Figures from Marshall Field’s window displays will go to the highest bidder when Potter & Potter Auctions hosts live and online bidding on Sept. 12, 2024. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
Picture your holiday decorations with an actual figure from the Marshall Field’s window displays — a boy riding an old-fashioned bicycle or Christmas carolers or even a miniature version of the famous Marshall Field’s clock.
Thirty mechanized figures can each go to the highest bidder when Chicago’s Potter & Potter Auctions hosts live and online bidding on Sept. 12.
“These were on display at Field’s starting in the 1980s,” auctioneer Gabe Fajuri told WTTW News. “The Museum of Science and Industry acquired them in ’92, and they’ve been sitting there in crates ever since.”
The animatronic figures are made from plaster over steel armature, and they wear carefully tailored clothing that evokes the Victorian era. Most are around 3-feet tall. A close look reveals they were meticulously made.
“Think about the scrutiny they were under,” Fajuri said. “Every day 5,000 kids and their parents are peering through the window, so they’ve got to be detailed. Even the brass buttons have detail on them. They’re well done.”
Figures from Marshall Field’s window displays will go to the highest bidder when Potter & Potter Auctions hosts live and online bidding on Sept. 12, 2024. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
The characters aren’t tied to a specific story, such as Frosty the Snowman or Harry Potter. These cheery folks look like they just stepped out of “A Christmas Carol,” and they’re all about the size of Tiny Tim.
About half of them still work. Plug them into a standard outlet and they move their heads, twist their bodies and raise their arms.
“The mechanics are not that complicated,” Fajuri said. “So if someone needed to fix one, it wouldn’t be difficult. I mean, these are motors you could buy at American Science and Surplus.”
The figures are part of an auction featuring hundreds of lots of advertising and coin-operated objects — including vintage fortune-telling machines, slot machines and a statue of Bob’s Big Boy. You can also bid on a Mr. Peanut costume from the 1960s, old-time carnival games or display boxes of Wrigley’s Doublemint chewing gum from the 1930s.
As Fajuri put it: “We’ve got gobs of stuff.”
Among the Marshall Field’s figures, the auction estimates begin in the $200-400 range with a high end of $800-1,200. The auctioneer has high hopes for one item that isn’t mechanized: a scale model of the Marshall Field’s clock the size of a microwave oven.
Figures from Marshall Field’s window displays will go to the highest bidder when Potter & Potter Auctions hosts live and online bidding on Sept. 12, 2024. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
“I think that’s going to do the best,” Fajuri said. “My feeling is that that’s something somebody’s really going to want, because you still see the clock every day in the Loop.”
And who might purchase the items? Another museum or a theme park or a department store?
“I think they’re going to go to somebody who wants something that’s from Chicago, not someone who’s just collecting vintage advertising,” Fajuri said. “My guess is it’s going to be private individuals, nostalgia seekers. When we sold the Museum of Science and Industry’s circus exhibit a few years ago, somebody got that 26-foot-long installation and put it in his house.”
