Potter & Potter Auctions’ The Ricky Jay Collection Part III To Be Held On August 17, 2024.

This sale presents the third installment of unusual, obscure, and magical items from the lifetime collection of legendary performer, author, and scholar Ricky Jay (American, 1946-2018).

Chicago, Il, August 7, 2024 – Potter & Potter Auctions is pleased to announce this 515 lot sale to be held on August 17, 2024. This event will be held live at Potter & Potter’s gallery, located at 5001 W. Belmont Avenue in Chicago. It will also be live streamed on the company’s website, which can be found at www.potterauctions.com. Phone and absentee bids are welcome. Contact Potter & Potter Auctions directly for more information.

The top lot in this sale is #113, Chung Ling Soo’s (born William Ellsworth Robinson, 1861 – 1918) A Gift From the Gods. This half-sheet, color stone lithograph has a presale estimate of $10,000-15,000. It was published in Birmingham by J. Upton Ltd. around 1912. It is illustrated with Soo standing on God’s hand, descending to Earth from a flurry of storm clouds. The poster measures 21 ¼ x 31” and is presented in a wooden frame. According to Potter & Potter’s experts, this is perhaps the best-known of Soo’s promotional pieces, and was later used as the title of a work regarding the many images used to advertise his fantastic magic show. 

Other premier sale highlights include:

• Lot #476, Arcangelo Tuccaro’s Trois Dialogues … Le Premier Dialogue traicte des exercices Gymnastiques … Le Second contient plusieurs beaux discours du saut appellee par les Anciens Cubistique … Au Troisiesme est fort amplement discouru des exercices que l’hommme peut faire, is estimated at $5,000-10,000. This book – one of the earliest on acrobatics – was published in Paris in 1599 by Monstr’oeil. It is illustrated with 86 woodcuts in text of various acrobatic feats and is bound in a modern tan morocco binding signed by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. 

• Lot #360, Primrose & West’s Big Minstrels. Freeze Brothers, is estimated at $5,000-10,000. This horizontal, one-sheet stone lithograph was published in Cincinnati & New York by The Strobridge Lith. Co. in 1897. It depicts the performers in their novelty tambourine spinning act with vignettes on either side of the central image showing the brothers with tambourines spinning on wire armatures attached to their knees and heads, and gripped by their teeth. This linen backed example measures 30-¾ x 40″ and is noted in Exemplars, p. 290-1.

• Lot #155, Esther Louise Georgette’s (1891 – 1992) Princess White Deer. The Only Dancing American Indian Girl, is estimated at $5,000-10,000. This linen backed, full-color stone lithograph measures 37 × 27-¼” and was printed in Hamburg by Adolph Friedländer around 1913. It depicts a bust portrait of the famed Mohawk woman wearing a war bonnet, depicted on the surface of a buffalo hide held aloft by an eagle with American shield overhead and surrounded by popular totems representative of Native American culture. This example is noted in Exemplars, p. 225.

• Lot #68, The Enchanted Scrap Book, is estimated at $3,000-6,000. It was published in London by E. Wallis around 1840. It features blind-stamped cloth with a matching gilt and letter decorated slipcase. It consists of tab-cut pages with hand-colored illustrations; as the performer blows on the pages and then flips through them, the images on the leaves change as many as ten times. The book includes printed directions inside its covers. According to Potter & Potter’s experts, this example in very good to near fine condition is a handsome example of this classic conjuring device.

Potter & Potter, founded in 2007, is a Chicago area auction house specializing in paper Americana, vintage advertising, rare books, playing cards, gambling memorabilia, posters, fine prints, vintage toys, and magicana – antiques and collectibles related to magic and magicians. Follow us on Facebook (potterandpotterauctions) and Instagram (potterauctions).  

For more information on this sale, please contact Gabe Fajuri, President of Potter & Potter Auctions, at [email protected] or 773- 472- 1442.