Anyone Want A REAL Antique Carousel? WOW!!!

[ChocoMare]

Best CL ad I've ever seen. I've removed the contact info per COTH rules, but just couldn't resist sharing the rest.

Just maybe there's some COTHer out there who's always wanted one or who has a Hobby Lovin' Hubby who could afford to restore her and see it running again, complete with giddy wee ones! :yes::

1880's Steam powered carousel 24 horses with original steam engine

1880s Herschell Spillman steam powered carousel original steam engine

This is the real deal. Operated at the Turn of the Century in the Chicago area then moved to Los Angeles in the 70's. This is the first American carousel with a rotating top. Called the "Twentieth Century Model" in their catalog. The ad pictured is from the turn of the century. $10,000 cash back then is hundreds of thousands today.

This is one of the rarest carousels ever made and only a few steam powered American carousels remain in the country. All of them are owned by amusement parks, City and Government agencies. This may be the only one available in private hands.

This is a great example of American Folk art with the rocking horse style of movement. True Americana museum piece.

This Merry go round was restored and last operated at an 1880's themed western park that closed several years ago. Since the carousel closed several years ago pictures were not taken. The carousel is in storage in Los Angeles and inspection is available. I have do a video that was taken prior to storage that can be seen at

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4020143941584884921&pr=goog-sl&hl=en (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4020143941584884921&pr=goog-sl&hl=en)

Though restored it was operated for a few years at the park before closing. It will need some touch-up, top and attention prior to use.

The steam engine is in great shape but as with any steam engine will need to be certified for regular use. The carousel also runs by electric motor if you choose. This carousel could also be run by a hit and miss engine also.

40 feet in diameter with 24 horses and two chariots.

I have this and over 30 full size antique wooden carousels available. From 4 row 60 foot diameter 72 animal Dentzel machines like Disneyland and Kennywood, Plus Looff and PTC. To smaller traveling carnival machines with 20 and 30 animals at 36 and 40 feet in diameter. You can see some at www.carousel.com or email for a current list and brochure.

We are the largest restorer of antique carousels in the country. Full restoration and installation is available. We manufacture every gear, bearing or part for any carousel ever made. We are the only source for every part needed for the restoration of antique carousels. From 1880 to present day we manufacture the parts for your carousel.

This is a perfect carousel for a Steam Train amusement park, City park, 1880 village, steam enthusiast or carousel collectors back yard.

Carousels were the cornerstone for City parks and fun areas across the country at the turn of the century. Places like Central park, Golden Gate park and Griffith Park are still prime examples. Also fun areas like Coney Island, Long Beach Pike, Sutro's, Playland at the beach. You can't loose with a carousel in a City park for community spirit and an attraction. Having one in your back yard is pretty cool too.

We also have a few newer used mall carousels that just came in.

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Awesome!!!! :D

[equineartworks]

I live in the carousel capital of the world. I always hoped I could have one in my back yard. :lol:

[Minerva Louise]

Oh my- I best not tell my dad; he has steam locomotives (anybody see 3:10 to Yuma, There Will Be Blood, or Appaloosa? They all used my dad's locomotive and cars! So did Oh Brother Where Art Thou, and long, long ago, the miniseries The North and The South) To go with his locomotives, he has a steam sawmill - I'd love to build a house someday and find a way to use lumber from his mill...

My mother would kill him though, if he tried to get any more projects going...:lol:

I like to think of the locomotives as my families "other" horses. The iron horses...

[RedTahoe]

How I wish I had the asking price :sadsmile:

[ChocoMare]

No price is listed. Guess If You Have To Ask, You Can't Afford It. :winkgrin:

[CatOnLap]

that was very cool

[Guin]

They don't have prices on their website, either, but WOW!!! Wouldn't it be amazing to own one of those carousels??

[Threebars]

No price is listed. Guess If You Have To Ask, You Can't Afford It. :winkgrin:

Hmmm - that's actually just an Alan Herschell machine - at least the figures are - As the County Fair style isn't as high demand as the later Coney Island figures (PTC, Illions and later Loof) I'd peg the whole lot at around 20-30k these days... Still not a bad looking machine!

[ChocoMare]

I sent that to my mom as a "Psssst, Don't Show Dad!" thing because if a) they had the room; b) they had the money and c) had a way of getting it to Florida, it WOULD be in my dad's possession. He's one of those types who can fix anything mechanical, as well as do fine carpentry. T'would certainly be a life-time project for him.

