Here's a nice little alley hit. This would be a 3-high daub but for the streamer across the top making it a 4-high; as it stands it is 4-high and 8-long for thirty-two sheets of paper. Reading from the left we see a 6-sheet date, then a 12-sheet Giraffe bill, and on the far end a 4-sheet hippo and under it a 2-sheet date posted in 2 sections side-by-side. Then the 8-long streamer bring us to a total of thirty-two sheets. Good one; neatly done and square with the world. You carry those streamers so that in case you have the extra space you can fill it in. Some streamers were printed in such a way as to make them somewhat flexible as to length, like the biller could omit the piece saying "Railroad" for instance. One show used to have a pictorial "Big Snake" streamer where you would post a head at one end and then however many middle sections you needed to get the right length and a tail at the other end. You always posted daubs from the left to the right, the reason being that there is a white margin at the right edge of each section and the next section then covers that white up. By this biller being at the left end, he is either just posing for the camera or possibly rubbing that corner of the streamer in a little better. That giraffe bill really got a lot of mileage. I believe someone established that Kelly-Miller was the first truck show to troupe a giraffe- someone help me out on this.! |
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
From Dave Price
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4 comments:
How interesting!! And thanks for the details!!
So.. for the changing areas.. such as day-of-week, date, city.. etc sheets I see you could have a supply of the weekdays..and dates. Did you make the two-digits (like 29) by using a 2 and a 9.. or did you have a 29 sheet? And.. the cities??
I can tell the "trade" is still alive and well.. as I watch the guy come around about midnight..with his paste and brush.. and posters.. and cover the construction fence across the street here in New York City with ads. I see him look at his digital screen to see where each ad will go!!
Richard Reynolds says - -
Yes, the Kelly Miller giraffe was the first to troupe with a trucker. The animal first toured in 1948. It died in Hugo quarters in March 1954.
No, we didn't have to make up the dates; they came to us pre-printed. About once a week we would get a big shipment of dates for the next week's towns. You had a truck full of the pictorials when you left winterquarters and then these were replenished along the way as they were used up.
From time to time the Car Manager (or in some cases the General Agent) would contact the printers and say, "We need a hundred of the 12-sheet giraffes and two hundred 4-sheet hippos. Do you have any of those 3-sheet clowns with the firecracker on hand? Let us have two hundred of them. etc etc"
I NEVER heard paper ordered by serial number as some have stated. I believe the numbers were an in-house device just used in the print shop.
That guy who comes around and posts late at night? We would have called him a "sniper."
And thanks, Richard for the giraffe info.
As always Dave your information on the posters are pure circus history.
I hope you send in alot more of these bill stands and how many sheets it took to cover a building.
Al G. Kelly and Millers Bros. Circus really used to put up the posters. Many years ago in the early 70's I was visitng there winterquarters just snooping around and looking at all the old trailers of the past. I ran across a trailer 4 feet deep in posters. Well Dory said help your self and I did.
I asked Dory one day while visiting Carson and Barnes about the 1956 season when Ringling closed under canvas. Kelly Miller put up large poster saying "Last of the Circus, See it now or miss it forever". D. R's answer was we torn them up as we had sell out crowds all along the route.
Those great days of teh past for the circuses.
Harry Kingston
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