Once again our good friend Bob Abdou sent us more information that he found in an 1886 book with ventriloquism merchandise:
Hey Dan and Steve,
Look what I found in a 1886 book, vent merchandise.
The prices were pretty high even back then, considering a rocking chair cost $5.00 and a horse drawn carriage was $125.00
Plus it sez “no one can fail”.
So there is hope for me.
Bob
Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com
Have you seen the Frank Marshall Tribute DVD, click here
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Ventriloquist Central is the brainchild of Dan Willinger and Steve Hurst. Dan is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Steve is a ventriloquist as well as builder of ventriloquist figures. He also has a background in sales, marketing, building websites and computers. Because they both love the art of ventriloquism, the website Ventriloquist Central was born. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com
Copyright 2014 by Dan Willinger and Steve Hurst
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This is a great find! Thanks for sharing Bob!
Amazing, the year and prices. I guess they were known as Peck & Snyder figures. I was around W.S. Berger a lot in the mid-50’s, bought an Insull from him for $100.00 which he called a Davenport. In fact I never heard him refer to Insull as such. I learned after he passed about Len Insull and that his figures sold through the Davenport Magic Shop. I suppose back then a figure maker was lucky to get his wares in a producer’s catalog, and did not matter putting his name on it, or maybe that was a condition of producer, like Peck & Snyder, I don’t know.