[SarahandSam]

We have the Herschell Carrousel Factory and Museum here... birthplace of the carousel. I love going there, especially riding their old restored and gorgeous carousel... the detail and the craftsmanship are amazing on the old ponies. I would kill to own even one horse, but a whole carousel would be amazing! (:

[Small Change]

Oh my- I best not tell my dad; he has steam locomotives (anybody see 3:10 to Yuma, There Will Be Blood, or Appaloosa? They all used my dad's locomotive and cars! So did Oh Brother Where Art Thou, and long, long ago, the miniseries The North and The South) To go with his locomotives, he has a steam sawmill - I'd love to build a house someday and find a way to use lumber from his mill...

My mother would kill him though, if he tried to get any more projects going...:lol:

I like to think of the locomotives as my families "other" horses. The iron horses...

That is so neat! And I thought horses weren't an easily portable hobby...

[Beasmom]

Ooh, ooh! I WANT a carousel! Waaaah!

[RedTahoe]

Price is (or was) $125,000 (starting bid). I found the same ad on another website from when it was being auctioned on Ebay at the end of May ;)

Something funny though...."The ad pictured is from the turn of the century." Actually....it's not. Not only based on clarity, but off to the left of the pictures in the ad is one of those convex mirrors for seeing around corners. Those weren't exactly around "turn of the century" lol.

[Dispatcher]

That is very cool! The only thing I don't like about it is all the horses are in the same position. I want variety!

[JSwan]

Oh my- I best not tell my dad; he has steam locomotives (anybody see 3:10 to Yuma, There Will Be Blood, or Appaloosa? They all used my dad's locomotive and cars! So did Oh Brother Where Art Thou, and long, long ago, the miniseries The North and The South)

COOL!!!!! There Will Be Blood was a really weird movie - good but weird.

Your dad would like the Somerset Steam and Gas Engine Pasture Party. Don't know if it's still held but if you like steam engines - you'd see some pretty cool stuff - including hay balers.

[Frank B]

Oh my- I best not tell my dad; he has steam locomotives...

I'll have to mention that if my wife says anything about my antique radios. :lol: But it sounds like his machines (hopefully) pay for themselves -- the ideal hobby!

There used to be a carousel at Pullen Park in Raleigh, N.C. around 1960. The organ was kinda wheezy, and the figures needed reworking, but it was still in operation. I think it's been restored since then.

There's several videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhlLLlcMuMA) of PTC carousels, complete with organs, on YouTube.

[Small Change]

Something funny though...."The ad pictured is from the turn of the century." Actually....it's not. Not only based on clarity, but off to the left of the pictures in the ad is one of those convex mirrors for seeing around corners. Those weren't exactly around "turn of the century" lol.
Perhaps they meant the most recent turn of, oh, about 9 years ago? ;)

[TikiSoo]

Oh my- I best not tell my dad; he has steam locomotives

Kewl! I just bought "OBrother" on DVD!!
I once saw a steam locomotive pull in a station in PA. The smell, the sound made me cry I was so overcome with emotion. I can't imagine seeing one way back then, and what it represented to US pioneers.

I once worked on an old French traveling carousel (now in a Chicago area museum) that had a teeny steam engine. The deck was straight sections and pie shaped sections to make the platform. You unhooked each section, took out the pie shaped ones and hooked the straight ones together. Then you piled everything onto the straight sections, hooked up the engine & drove off down the rails to the next town! Loved that idea!

Anyway, I know the seller of those carousels. He is 100% honest, a good guy (& cute!) and the best carousel mechanic out there. And I applaud him for preserving these magnificent machines intact instead of just selling off the horses like most people do.

Anyone interested in buying a carousel horse can PM me. There's a lot of them out there & prices are at an all time low.

[redears]

My great uncle has a couple of these, also a gollapy (sp?) and the largest collection of cuckoo clocks, possibly in the US.

[Dispatcher]

My great uncle has a couple of these, also a gollapy (sp?) and the largest collection of cuckoo clocks, possibly in the US.

What's a gollapy? Do you mean a caliope?

[Minerva Louise]

That is so neat! And I thought horses weren't an easily portable hobby...

