is believed that this banner being offered here is one of the first ever Bonnie and Clyde roadshow banners. Interestingly enough, Bonnie and Clyde were still alive when this banner was in use. This is why their names are not printed at all upon the poster as the roadshow profiteers were not stupid, because if their names were on it, that might have led to a visit from the gangsters, and the outcome of that visit could have been less than pleasant.

After Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed on May 23, 1934, their bullet-riddled death car–as well as some imitations– went on to become a lucrative sideshow attraction on carnival midways and at Coney Island Cincinnati. The car is currently on display at a Nevada casino. Crime may not pay but it sells tickets and artifacts associated with dead celebrity outlaws have become marquee investments.

Among the more than 100 items in the sale are Bonnie Parker’s Colt Detective Special .38 revolver, which was found taped to her thigh at the time of her death (Est. $150,000 – 200,000), and her cosmetic case (Est. $5,000 – 10,000). “In those days the items were allowed to be kept by the posse members as part of their service in tracking down these outlaws,” says auction house owner Bobby Livingston. Online bidding for the Gangsters Auction opens on September 24.

Up for Auction: “Fool the Mad Genius” Carnival Scale

Posted in Artifacts, Auction, Carnival Games, tagged Age and Scales, antique scale, carnival history, Fool the Guesser, Guess Your Age and Weight, memoir on May 31, 2012| 4 Comments »

‘Fool the Mad Genius’ Carnival Scale. Image Courtesy of Skinner, Inc. Marlborough, Mass.

In the carnival business, the Fool the Guesser concession used to be known as “Age and Scales” and every midway had one. My mother and her first husband worked it for a spell in the 1940s. They had a sit-down scale similar to the beauty pictured above and for years afterward it remained a fixture in the barn at our winter quarters. “We’d guess their name, age, weight, shoe size, their mother’s name, their husband’s name,” Mom would tell me. “You name it, we guessed it.”

The season that stood out was the time they gave away name-brand, gift-boxed chocolates as prizes and everyone who played won a prize. Mom said they got a truckload for practically nothing because the boxes were cellophane wrapped with best wishes for the holiday, which they carefully removed. Was the holiday Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day? I’d have to go back and check the transcripts of the oral history interviews with Mom. But I clearly remember my mother saying there was nothing wrong with the chocolates. The biggest problem was giving away all of the prizes before they melted in the summer sun!

On June 2nd, Skinner is auctioning this rare example of a vintage carnival scale along with the original hand-painted sign used by the operator. The catalogue description for Lot 134 reads:

“Fool the Mad Genius” Carnival Scale, America, 20th century, wooden tripod stand supporting an oak armchair and 21-in. dia. silvered brass scale marked Frederick C. Allen, Los Angeles and calibrated 0-400 hundred pounds, together with a painted sign where the “Mad Genius” challenges participants that he can guess their weight, their age, how many cigarettes they smoke, number of family members and the age of their car, ht. 102 in.

Saturday’s live auction will be held at Skinner in Marlborough, Mass. Absentee, phone and online bidding are also available on the day of the sale.

UPDATE June 3, 2012:

The price realized for the carnival scale and sign was $4250.00.

Rare & Vintage: Pinto Bros. Pony Cart from Coney Island

Posted in Amusement ride, Artifacts, Auction, tagged Coney Island, kiddie ride, Pinto Brothers, Pony Cart, ride manufacturer on May 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

Pinto Bros. Pony Cart, Image Courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio

This charming cast iron pony and wood cart manufactured in Coney Island, New York, by the Pinto Brothers is up for auction on May 19 at Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati. Two bids have already been placed online via liveauctioneers. The Pinto Brothers were kiddie ride manufacturers in Coney Island during the 1940s and ’50s. Like their better known contemporary William F Mangels, who also manufactured a popular pony cart ride, the Pinto family had a factory on West 8th Street. Pinto rides turn up less frequently than Mangels, which makes this piece of Coney Island memorabilia desirable despite– or perhaps because of?– its condition: “Unrestored, horse repainted, paint loss to cart, wooden slats of cart damaged with age.”

The owner found the piece at an antique mall in Lexington, Kentucky, where its name plate and Coney Island provenance went unnoticed: Pinto Bros Mfg. Amusement Devices, Coney Island, NY, USA. Among the kiddie rides that they manufactured and advertised for sale were a carousel, ferris wheel, rocket, roller coaster, miniature trains, sail boats, fire engine and pony carts.

In June 1948, the Billboard reported that Pinto Bros three new kiddie pony and cart rides built in their shop at 2940 West 8th Street were featured at Feltman’s park, in McCullough’s lot adjoining the Dangler on West 15th and Surf, and in Asbury Park. The brothers Albert and Silvio, along with their cousin Henry and father Silvio Sr., also operated a variety of other rides in Coney Island, including a Mangels Whip, a Scrambler, and the Tornado roller coaster and Spook House.

When the widening of the street for the New York Aquarium construction swallowed up their shop in 1954, they continued to manufacture ride parts for customers and operate rides. In 1959, the Pinto family bought the Cyclone roller coaster, which they operated before selling it to the City a decade later. According to a post with reminiscences of the Pinto Brothers on the Coney Island History Project’s blog “Ask Mr. Coney Island,” a pony and cart was restored at the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky, Ohio.