Wednesday, December 05, 2007

National Wax Museum of Lancaster County Heritage- Benjamin Franklin

In my first post in over a month, here's some shots from what has now become one of my favorite defunct wax museums. This scene shows Benjamin Franklin buying Conestoga wagons from local blacksmiths in the Lancaster area. Franklin, who is a wax museum staple, looks much the way he always seems to, with his glasses and long hair. Dorfman Museum Figures did a great job with their Franklin figure.

Here's a full shot of the figure from the auction. It's so sad to see it with a price tag.


A blacksmith figure. I wonder if it moved up and down, or if it was static?


The second figure sported a stylish bandanna.


A cool interactive element of this set was the bellows people could pump to cause the coals to burn. Very similar it seems to Tarzan's Treehouse at Disneyland.


A sign explaining the bellows.


A partial wagon that appears complete. Creativity in budgeting at its very best.

A wide view of the entire set. What a great place this must have been!


A cool sign describing the set. Most, if not all of the sets contained these plaques.

The entire set sold at auction for $4100. A bit steep for a private collector. Maybe they planned on reusing the set someplace else in Lancaster County.

Except for the first picture, all photos are from Jennings Auction Group.

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3 comments:

Kasey Hogan said...

Yes, the blacksmith figure actually pumped the bellows (moving).

I must have been through the museum 25 times the last 2 years of its life...as Dutch Wonderland passholders, we got in free every time we went. My kids loved it and were very upset when it closed. I bid on a few things, but wasn't able to win any of them.

We took pics of all the exhibits before it closed, and audio-recorded all the exhibits (unfortunately I don't own a videocamera, but was told a teacher from Lancaster County also video'ed everything).

We were also friends with one of the ladies who worked there and she gave me a sheet with scripts of all the dialogues in the museum.

If you have any specific questions about the museum, please contact me. Comments on this blog show up in my email.

I love reading this...we still miss the museum, as we called it. :(

B said...

Thank you for the comment. I was really sad when I heard the museum was closing. I live in Los Angeles and never had a chance to visit. I did have a similar experience when the Movieland Wax Museum closed. I took all the pictures I could, and gathered up all the postcards and collectibles I could. I was broke at the time and couldn't attend their auction.

I will be sure to contact you if you if I have any questions. Thanks for reading.

Liz said...

I know it has been a while since this was first posted, but I am interested in seeing some pictures from the rest of the museum. Especially the barn raising scene at the end. I loved this place.

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