That's my dad's key to movies - he has the most portable steam locomotives and cars in the country, plus his locomotives can be given various "facelifts" with appropriate parts (like period-specific smokestacks) such that they can protray a wide variety of time periods. There was one gaffe in The North and The South wherein Patrick Swazye was, in the midst of the civil war, standing in front of the nameplate of the locomotive that read, "Baldwin Locomotive Works 1907 - oh wait, when was the Civil War again, oh, erm.... 1860's, gee...

Oh Brother was filmed in Mississippi, Appaloosa, 3:10, and Blood were filmed out west - New Mexico - I think. Train lives in South Arkansas most of the time. I just wish that I could go along when they do movies, however - it is very tightly controlled as to who gets to go. Oh well.

Back to the original topic - here's a link to my favorite Carousel - it's at the Little Rock Zoo. The whole track undulates up and down as it goes around! It is the "Over the Jumps Carousel".
http://www.littlerockzoo.com/carousel

[Minerva Louise]

Youtube videos of my dad's train.

This is the #2. It is an oil burner. Note the "Outlaws" on the train - this had to have been filmed Labor Day Weekend. We had special weekends where outlaws would stage a "hold up" and "rob" the train. It was lots of fun.
I don't know who filmed and put this clip on Youtube, btw.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QuXTwjZC0w

This is my favorite locomotive, #7. It is a wood-burner. Frowned upon by movie-makers out west - can't have sparks fly out the smokestack and start a fire. She always tries to put your eyes out with those cinders, too... You can hear the wheels of the locomotive squeaking along the rails about half way through this clip. Our "wye" is extremely tight - it is as sharp of turns as these trains can make, so you get some dramatic squawking - this clip only gives a hint of it. It is really something in person.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzdS5rIvvY4

[Quinn]

Very very cool ML.

http://community.webshots.com/user/ballyduff

[ChocoMare]

This was the carousel I rode most of the time as a child: http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMQRB

It was housed inside the giant (and now gone) Bethpage Farmers Market. It went into storage for years after the Farmers Market closed but was then gifted to the city of Greenport out on Long Island, where it now resides within an all glass enclosure. http://www.bobmcinnis.com/31.htm

[Minerva Louise]

Chocomare, the photo of the carousel in the glass enclosure is really neat! Cool that it now has a really fabulous "house".

Quinn, thanks! I can't claim any of the credit though - it's my dad's baby. I sure had fun growing up riding it.

[Tiki]

When I went on a horse trekking tour in China and Inner Mongolia some years ago, we had to go on an obligatory communist Chinese factory tour. The one our tourguide chose was a steam locomotive factory where we got up close and personal watching steam locomotive being built. It was amazing ! ! ! We got to see every aspect of the manufacture after we had an orientation session in the conference room of the factory. At the end of the tour we all got taken, one or two at a time, on a steam locomotive ride and we were all presented with silk-bound, padded booklets certifying us as steam locomotive operators with the signature of the CEO of the steam locomotive plant. What a blast! We went there to ride horseback and tour - and that was wonderful - but the tour was absolutely one of the highlights of the trip. It is/was one of the last steam locomotive factories in the world. I have some absolutely fantastic photos of the entire manufacturing process. You should see the size of the cranes required to move the parts. :yes:

[Minerva Louise]

Wow Tiki - I'm so jealous! You got to combine several of my favorite things there; horses, steam locomotives, and traveling! My dad would love a trip like that. He's gone several places to see the steam locomotives (including Cuba - how he managed that I don't know!) The photos he came back with show the trains loaded with sugar cane.

[Foxtrot's]

I hope it gets sold, intact, to a good home and gets the ongoing specialized care it needs
instead of being sold off piecemeal. Like antique books whose pages are worth more money made into pictures than remaining as one book.

My daughter was given a single horse as a wedding present from their FIL who had bought it 40 years ago in Europe. Lovely though it is, sort of sad it is not with its herd.

[Frank B]

For those that love the old trains, RFD-TV airs a one-hour segment Mondays at 6 PM and Teusdays at 4 AM Eastern. Here's the program schedule. (http://www.rfdtv.com/schedule.asp?Timezone=-1)

These are mostly professionally-filmed presentations. My favorite is a steam snowplow going over Donner Pass in Mid-Winter.

[Lambie Boat]

Minerva: does your dad know Bus Bill?

