Cape of Good Hope: Kimberley and Cape Town Exhibition
I attach a short write-up with items from the Kimberley Exhibition and from the the Cape Town International Exhibition. According to Goldblatt these items are scarce and only one or two copies are known. However, from my experience more copies are usually found, especially after the publication of literature on the subject.
Anyone has any to share and willing to compare notes?
The tasteless contraption shown in the image I attach is from the front of a postcard showing the Australian exhibit at the Cape Town Exhibition. Large contingents of exhibitors came from Australia as well as Argentina trying to sell canned meat and other similar products. After all the exhibition was shortly after the Boer War and the Army was still buying big.
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"Tasteless" yes, but not back then! I wondered at first if it was not a pre-constructed Church or building spire but no, it is an exhibition stand! I did once build a huge wooden exhibtion stand at Earls Court, London, for Select Software of South Africa's TurboCASH. After that, I swore never again. Since then I did countless shows internationally using lightweight pop-up displays that can be erected almost as quickly as it takes to plug in a PC. Typically, we would arrive at the venue on the evening before the show or early in the morning on opening day. The costs of transporting this "contraption" by ship, train and cart and and then erecting it at an exhibition would have been exorbitant and taken days. What a beast! What did they do with it when the show was over? Take it back to Oz? Unlikely!