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The 1931 Colonial Exposition World's Fair in France might just be the largest expo no one has ever heard of.
Certainly this world's fair is little known yet was very large in terms of site size buildings, participation by various countries (especially the French colonies around the world) and its over all success.
This lot is a large and a comprehensive collection of medals and paper ephemera, most of which are difficult to find compared to items from most world's fairs.
Included here are the following:
- A gem BU large, dollar-sized copper or bronze medal of Washington & Lafayette. Lafayette was a revered general important to the French people but also often celebrated by Americans after the country's independence that was aided by the French and Lafayeette was a young gentleman soldier who helped lead troops in the Anmericn colonies' battle for independence against the English.
- A group of three BU very thick piedfort medals from exhibitors--America, Oceanie and Asie--while it was difficult to show the medals and the very thick planchets you can get a sense for these medals about the size of a U.S. quarter and about 3x the thickness!
- A stock certificate for supporters and investors in the world's fair.
- A map of the fair site which gives you an idea of its size; the map is part of a brochure about the fair.
- An admission ticket
- A connected pair of "Cinderella" promotional postage stamps from the expo
- A mint condition thick booklet that contains 24 actual postcards of views of the fair; they are bound into the book and perforated so that the postcards could easily be removed at the perforation and sent through the mail or kept intact as a photo book of the fair.
All of the above are pictured that exhibit the various souvenir items for your review. Purchased individually we would ask 2 to 3 times as much as they can be purchased as a group. As is our policy whenever possible, we try to price such world's fair items at substanially below what they would be found by most sellers.
You should expect to pay $75-$100 for the large Washington Lafayette mejdal; $40-$50 each for the three smaller medals; $20-$40 for the book of 24 photos/postcards; $25-$45 for the stock certificate; $10-$25 for the brochure and map; $10-$20 for the admission ticket; $10-$15 for the pair of Cinderellas -- a total if purchased individually of $230-$295.