I actually think the paintings on the inside of the carousel are worth quite a bit. The carousel figures worth the most are the rabbits, pigs, deer and lions

[foundationmare]

Many moons ago, there was a fabulous, quaint and popular amusement park on the north shore of Canandaigua Lake in the Finger Lakes Region of upstate New York.

It's name was Roseland. It was the playground of my youth.

Roseland had a fantastic, rickety wooden roller coaster named the "skycoaster". I rode it more times than I can count and, familiar as each and every curve and swoop it held, I was a smitten devotee!

There was a compelling array of carnival games and a permanent arcade that housed myriad games and fun-house mirrors. Requisite rides and attractions, including a suspended ride over the lake, rounded out the magic that drew fans from far and wide.

And then there was the carousel.

That carousel was the embodiment of beauty and dreams and magic and every good thing that is part and parcel of childhood. Those horses flew! The calliope music, along with the mesmerizing action of the horses as they whirled around in the dusty heat of summer, cemented memories that will never be lost in the latter years of development on those sunny shores.

To this day I hear the calliope. I can feel the hard saddle of my chosen steed who whirled me around in a haze of sound and smell and pure joy. I didn't know at the time that "my" carousel was special, or valuable, other than the import I gave it because it was the centerpiece of my childhood amusement.

When the park was dismantled and sold to a developer, the carousel went to a mall in Syracuse.

I doubt that those carousel animals would have chosen life in a mall opposed to a life on the lakeshore, but they didn't have a choice. Big business won that one.

Along the way, little people...and everyone who values and embraces tradition...lost.

[TikiSoo]

When the park was dismantled and sold to a developer, the carousel went to a mall in Syracuse.

Yup, and I restored that one 20 years ago. It's due for a repaint soon. Pullen Park, mentioned earlier is still operating too.

I love the idea these "amusement" rides survive several generations for family memories...sometimes in several different locations.
A great site to see photos of operating carousels:http://www.nca-usa.org/census/census-psp.html

[ChocoMare]

And once upon a time, there was Nunley's Carousel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5WagXjQLVY) in Freeport, NY (not Baldwin, like the "rabbit" said.)

Nunley's was closed forever in 1995. The carousel was dismantled and was originally going to have it's separate horses & animals auctioned off. A little girl, though, started Pennies for Ponies to restore them and keep the carousel as one entity.

The history is pretty accurate at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunley's

The carousel is now housed in it's new home in the Children's Museum at Mitchell Field on Long Island--right next door to the Cradle of Aviation Museum which was once a hanger that housed The Spirit of St. Louis airplane that Charles Lindbergh flew. He took off from Mitchell Field.

http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/agencies/CountyExecutive/NewsRelease/2009/05-02-09.html

http://www.epinions.com/review/Nunley_s_Carousel_epi/content_472472194692

Someone's private video from a visit to the Children's Museum shows the beautiful restoration work done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFmbtTc_32U&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdNxpPlbdgc&feature=related


EDITED TO ADD: DressageGeek grew up all of 10 minutes from Nunley's and caught the brass ring herself on one of her many, many childhood happy rides - sniff, sniff

[Minerva Louise]

Minerva: does your dad know Bus Bill?

I actually think the paintings on the inside of the carousel are worth quite a bit. The carousel figures worth the most are the rabbits, pigs, deer and lions

Hmm, don't know... who is Bus Bill?

[Lambie Boat]

he rents/drives/repairs all the vintage buses for the movies. says all the 'transport' vintage vehicle folk know each other

[Minerva Louise]

I suppose he might know him; I don't know though.

With my dad, there is truely no telling. For example - he once was to meet with President Bill Clinton (why I do not know) and found himself seated in a waiting area with the Dali Lama. So he said hello to the Dali Lama. My dad tends to be a very quiet, unassuming man. His whole family (extended family) is very .... colorful and ranges from lunatics to multi-millionaires.

[Frank B]

Thanks for the link, TikiSoo. I found several of the machines I'd ridden in the past. It's good to see the Pullen Park and Myrtle Beach machines are still in operation. We had a lot of fun on them in the past.

[redears]

What's a gollapy? Do you mean a caliope?

Yes!! That's what I mean, no wonder my google searches were fruitless, thank you!

[foundationmare]

Wow, Tiki Soo, that is so cool!!!

I will never, ever forget that beautiful carousel! Sounds like you have a great job!