The Children's Museum

This past April, the Public Sale staff took a special road trip to the Children’s Museum in Utica, NY. The mission: to remove the complete dinosaur exhibit that had been on prominent display in the museum for years. Now located at our warehouse space in Hudson, NY, the display will feature in our upcoming “Weird & Wonderful” Auction (with bidding beginning on July 17th.)

The children’s museum, which opened in the 1960s, is moving into a new building with new technology and has no need for such archaic displays. Public Sale was invited to Utica to disassemble and remove the entire exhibit, including the dinosaur dioramas, original paintings of dinosaurs, a pterodactyl, and the brontosaurus sculpture.

We didn’t leave anything behind.

The wall-hanging features include a 21-foot-long mural, a reproduction of the famous “Age of Reptiles” mural currently on display at the Great Hall at Yale’s Peabody Museum painted by Rudy Zallinger in 1949. The mural hung the length of the exhibit in the museum.

Several of the dioramas were built into the walls and crafted from wax painted figurines. 

An especially remarkable part of the exhibit is the dozen or more original paintings of dinosaurs. Where else could one find so many paintings of dinosaurs?

We have broken the exhibit up into individual lots, each painting and diorama sold by itself. The auction will include a 15-foot-wingspan pterodactyl model, and a 8-foot-tall brontosaurus, both of which would impress your neighbors, wow your children, or make a statement in any room!