Marcks Family Miniature Circus

Marcks Family Miniature Circus
Artist	Isaac Marcks and Donald Marcks
Location	Playland-Not-At-The-Beach, El Cerrito, California

The Marcks Family Miniature Circus is a miniature representation of the Sells Floto Circus of the 1930s. It was conceived and originated by Isaac Marcks and hand carved over the span of 50 years by him and his son Donald Marcks, publisher of the popular weekly publication Circus Report.

The circus is built to a scale of one-half inch equals one foot and consists of multiple tents and scores of wagonsand people, all hand carved. All figures are exact copies of the Sells Floto Circus as it appeared on a particular date, June 30, 1930.[1] With over 300,000 pieces in the collection,[2] the miniature circus main tent stands 25 inches tall and is 5 feet wide and 11 feet long. Until 2018 it was on display at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach. When Playland-Not-At-The-Beach closed, the miniature circus was put up for auction. [3] Each of the five circus-wagon display cases and its contents were auctioned separately, and they sold for a total of $15,500. [4]

References

"Marcks Family Miniature Circus". 2018-01-26. What Don and his dad had spent 50 years of their lives doing is reporoducing one day, June 30, 1930, when the Sells Floto Circus came to town.
Ford, Dave (2004-03-19). "Playland's Peter Pan". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-09-22. With prodding, Marcks recalled the carvings, and, with some coaxing, brought out steamer trunks full of the figurines - 300,000 in all. Tuck set him to work fixing them.
Rahn, Antoinette (2018-05-12). "Hand-crafted miniature circus needs home". One of the country's most expansive miniature circus, featuring figures hand-carved by a father-son duo over the course of five decades, is on the market.
"The Playland Not at the Beach Auction". 2018-09-15. A highlight is Circus World, a 300,000-piece hand carved miniature circus that took the late Don Marcks of El Cerrito 50 years to create. Each of its tiny elephants is unique - a curled trunk here, a quizzical expression there - all forty of them!

External links

Marcks Family Circus
Playland 2007 photoset of the miniature display on Flickr

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[1] "Marcks Family Miniature Circus". 2018-01-26. What Don and his dad had spent 50 years of their lives doing is reporoducing one day, June 30, 1930, when the Sells Floto Circus came to town.

[2] Ford, Dave (2004-03-19). "Playland's Peter Pan". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-09-22. With prodding, Marcks recalled the carvings, and, with some coaxing, brought out steamer trunks full of the figurines - 300,000 in all. Tuck set him to work fixing them.

[3] Rahn, Antoinette (2018-05-12). "Hand-crafted miniature circus needs home". One of the country's most expansive miniature circus, featuring figures hand-carved by a father-son duo over the course of five decades, is on the market.

[4] "The Playland Not at the Beach Auction". 2018-09-15. A highlight is Circus World, a 300,000-piece hand carved miniature circus that took the late Don Marcks of El Cerrito 50 years to create. Each of its tiny elephants is unique - a curled trunk here, a quizzical expression there - all forty of them!