THE ED PRITTS COLUMBIAN COLLECTION
I apologize for not having posted updates or articles in quite some time. I continue to collect notes and information that I want to share here, and schedules have just been overwhelming.
I’m continuing to work on my Columbian ticket book and have virtually all of the research and compilation of information complete; but never say finished. I have found “new” tickets several times in the last few months. It never ceases to amaze me how many tickets, passes and similar items pop up somewhere.
Ed Pritts was an antique seller and a minister, which led us to some very pleasant and interesting/thoughtful discussions over the years. I was saddened last year when he passed away. I considered him as much a friend as a customer.
After months of saying “it’s almost time….” Cleveland’s Milestone Auctions finally held the auction of Ed’s collection at the end of September of last year. It seems like an awful long time ago as opposed to less than five months; I waited impatiently for at least five months for the auction to begin.
I didn’t consider sitting by my phone for twelve hours as a live bidder. I’m still too much old school and worry that a line could get cut off or a signal dropped. So I decided early on that I would fly to Cleveland or perhaps even Chicago and try to make the trip do double duty. When the date was finally announced I had little over a month to finalize plans.
The auction was not in Cleveland proper, but a small community (Willoughby) less than hour north. I haven’t any idea how many bidders were not live, but posted their bids befoer the auction began. There were four people on phones by the auctioneer; I was surprised that there were only four live bidders not at the auction.
It was difficult to determine how many bidders were there to bid on Ed’s collection as the day’s lots included a variety of non-Columbian items. There may have been Columbian bidders onsite early but they were clearly gone by the time the auction picked up steam. I think that those bidders were on hand to bid on some furniture, large advertising signs and a group of guitars.
For the bulk of the day the total onsite audience added up to four of us. One customer of mine who had no interest in tickets but focused his Columbian collecting on medals and china and glass. Ed was a very big collector of the latter. I would estimate more than half of the lots were china and glassware. Ed never collected medals.
My plan for the auction was to acquire as many tickets and other paper lots as possible. In the end I purchase perhaps 90-95% of the tickets offered. The total was about 150 tickets and passes and 200 items totaled. I decided I would only purchase what would fit in my carry-on bag, a not-too-large back pack.
I’m sure most readers don’t really care a great deal about how I packed, just what information I garnered to share. I should say first that I sold ALL of the tickets in the ensuing 90 days. It was a really great group. There were two passes I did not intend to bid on. I decided they would be much too expensive an investment without the potential for much profitability selling. One was an interesting and rare permit for taking photos onsite at the WCE. It was the beginning of an era of smaller cameras that began making it possible for amateur photographs/fairgoers to take photographs.
For some reason, perhaps just because it was something new, the WCE required anyone wishing to take pictures to purchase a permit. The permit for personal use of a “Kodak” was interesting in the fact that the term Kodak was interchangeable with the term camera; Kodak is still around and thriving 130 years later but they had a monopoly when it all began.
The auction lot was the roughly 5-inch square permit, hole-punched so it could be worn around the neck. I believe it sold for less than $1,000; I owned and sold one more than 10 years ago along with a small square of paper: A proof of the sticker that accompanied the permit. The sticker was to be affixed to the photographer’s camera.
It is quite logical that none has ever been seen except the printing proof that I sold to a longtime customer, along with the permit. I’m guessing that out there somewhere is an old 1890s vintage camera with the remnants of that sticker still affixed. Now that would be a great find!
The permit from Ed’s collection is the 3rd one I’ve ever seen for sale: Mine, Ed’s and one belonging to the person with probably the largest Columbian collection known, Steve Sheppard. For anyone who does NOT know him or know of him, I’ll write about him at a later date.
The other treasure was very difficult for me to let go. It was the first and only known example of a wagon permit for the Dedication of the WCE. I decided not to spend $1,000 for it, even though it belongs in the group of rarest/finest known Columbian tickets/passes meaning it could bring as much as $3,000.
It was difficult to let it go (I assumed correctly at the time) to ticket collector Tom Duffy, not coincidentally Sheppard’s son-in-law. The fact that it sold for $1,000 didn’t mean it would have done so had I entered the fray. It would’ve been up to me and Duffy to decide the final price. If I were still collecting I’d wager that I would’ve owned it as I would have spent at least $2,000 for it; I honestly doubt any other collector would. I think you can officially call it a “steal” at $1,000.
I try not to compete with customers and friends for expensive tickets and usually will defer to them. There’s little logic in helping to push up a price…and then turn around and try to sell it to one’s competition at auction.
Besides tickets and passes, there was a very large number of other paper documents and publications–brochures and guides to exhibits and Midway concessions. Some of the lots included from 15 to 30 paper items and that made it surprisingly easy for me to acquire them for resale; few collectors want to purchase large lots unless there are a couple of rarities they are after.
In general, Pritts’ collection had some rarities, but not nearly as many as say the ones I sold from the John Kennel collection beginning in 2019. But Ed’s collection was full of what I consider the scarce to very scarce second tier tickets….those that could sell for $300 to $500 each. I try not to use the term “rare” very often but a lot of the tickets and passes in the collection could qualify for the word “rare” to a lot of collectors’ way of thinking.
