I’ve been trying to get the answer to a question via the Internet (my local library is game, but outclassed), for awhile which has shown me the comment “You can find anything on the web if it interests a teen-aged computer geek” is an understatement. Since I’m having no luck myself I figured I’d ask the Teeming Millions if they can help, and if Cecil became interested (or visits Peoria and has time on his hands) that’d be icing on the cake.
For many years, “A. Brill’s Bible of Building Plans” was published in Peoria. It was an outstandingly “Straight Dope” sort of collection of construction blueprints for midway sorts of stuff: merry-go-rounds, Haunted and Mirror houses, pitching machines, bumper-car setups, water-pistol horse race games, calliopes, display booths, and so on–the sort of thing not likely to show up in Popular Mechanics or the “Build-it” ads in the Sunday classifieds.
My copy of “Brill’s Bible” was published when he was in poor health, and there are several suggestions in the text that a library or university should buy an entire set of the plans so they’d be preserved when he died. He’s dead by now (I can’t find a copy of American Showman to see if he got an obit, but since he advertised there for years I suspect he made it in), and nobody seems to have taken over the business, or have any of the plans for sale–or know where a set might be. (Various editions of the “Bible” comes up every so often on E-Bay.) Outside of going door-to-door in Peoria, does anyone know where I could find some of them? I’d like to get my wife a set of merry-go-round plans for her birthday–but I’ve been careful not to mention what year she might get them in…
Check out this post on Slim’s Sideshow Discussion. His website is pretty cool, too. Terms I had never heard before.
(I am not on this list, but found it on a google search.)
Also, check out Amusement Business, aka “AB” for an obit. You might even want to put in an ad requesting information.
And please let me know when you snag a copy!!! I’d be interesting in seeing one!
Some time ago I e-mailed the gent who is setting up “Sideshowtoys.com” asking if he had any information on Brill’s plans–no reply. I’ll try again–thanks for the reminder.
I actually have a copy of the 3rd edition of Brill’s Bible with the addendum, so I’ll have to contact Slim and find out if his CD has any of the plans–if so, I’ll get one right away! And I’ll try to send a query out to Amusement Business in the next day or so.
(I wish I could lend you my “bible,” but it seems that everyone wants one, and I don’t dare risk the only one I’ve ever seen to the tender mercies of the postal/shipping industry.)