Saturday, May 13, 2006

Post Card #1


My father must have been a born collector, he left me a lot of stuff unrelated to circuses such as four 6" by 4" boxes of post cards on various subjects with about 200 cards in each box.
One box conains animal pictures sold at zoos so I picked out a few primate cards.
He passed away in 1963, to give an idea how old the pictures are.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was the John T.Benson Wild Animal Farm ever used as the winter quarters for any circus's?

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to comment,on the earlier discussion,concerning if the Ringling Bros. elephant'Lizzie' ever appeared in any of the Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies.
I just remembered where I read that.
It was in Chang Reynold's article in Sept-Oct 1968 issue of BANDWAGON
Ringling elephants 1888-1967,page 9.
He stated the Ringling Bros. had 2 elephants named Lizzie.
One had been part of the Barnum&Bailey in 1918 and kept with the merge(Liz).
The other was Lizzie from the William P. Hall farm from 1905 -1920,during the 1930's she was with Hagenbeck-Wallace.
Chang Reynol's discribed this Lizzie as being,quote
"A tall fine looking bull with a majestically sculptured head.One of the best looking elephants I have ever seen".
This was the Lizzie he said was in the Tarzan movies.
Both of these elephants were poisoned and died in Atlanta Georgia in 1941,
The Hall farm Lizzie died November.5.1941
and Liz died November.7.1941.

Anonymous said...

speaking of old movies with elephants acting in them.
Anyone see the movie,
THE BIG CIRCUS(1959)
It starred Victor Mature,Rhonda Fleming,
also
The Human Cannonball
The Jungleland Elephants
Tex Carr and his Chimpanzees
and the Movieland Seals
(as themselves).

also some guy walking across the Niagrra Falls on a rope.

Buckles said...

Chang was absolutely correct, this is the info on the other "Lizzie".

Barnum Lizzie
1903-18 Barnum & Bailey Circus
1919-41 Ringling-Barnum Circus
(Died 11/7/41 in Atlanta poisoning)

But my point is that I see no way either would have been physically in a position to make movies in Hollywood, particularly since the Barnes elephants wintering in California had a long hisory of movie work which included the Tarzan films.

Anonymous said...

I think I may have a clue.
You remeber the Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies,where he swims underwater in crystal clear water?
Most of the movies were filmed at Hollywood,however,I rember reading somewhere
those scenes were filmed in Florida.
At Wakulla Springs near Tallahasee,
or Silver Springs I believe.
Central Florida is full of such springs
(I grew up in the Florida panhandle)
Ringling winter quarters are of course in Sarasota Florida.so maybe they filmed some scenes near there?

Anonymous said...

Mr. Woodcock,

Would you have any info concerning a circus elephant that died December.30.1870
in East St. Louis.
Reportly it had escaped from its railroad car by breaking a chain at night,wandered the city scaring people by trying to get into buildings.
The elephant was found dead the next morning near the Southeastern depot.It was believed to have died from exposure to the cold.
It was valued at$5,000.
I read this in a old newspaper article,but it didnt name the circus.

Buckles said...

No this all new to me. $5,000 was a lot of money for an elephnt in 1870.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what they run for, but they don't seem to run as fast

Buckles said...

Seems that for almost a century the going price for an elephant was $3,500 however after the Federal Government became involved in the elephant business I paid $40.000 for "Ned" in 1989.

Anonymous said...

do you have any pictures of the rosaire-zoppe chimp act. i saw them last year at NY state fair pretty cool and very friendly people

Buckles said...

No I don't. I have very little of anything contemporay