Mosby & Co. to launch with sale of toys, sideshow banners, monster kits, Handel lamps, bronzes Mosby & Co.’s auction debut closing on May 15 features toys, sideshow banners, art-glass lamps, Western bronzes, plus Aurora monster model kits and other monster collectibles.
accent colors of burgundy, gold, blue and brown, and with ruby and blue jewels. The tail is real horsehair.”
Another carousel highlight is the small-scale, 38-inch-long bear that came from a Mexican traveling carousel of the 1930s or ’40s. Predominantly gray in color, it wears a red saddle and harnesses of yellow and brown. “It has a great vintage look and nice old paint,” Spurgeon said.
More than 100 games will be sold, ranging from 19th-century American sets in excellent condition with superb lithography, to desirable TV-related games of the boomer era. Of the earlier period, top lots include an 1850-1860 McLoughlin Yankee Pedlar (sic.), featuring an image of a beardless Uncle Sam as the peddler. Another beauty from McLoughlin is the 1893 game called Kings and Quoits.
Games with a TV connection include Western favorites like Johnny Ringo, Wyatt Earp, Stagecoach West and The Virginian; and other popular titles such as The Twilight Zone, Lost in Space, Garrison’s Gorillas and Time Tunnel. Other notable entries include a fairly scarce G.I. Joe game, several Disney games, and the game Weird-Ohs, which was based on the model kits of the 1960s featuring Ed “Big Daddy” Roth-style artwork.
Both intriguing and repellant, a grouping of more than 100 sideshow banners harkens an era when carnivals and circuses routinely showcased human oddities and bizarre illusions. “We expect there will be a lot of interest in this collection, which belonged to the late Bob McCord. He was one of the world’s top two or three collectors of sideshow banners,” said Spurgeon. “Many pieces from this collection were featured in a book called Freaks, Geeks and Strange Girls. The banner called Dance of Death, which pictures a nude woman in a sheer scarf dancing with a skeleton in the desert, was even chosen for the cover of the book. It was painted by the artist Fred Johnson around 1940.”
The banners, which were displayed in Bob McCord’s restaurant in California, were produced from the 1920s through to about the 1980s, the earlier ones being of canvas or oilcloth. Among those considered most desirable by collectors are Three Card Monte All Exposed, which shows three men involved in a con game; and Monster Man Eater, a horrifying depiction of a man being eaten alive by a giant alligator.
On a “lighter” note, the auction will include seven Handel art glass lamps, all from one collection. The grouping includes an 1890s Gone with the Wind lamp from the company’s earliest period of production. It is signed Handel on the shade and impressed P.J. Handel on the base. Another entry, which Spurgeon describes as “a spectacular little lamp with a rainbow of colors,” is a scenic boudoir lamp with a seascape motif of birds flying over the ocean. The shade, a 7-inch Teroma model displaying Handel’s unusual chipped-ice effect, is signed by Richard Runge.
Several 1970s bronzes by the noted Western artist Frank Polk have been consigned. “Polk was a member of the Cowboy Artists of America. He
