CIRCUS TIME: A Bit More On Toy Circus Tents

I was really hoping that this thread would be further along by now but a big snag has hit: I don't have room! There's several toy tents waiting in the wings to be assembled but now I need something to at least put them on for photography purpose. One of them will need approximately 24" x 36" to set up but there's no room for that out in The Cave at the moment. So here's what I thought we could do - look at what I do have and then figure out something else to post. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Marx Super Circus Tent and Banner Line

Marx did an excellent job of encapsulating the essence of the Big Top in it's wonderful playset from the early 1950's. In real life those two sets of banners you see flanking the Big Top would actually be placed in front of a separate tent. Together they would form the 'banner line' and would act as a preview of  the human oddities (aka 'Freak Show') that could be seen in there.

Marx's Big Top measures 25" (63.5cm) L x 10" (25.4cm) W x 9" (22.86cm) H

My photos of the Super Circus set appeared in Playset Magazine Issue No. 64

Coca-Cola Circus Cutout Reproduction (1997)

The original was first made in 1932 is much smaller than the repo. I love the repos for its larger size and its ability to be shoe-horned into even the smallest of spaces

Here we see an original placed on top of the repo for size comparison

This tent measures 14" (35.56cm) W x 2 7/8" (7.30cm) D overall

Hand-made Tents

These of course are too small to stage a Big Top performance in but they make excellent ancillary tents

Mattel Circus Playset

This is a work in progress. I broke this out not too long ago so that I could photograph the tent and all eleven circus acts that were a part of the overall offering (I'll explain that when the time comes). However, this was yet another snag I hit. You see, the separate circus acts require assembly and quite frankly, they're not going together as easily as I'd hoped with a bit of ill-fitting parts to contend with. Stay tuned for more progress.

Preiser No. 30645 HO Scale Krone Circus Tent

While I have been concentrating on tents compatible with Lionel or K-Line 3-rail O-gauge electric trains (1/43 - 1/50 scale or so),HO scale has a huge presence in the miniature circus world as well

(photos culled from eBay)

 (480X160mm)