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Step Right Up: Circus and Sideshow Memorabilia

Thu, Sep 3, 2026 11:00AM EDT
  2026-09-03 11:00:00 2026-09-03 11:00:00 America/New_York Potter & Potter Auctions Potter & Potter Auctions : Step Right Up: Circus and Sideshow Memorabilia https://auction.potterauctions.com/auctions/potter-potter/step-right-up-circus-and-sideshow-memorabilia-23625
Featuring the collection of lifelong circus collector John Diesso, this auction includes heralds, couriers, and posters advertising the "greatest shows" of yesteryear. Photographs, route books, scrapbooks, and circus costumes will be also be offered, spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A wide array of early European circus posters will be sold, along with a large library of circus books of several thousand volumes.
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Lot 375

Barnum's Wonders: an illustrated history of the Hindoo Hairy Family and other prodigious and exclusive features of the Greatest Show on Earth. 

Estimate: $300 - $500
Starting Bid
$150

Bid Increments

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$0 $5
$30 $10
$100 $25
$500 $50
$1,000 $100
$2,000 $200
$5,000 $500
$10,000 $1,000
$20,000 $2,000
$50,000 $5,000
$100,000 $10,000

Barnum's Wonders: an illustrated history of the Hindoo Hairy Family and other prodigious and exclusive features of the Greatest Show on Earth. Buffalo: Courier Co., ca. 1887. Courier, illustrated with wood-engraved illustrations of the “Hairy Family of Burmah,” double-page illustration of Capt. Paul Boyton, The Knight-Errant of the Deep (diving act), and Jumbo "the Dead Giant." Overprint for a show in Albany, Aug. 13, (1887).

10 x 6 3/4".

 

Condition

Spotting and small tears to covers, strip of tape reinforcement to edge of rear cover.

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