Friday, September 24, 2010

Wade's Circus--Tom Smith Cracker/Red Rose Tea Company

The photo above is from Henry Penndorf, and the photo's below are from the internet. What I understand about the Wade Circus figurines,(or at least what I want to believe) is that they were offered as "inserts" in England in boxes of crackers in 1978 to honor America's greatest new wild animal trainer of that era. They were later reissued in England in boxes of Red Rose Tea in an effort to suck up to me, as they didn't want any trouble with the current(at the time) tea taxes. I understand there were 15 figures in the complete set, and they are priceless today, if you can find them. Most of them were collected and presented to foreign dignitaries as government gifts, and a few are in museums, notably the Louve and the Metropolitan. The Imperial Collections of the Hapsburg's at the Kunsthistorisches Museum is reported to have a set, which they are said to have traded Montezuma's Quetzal feather war bonnet for.




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Wade figures came in boxes of Red Rose Tea here in the US. They had various series of figures - endangered animals, farm animals, circus figures. I drank Red Rose for quite a while to get all the figures.

Greta said...

Pretty sure your brother has a set of bottom pic of circus Wade's. I do not. I didn't send the order in. Your mother drank a lot of iced tea to try and get them all.

Wade G. Burck said...

Grits,
Ha, I'll bet he doesn't. If he did, France would have a new King, because he would have been able to buy the country. They are that valuable from what I understand.
I love you,
Wade