It does seem quite legitimate to consider a ticket rare if there are only a dozen known and the last time one was seen was in 2019….and before that one would have to go back perhaps another 5-7 years.
Since I have a somewhat limited amount of space here (I don’t want to write a 5,000-word essay!), I do want to share what I consider a few of the genuine treasures in the Ed Pritts collection.
The two above should excite any serious student of Columbian history and/or collector of tickets. At the left is a one-time complimentary ticket for the International Dress and Costume Company, one of the WCE concessions that went by a variety of names. This was the concession featuring women dressed in costumes from countries around the globe.
In my research (it’s fair to say “never ending” research) of the WCE, I found little about this concession. The little that was published focused on the “lovely” women as much as their costumes. It was very much a “G” rated show and each country had a booth with one or more young women exhibiting the clothing of the country. There was a very minor controversy about whether or not the women were from the country from which they modeled clothing.
In my thinking, there was no controversy at all. I think the concession advertised women wearing costumes from different countries. They may have unfortunately used the phrase “women FROM” the countries. But they made no pretenses or claims that they had dozens of foreign women wearing the costumes native to other countries. I don’t believe anyone, except perhaps one or two reporters looking for a reason to complain, thought the women were foreign nationals. There was no attempt to hire models who looked any particular ethnicity, for example.
Many of the young women were college students looking for a summer job, much like male college students who worked as Rolling Chair attendants.
I don’t recall if I ever owned and sold an example of the one-time admission ticket at the left. I believe this one belonging to Ed Pritts was the second one I had ever seen.
The season pass at the right has a much more interesting story to tell. I have seen perhaps a total of THREE such passes–in 44 years of collecting, selling and observing WCE tickets. This one came from a wonderful estate collection that I found and purchased probably at least 15 years ago. That the estate belonged to Eugene Field made it quite a treasure.
I regret that I didn’t keep a complete inventory of the estate (I hesitate to call it a collection, per se) and write an article about it. Besides several WCE items the estate included correspondence from Field’s wife including information about his burial and headstone.
Obviously this particular pass was one that Pritts purchased from me. As I write this I have decided I should spend some time that I would be better off devoting to other projects to hunt through my WCE files and photo files to find other items from Field’s estate. If I am successfully locating at least several items I will include those images in another article here.
Ed’s ticket above is one of my favorites since it combines multiple topics. Obviously, anyone who collects railroad items would be delighted to own such a ticket. In fact, I sold it along with other railroad day items from Ed’s collection that I also had sold him. I find it quite interesting that the Movable Sidewalk concession chose to be a part of Railway Day at the fair. I don’t think the sidewalk could be considered akin to a railroad in any way. It could be lumped together along with electric launches, steamships and elevators I suppose if someone wanted to collect ‘transportation’ concessions/items. And besides that approach, worth noting of course is that I have never encountered this particular ticket. It’s always exciting for me finding new tickets to include in the forthcoming book and I realized that outside of this blog not too many of my non-WCE clients or friends or family members find a new ticket discovery at all interesting. My three kids (all adults) are very generous in listening to WCE stories and they have for decades; work on a new book is ok for a discussion but if I were to phone any of them with the exciting news about discovering this Railway Day ticket I’m well aware that each of them would find it not newsworthy.
This ticket is also a unique discovery from the Pritts collection. It’s very plain and very clear that it is good for an admission. The “what” is clear but the “where” sure isn’t. I could think of several possible venues or activities but it’s especially interesting that it notes “1492 and 1892.” I have to guess that it was an admission ticket somewhere at the world’s fair site….possibly in 1892 before the fair opened. And I’m not sure why anyone would be celebrating any kind of day while the fairgrounds was in the midst of frenetic construction.
I’ll just assume that despite the ticket citing 1892 that it actually was for an event held on a day designated as Indiana Day during 1893. Again, it probably wouldn’t take a lot of research time to identify what day was designated as Indiana Day. But again, time would be sent on many other WCE-related research projects. Finally, one more item from the auction follows and while I have encountered Intramural Railway tickets for employees, I had never seen this particular pass before
Besides being the first I have ever seen, this pass has a lot of interesting elements: The person’s name, his job as a “train clerk”, the fact that this is strictly for employee use and finally, that it is a very low serial number.
I’ve spent many long hours on several different books trying to find information on someone whose name I have on a document or associated with a photograph but nothing else besides their name. My guess is that trying to find out anything about Mr. Clark would be a dead end. A ‘train clerk’ isn’t someone you would think did anything noteworthy during the WCE.
These are just a few of the tickets from Ed Pritts’ estate. I am sure that there would be many others not known to a given reader. There were indeed a great many highly desirable if not rare tickets in the collection.
I still have a LOT of work to do on the ticket book and it is frustrating not having much time to work on it. I had hoped to devote a day a week in 2024 to the project but so far it hasn’t happened. It’s on me to move faster.
Another article I hope to write shortly is also about an item from the auction, a wonderful Columbian Guard uniform. Ed was one of a handful of collectors who owned an example of this rare item of clothing.
More to come!
