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News Article
Tom Mix and World’s Fair all at Gray’s Auctioneers
By Eric C. Rodenberg

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Serena Harragin, CEO of Gray’s Auctioneers, calls her April 16 sale the “World’s Fair and Collectability Tribute to Tom Mix.”

Gray’s is known for hosting auctions full of the best of the World’s Fair, but the April auction will also have a nod to Tom Mix.

“He is considered by and large to be the original Western cowboy leading man,” Harragin said.

Beginning his career in 1909, at the age of 29 Mix appeared in 291 films over the course of a 26-year career. Only nine of those movies were talkies.

“While only about 10 percent of Tom Mix’s films have survived into the modern day, breadth and scope of his popularity during his heyday can be felt in merchandise up for auction at Gray’s,” Harragin said. “There will be a variety of advertisements for the Tom Mix Circus, a Western-themed rodeo and revue styled after Wild Bill Hickok’s famous rodeo shows.”

From the 1876 Centennial World’s Expo in Philadelphia, Gray’s will be selling various frosted figurines of our Founding Fathers.

Most of the figurines were made by William Thynne Gillinder, an English emigré who, fleeing a poor market for glassworkers within his home country, set up his own glass factory in Philadelphia in 1867.

At the 1876 Centennial, Philadelphia was interested in portraying a new, and united, demonstration of America’s recovery from the Civil War. Gillinder was present to lend his work to a new “branding.”

At the fair, Gillinder went so far as to build an exhibition glass factory, where fairgoers could purchase “Centennial”-branded souvenirs of great figures from American history.

“These souvenirs have continued to sell for years after the close of the fair and, have remained valuable collector’s items. The Philadelphia factory remains in operation today under the careful eye of a fifth generation of Gillinders,” said Harrigan.

Working up, the next big American expo was the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. Commemorating the quadracentennial of Columbus landing in America, the expo was chronicled in the 1983 Book of the Fair, which consisted of five leather-bound folios containing photogravures and illustrations depicting the fair’s celebration. One of these books will be offered at the auction.

Also from the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition is a stunning set of nine Libbey glass peachblow rose bowls, creamers and a lovely glass artifact in the shape of a pear.

Then, comes the big “star of the show” – an 18kt. yellow gold repeating chronograph pocket watch from the Exposition Universelle Paris, 1900. The watch has a nickel-plated jeweled movement, overcoil hairspring chiming jeweled hammers on two-coiled steel gongs, beneath a three-tier enamel dial with Roman numerals

“This gorgeous piece is a testament to turn-of-the-century class and craftsmanship like no other,” Harragin said.

Gray’s is hosting previews during regular office hours, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. during the week preceding the sale, with preview hours of noon to 4 p.m. on April 14-15. Live bidding is available through GraysAuctioneers.com.

Contact: (216) 26-3300

www.graysauctioneers.com

4/9/2018
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