Circus Posters, an Electric Chair, and Other Ways to Make Your Home More Interesting

Looking to spruce up your home with some antique furniture? Try starting with a 1940s-era electric chair. You’ll find a vintage model used in sideshows this November 16 during the Circus Sideshow & Oddities auction from Chicago’s Potter & Potter Auctions.

The sale features strange and unusual items from a variety of collectors, but it’s primarily been built around Dave and Mary Jane Price’s extensive collection of circus posters and ephemera. Dave, who worked for several circuses as a billposter and is a trustee emeritus of the Circus Historical Society, had been acquiring pieces since the early 1950s. Mary Jane was in the business, too, working as a press agent.

Collecting is in Dave’s blood. His father used to own the Egyptian Hall Museum, which has been considered the greatest collection of magic posters, ephemera, and artifacts in the world. Before it was sold to a new pair of collectors in 2000, visitors from around the globe used to make trips to the Price home, just outside of Nashville, to witness the treasures covering walls and filling cabinets. One of them was Gabe Fajuri, Potter & Potter’s president and founder, who made the pilgrimage as a teenager.

When Dave reached out to Potter & Potter this past January about selling his circus collection, it was time for the auctioneer to make a return visit. Though the Egyptian Hall Museum was long gone, the Price home was still a site to behold.

“I went to the same address and it’s like bizarro world,” Fajuri told Weird Historian. “It was the exact same house, with the exact same furniture, exact same rooms, exact same arrangement, but instead of the magic stuff on the walls, it was all circus stuff.”

Price specialized in collecting materials from the Clyde Beatty Circus, but bidders will also find beautiful color lithographs from Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth, Ringling Bros., Cole Bros. Circus, Al G. Barnes Circus, Forepaugh & Sells Brothers, and plenty more.

Of course, if your wall space is limited and electric chairs aren’t your thing, there are many other weird items that are sure to liven up any room or office.

Taxidermy oddities like “Tootsie” the five-legged dog, a Fiji mermaid, and a Siamese twin lamb with eight legs, one head, and two torsos make great additions to any cabinet of curiosities.

 

Other sideshow items include 19^th-century cabinet cards featuring such attractions as Annie Jones, the bearded lady, Tom Thumb, and Chang & Eng, the original Siamese twins. Stacks of Ripley’s ephemera is up for grabs. And for fans of the 1932 Tod Browning cult classic, Freaks, there are vintage posters, handbills, and Lot 392: Johnny Eck’s own 16mm reels of the film. Eck, born with no legs in 1911, was among the cast’s many sideshow stars.

“They were the ones he used to stream the film,” Fajuri notes. “The consigner got them from Johnny. He said he watched the movie in Johnny’s living room with Johnny.”

The metal canisters include Eck’s home address and handwritten labels.

On the less freaky side, Buffalo Bill collectors will rejoice at the opportunity to own the first performance program from the famed entertainer’s Wild West show in 1883.

“It’s literally from the first show of the first Buffalo Bill performance ever,” Fajuri emphasizes. “That’s American history. I don’t think you can’t hit that too hard on the head in terms of selling its significance.”

The program is expected to fetch $5,000 to $7,000. It, and any of the more than seven hundred other historical wonders could be yours. Previews will be held in Potter & Potter’s gallery November 14-15, and online absentee bids are being accepted now.