DO YOU HAVE INTEREST IN PURCHASING (OR CONSIGNING) COLUMBIANA OR OTHER WORLD’S FAIR, NUMISMAMTIC, AND HISTORICAL ITEMS?

I decided when we launched this site that we would keep it purely editorial and its stated purpose to share information and provide educational news (and opinions) about items from the World’s Columbian Expo, 1893 Chicago.

Because The History Bank sells (and writes about) other world’s fairs and other historical topics, it’s really a bit unrealistic for us only to discuss what pertains strictly to the WCE.

An example of this is a major sale which we are working on right now. Rather than hosting sales for one fair at a time (which we have done on a very few occasions),it generally makes much more sense to host sales dedicated to multiple world’s fairs or multiple topics. We are working now on a sale that will contain material for as many as 20 different world’s fairs; it is tentatively scheduled for January 2026.

The sale will include material from the two world’s fairs about which we have the greatest expertise and about which I have written books, the WCE and Seattle’s 1962 Century 21 Exposition; but the sale will include much more. We have acquired just about all of the material that we will include in the sale and currently we’re at the photography and description writing phase. Just a few highlights of the world’s fair sale include:

>>> WCE medals, tickets (including the very rare one-day admission fundraiser for the families of those killed in the Cold Storage Building fire) and a variety of other paper items.

>>> Seattle World’s Fair both silver and bronze gem high relief medal sets in Lucite display holders as well as in blue Whitman “books”, very rare employee and exhibitor ID cards, season passes and 3D items including a very scarce Space Needle unassembled plastic kit.

>>> 1851 first-ever world’s fair at the London Crystal Palace including TWENTY medals of various sizes and rarity, including an exhibitor medal to be offered in its original 175-year-old box that is in uncharacteristically excellent condition. Also included will be medals from the 1862 Crystal Palace (after the first burned) and a very elusive mint state large official medal from the New York 1853 Crystal Palace.

>>>Also included will be a variety of items from the 1889 & earlier Paris expositions, 1894 Midwinter San Francisco fair, 1901 Buffalo Pan American exposition, 1904 St. Louis Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1909 Seattle Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition (AYPE/AYP), 1915 San Francisco Panama Pacific Exposition and several other world’s fairs. Of particular note are several rarely seen medals (among other items) from the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition.

We are evaluating the possibility of hosting the fixed-price expo sale in The History Bank Store and offering some auction items on ebay. If we have your email information you will receive announcement of details as they evolve.

And we have also discovered that the vast majority of world’s fair collectors, regardless of which fair may be at the top of their list, do not limit themselves to just one collecting topic. I try to let all our customers know what sales and auctions plans we have upcoming, even if it may seem that the subject is somewhat far aflield from their main collecting subject.

Just as an example, we are working rather feverishly to prepare for our upcoming sale of 150± items from the U.S. Civil War. The sale will be hosted completely in The History Bank Store at fixed prices, along with the option of making offer(s). We’re hoping to have the sale ready by the end of October or early November. Included will be the finest collection of Civil War material we have ever offered, with consignments from the Thomas McCarthy collection; Tom’s collection of books and printed material (as well as a wide variety of other Civil War items) is one of the finest in the country and he has been gracious to allow us to use his private library when we were researching the eight Civil War books we wrote and developed. These include The Young Readers’ History of the Civil War published with Penguin, Dutton and Scholastic books. The seven books in the series sold more than 600,000 copies.

If you are interested in any of our Civil War or world’s fair books, please let us know; we offer them to our customers discounted more than 20% below the cover prices.

And while we have rarely advertised ourselves as buyers, primarily because we have a very large inventory and a backlog of items that may not be listed for many months….yes, we will always consider consignment or outright purchase of your material. We don’t limit ourselves to only world’s fair material. At most times throughout the year we usually have at least one consigned collection or individual items that we’re selling.

If you have interest in consigning material to any of our sales or simply to our ongoing listings in either our store or online on ebay, I am always glad to help. This might mean providing you historical information or ideas of where you might consider selling your material if it doesn’t make sense for us to handle it. We will do our best to direct you to other dealers or auction houses that may be a better fit for you.

In the past we have sold consigned material that consisted of a $1.2 million collection of gold coins to quite small collections that have sold for as little as $1,000-$2,000. We generally will NOT take on very small consignments simply because it can take a considerable time while providing minimal revenue. Recently we spent more than TWO YEARS cataloging and selling the John Kennel Columbian collection. We did not sell the collection exclusively, but rather integrated it with our own material to sell over 2+ years.

But whether we’re buying or selling, we’ve learned over more than 40 years NEVER to say “yes” or “no” before we have given a project fair consideration.