Artist: ANONYMOUS
Size: 281 x 109 3/4 in./714 x 279 cm
Condition: BSlight tears and creases at seams and edges.
Printer: Enquirer Job, Cincinnati
Reference:

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West/U.S. Cavalry Exercises.
Only known specimen of a 28-sheet billboard–linenbacked as a single unit. A quote from the introduction of The Rough Rider Annual of 1902 by Frederick Remington, an artist and sometimes correspondent for Harper’s Weekly, described the pageantry of William Cody’s Western spectacles as follows: “The Wild West is an evolution of a great idea. It is a great educator, and, with its aggregate of wonders from out-of-the-way places, it will represent a poetical and harmless protest against the derby hat and the starched linen–those horrible badges of the slavery of our modern social system, when men are physical lay figures, and mental and moral cog-wheels and wastes of uniformity–where the great crime is to be an individual, and the unpardonable sin is to be out of the fashion” (Buffalo Bill/Legend, p. 157). If this testosterone-laced 28-sheet panoramic charge of the "U. S. Cavalry” didn’t inject a shot of adrenaline into a buttoned-down existence, it’s unlikely anything could. A truly remarkable billboard whose cumulative elements–thundering hooves, unfurled flag, drawn sabers and eagle-eyed marksmen–are as unwaveringly patriotic as they are explosively entertaining.

Artist: ANONYMOUS
Size: 40 x 29 1/8 in./101.7 x 74 cm
Condition: B-Tears, largely at top and bottom edges.
Printer: A. Hoen, Baltimore
Reference:

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West/Bucking Mustangs. ca. 1894.
“One of the unusual phenomena of Wild West lithography is the way art was continuously recycled; nothing was wasted. . . . In this case, Forbes’ “A Bucking Mustang” [see Buffalo Bill, 23] would become . . . Hoen’s “Bucking Mustangs.” It was not just a matter of proximity of title; the image was quite similar as well. The title typography changed, and, for some reason, the riders left and center are shown with eyes closed(possibly they have mastered the art of bucking mustangs); the largest change is . . . the rearing mustang to the right [that] has become a large bronco hurling his rider forward” (Buffalo Bill, p. 6). This version of the poster announces an appearance at Brooklyn’s Ambrose Park, with the imprint indicating that twice-daily, rain-or-shine-shows will commence on Saturday, May 12.

Artist: ANONYMOUS
Size: 41 3/4 x 28 1/8 in./106 x 71.5 cm
Condition: BSlight tears at folds and edges.
Printer: Courier Litho., Buffalo, NY
Reference: Ref: Buffalo Bill, 41

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West/A Cossack. 1896.
This poster is one of the “Courier series depicting the ‘Actual Scenes’ and ‘Genuine Characters’ that made up the Congress of Rough Riders of the World. The portrait of the Cossack is central not only in position but in force; it is beautifully and forcefully delineated. . . . Just as the poster has an educational as well as graphic message, so does the program’s description of the Cossack. It gives much detail about their origin, bloodline, the border fights and other hardships endured by them. ‘These Cossacks, in the picturesque garb of the Caucasus, form the latest acquisition of the Wild West. They are a troop of ‘Cossacks of the Caucasus Line,’ under the command of Prince Soucca . . . On this dangerous frontier (with Turkey) the qualities of horsemanship that made the name of Mazeppa (he was the famed chief of the Zaporogian community, the branch of the Cossack family to which Prince Soucca and his comrades belonged) and his warlike followers household words throughout the whole of Europe, became still further developed in the following generations, so that the Kuban Cossacks quickly became, in many respects, the most remarkable tribes of the Caucasus . . . the most remarkable riders in the world . . . Graduates from this fierce , wild school of saddle and sabre, the Cossacks of the Caucasion line have long enjoyed the reputation of of being the flower of that vast horde of irregular cavalry, the Cossack military colonies, that have been planted along the Southern frontier of the Russian Empire, from the Crimea to the Chinese border to the Pacific” (Buffalo Bill, p. 8).

Artist: ANONYMOUS
Size: 38 3/4 x 28 7/8 in./98.3 x 73 cm
Condition: B+Slight tears at folds and edges.
Printer: Strobridge, Cincinnati
Reference:

Ringling Bros./Magnificent Street Spectacle. 1913.
This exotic menagerie–featuring harnessed teams of camels, zebras, llamas and ostriches, no less–certainly provided stupendous promotional pull to the “Most Magnificent Street Spectacle Ever Seen.” But the inclusion of the five Ringlings’ cameos in the upper left-hand corner summons its own advertising gravitas as well. “The management’s name and profile has always been an important ingredient in circus advertising. . . . There were originally seven Ringling Brothers, but two of them, August, Jr., and Henry, joined the the five show here a little later. At any rate, Alf T. . . . Al . . . John . . . Otto and Charles . . . first organized in 1882 as the Ringling Bros. Classic & Comic Concert Co., putting on plays and skits. Their first tent show was was put on in Baraboo, Wisconsin, in 1884 under the title of the Yankee Robinson and Ringling Bros. Great Double Shows, Circus & Caravans, and featured mainly the Ringling family doing all the chores and all the acts. . . . There is no question but that a high code of honor and an equally high code of loyalty made for the success of this team that started from seemingly nowhere with seemingly so little to offer. The five brothers were equal partners and each had a distinct function to perform within the circus with all major policy decisions being unanimously arrived at. They were intelligent and talented, but one suspects , most important of all, purposeful in their goal to create a grand circus and dogged about seeing to every detail towards that end” (Circus Posters, p. 10). Rare!

Artist: ANONYMOUS
Size: 28 3/4 x 38 5/8 in./73 x 98 cm
Condition: BSlight tears at horizontal fold.
Printer: Strobridge Litho Co., Cincinnati
Reference:

Ringling Bros./Free Street Parade. 1913.
"The elephants! They pushed wagons out of the mud; they begged peanuts from kids in the menagerie tent; they performed in the big top, but when in parade on city streets, all strung out in a long line, they were doing the most good. People counted them as they shuffled by with their heads swaying–'5, 6, 7'–and the end wasn't in sight–'11, 12, 13'–you could still see one with a howdah coming. Unconsciously, people compared the size of a circus with the size of its herd of bulls. Big, ungainly, seemingly docile with a smell all their own, they left an indelible memory. . . . Elephant men either walked alongside the bulls, or, more often, sat cockily on their heads. Well-trained and obedient, the huge beasts were taught to 'tail-trunk' as a means of keeping them in line and their inquisitive trunks out of trouble. The strong, musty body odor frequently frightened a skittish horse along the parade route. Men on horseback, on occasion, rode ahead of the herd calling out a warning–'Hold your horses, the elephants are coming!’” (The Great Circus Street Parade in Pictures, by Charles Philip Fox & F. Beverly Kelley, p. 92). And what an impression these exotic pachyderms make for the Ringling Brothers Free Street Parade, a promotion for a gratis event that certainly must have filled the circus coffers to overflowing.