For Bud Copeland

Buckles: Bud asked about the Hagenbeck-Wallace wagon that Emmett Kelly painted. Here's a 1934 William Koford picture of it (these pix were sold for years by Al Conover though ripped off here from a magazine rendering). It has been called the "Mickey Mouse Tableau." The Corporation had a long habit of dressing up plain wagons with paintings, thereby making them suitable for parade use. Some of these tabs may have gone the whole route from Howe's/Gollmar to Robinson and thence to Hagenbeck-Wallace, though tracing them is difficult. This one still exists at the Circus World Museum, painted with the Arthur Bros charging tiger. Its drop-frame construction and the fact that it also served as the clown bandwagon may mean it was a remodel of the Robinson wagon in your earlier photo. Of course any wagon that survived many years underwent numerous replacements of wood and/or hardware. Whitey