Buckles Blog: RBBB- Rockford, Ill. 1931 #6

Friday, May 09, 2008

Scan000011199, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Cleopatra's Barge fully assembled.

Anonymous said...: These must be the sphinxes one of which Karl K Knecht later owned.

It must survive in some collection today.; 09 May, 2008 22:58
Anonymous said...: I believe one of these is in the Hertzberg collection (wherever it is now stored in San Antonio).
Dick Flint
Baltimore; 10 May, 2008 02:22
Anonymous said...: I don't think that this RBBB spec float was the origin of the preserved sphinx figures.

The source was likely to have been the 1910-1911 Forepaugh-Sells Egyptian parade wagon, which was dismantled or abandoned in Baraboo. The Ringling 1903 Egypt float, in rebuilt form, went out of Baraboo on the 1918 Ringling train and ended up in Bridgeport.

The local source may have been "Baraboo Bill" Kasiska. A photo of one of them may have been in one of his sets of images.

At least three old Ringling wagons were rolled out of the barns when the CFA meet at Baraboo in the 1930s. One of them, the 1903 Spain/Witches float, survived. The Ringling zebra cart and another 1910-1911 Forepaugh-Sells float went to oblivion.

One sphinx carving ended up in the hands of Wisconsin circus fan Ralph Hartman. It may be the one in San Antonio, part of the Hertzberg collection, now stored, yet accessible, at the Witte Museum.

There may be an image and article in an old issue of White Tops or Bandwagon concerning the Hartman carving.; 12 May, 2008 10:48

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