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William Brinley
Collection of Circus Memorabilia
The auction was held Saturday Feb 16, but you can still
check out the collection by click above image
When he was in high
school, the other kids would make fun of WilliamBrinley and
his miniature circus.
"To them it was toys," said Brinley.
If any of those classmates are still around, they're sure to
recognize that the joke is on them.
For nearly fourscore years, Brinley's passion for the circus
and his remarkable replica have taken him on travels
throughout the country.
He has appeared on national television several times,
perhaps mostnotably on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1950. He
appeared at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas with Marlene
Dietrich. He was an advance man for
William L. "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd in the cowboy hero's
heyday.
All this and more for a kid who, growing up in Wallingford,
fell in lovewith "The Greatest Show on Earth."
Now Brinley, who is 90, is auctioning his collection of
circus memorabilia. The sale, totaling 552 lots, could bring
in the range of a half-million dollars. Some lots have
dozens of pieces.
There will also be a preliminary showcase of his scale-model
miniature circus, which could on its own bring in a
six-figure bid. The miniature circus is to be auctioned by
sealed bidding at a later date.
That's a lot of cash for what some at the old Lyman Hall
High School (the present Town Hall) derided as toys.
The auction in Meriden on Saturday "without a doubt" will be
the biggest event ever for Nest Egg Auctions, which moved to
warehouse-size accommodations on Research Parkway fairly
recently,
said Carl R. Brechlin, the auctioneer.
"It's funny; if Bill had come to me even a year ago, I would
not have been able to handle it," Brechlin said.
Brechlin points to a poster from the Sells-Floto Circus.
It's of a monster sea elephant, "captured alive in the
Antarctic - a tremendous living, breathing giant of the
sea." Bidding for the poster will start
at $500. Brinley picked it up in 1932 when the circus came
to Hanover Park, after he had won a ticket in an art contest
held by the Morning Record, a precursor of the
Record-Journal.
"That's the difference between Bill and a lot of
collectors," said Brechlin. "Bill was there. He lived it."
Asked why he decided to sell after all these years, Brinley
says he'd been trying for several years to get both
miniature circus and collection "someplace that could
exhibit it."
"But there are so many damn rules and regulations by people
who don't know what they're talking about," said Brinley,
who is still unhappy with the way his first model circus,
donated 50 years ago, is displayed at the Barnum Museum of
Bridgeport. After making the donation, Brinley went right
back to work making another miniature.
Brinley, who has lived on Miller Street with his wife,
Madeline, since 1942, also wants whatever money the
collection gains to ultimately go to his son, Bill Jr., who
lives in Fulton, Md.; and his granddaughter
Tais.
Brinley discovered Brechlin when he read a Record-Journal
article in June about a 1850s photograph that was believed
to be of Abraham Lincoln.
"I had no idea this place was here," Brinley said.
The two hooked up in July, when Brechlin offered a contract
for Brinley to sign.
"And he says a handshake is better than any contract,"
recalled Brechlin.
The auctioneer expects about 400 people to show up for the
event, with another 100 or so bidding by phone or the
Internet. Interested collectors come from all over the
country as well as other parts of
the world, including England and Japan, Brechlin said.
Copies of the auction catalogue have been donated to the
Meriden Historical Society, the city's public library and
the Library of Congress, Brechlin said.
Hooked on the circus Brinley remembers well the first time
he went to the circus and how it hooked him. "The Lord gave
me a fantastic memory," he said.
Born August 18, 1917, in his parents' Wallingford home,
Brinley went to his first circus at age 9 when the Christy
Bros. Circus came to Wallingford. In those days, there were
many circuses, and a town like
Wallingford would be visited by one at least once a year.
"I saw the circus parade and the circus train in the freight
yard, and I saw elephants, lions and tigers," Brinley
recalled.
He responded by carving his first circus wagon, using a
cheese box and roller skate wheels.
He went to the circus every chance he had, and by 1929 was
allowed to help set up tents. He was also continuing work on
his own Brinley Miniature Circus. At age 14, after he had
graduated from Holy Trinity
School and was on his way to Lyman Hall, his work was
featured in Meriden's newspaper under the headline
"Wallingford Boy Builds Own Circus."
"The youthful circus builder in constructing his wagons and
tents attempted to make exact replicas of those seen on the
regular circus lot," reads the story. "Construction on the
tents and pole wagons has
been carried out in minute detail with outside racks for the
tall main poles of the big top, ladders leading up to the
drivers' seats, whiffletrees, etc. The animal wagons have
drop sides with bars and a
runway at the rear of the wagon to let the beasts in and
out."
Despite the teasing, Brinley would give a presentation of
his circus every year at his high school. In 1936, he went
to work for Wallace Silversmiths, earning $11 a week as a
steam elevator operator. A few
years later, he would spot the Meriden woman who would
become his wife during an ice skating excursion at Hubbard
Park. At the time, she worked for International Silver,
earning a dollar more a week than he had.
Brinley had started his miniature circus with a few wagons
and a couple of tents, but it had grown to hundreds of
pieces by the time it was on display in front of the Men's
Club in Yalesville in 1938.
That's when George Hamid, of Hamid Circus, happened to stop
by on his way between Boston and New York. Born in Lebanon,
Hamid had been helped by Annie Oakley to learn English and
gained business savvy from the likes of Buffalo Bill.
Hamid, who ran the New Jersey State Fair, was so impressed
he offered Brinley a contract to display the miniature
circus at Atlantic City's renowned Steel Pier. Brinley and
his circus spent the summer of 1938
there, charging 10 cents to see it, and from then on his
circus was also a traveling circus.
Drafted into the Army Air Corps during World War II, Brinley
spent some of his duty time in Alaska, where he continued to
whittle additions to his circus. After the war, he began to
add moving parts, including riders and trapeze artists.
A life on the road By 1950, he had quit his job as a sales
clerk to go full time as a creator and showman. For the
following three decades, he toured the country.
The Meriden Record noted in a 1950 article that Brinley's
model circus had an appraised value of more than $100,000.
"It travels by truck and plays all the big cities all the
way from Boston to Seattle."
It took two days for Brinley to set up his circus, "which
has more than 500,000 separate parts," the newspaper
reported.
Brinley had carved a replica of Hopalong Cassidy on his
horse, and the star was so moved Brinley was signed by
Cassidy and Cole Brothers Circus to set up at shopping
centers and department stores as a way of providing advance
publicity for the real thing.
Brinley says his was the only company that did not have to
pay a royalty to Cassidy, because he wasn't selling anything
connected to the star - he was promoting him.
"Hopalong Cassidy was a really nice guy," Brinley said.
Television and radio appearances ensued. At the end of the
1950s, Brinley agreed to donate his miniature circus to the
Barnum Museum. An estimated 50,000 people each year visit it
there.
Brinley went right to work on a second miniature, which like
the first has a scale of three-quarters of an inch to
the foot, and was also building full-scale circus wagons. In
1977, Brinley told the Morning
Record and Journal he'd carved far more than a hundred
thousand circus pieces.
Brinley's second miniature circus today takes up to 1,200 to
1,400 square feet, said Brechlin.
"I've been living this circus for seven months now," he
said.
"I know it."
Brinley's memorabilia collection includes photographs,
posters, books, tickets, program booklets and other ephemera
gathered over a lifetime's involvement with the circus.
Photos and more information
are on the auctioneer's Web site:
www.nesteggauctions.com.
Saturday's auction, which begins at noon, is likely to run
six to
eight hours.
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