Dolls House...Worth 7 million dollars...

[Orctrader]

Perhaps everyone here already knows about this but it was new to me.

I was listening to a radio talk about a silent-movie star called Colleen Moore.  I was driving at the time and thought I misheard about the dolls house she had built...took 9 years...cost $100,000 in the 1920s...included miniature copies of books signed by the authors, including Tarzan...

So I did some more research and discovered it has been on display at a  Chicago museum since 1949.  Estimated current value $7 Million.

Apart from anything else, thought it might interest those currently taking part in the "Build Something..."   

Fairy Castle

[marianas_gamer]

I remember seeing this when I was a boy on one of our museum trips. It was impressive to a young boy so you know it is an over the top production (worthy of an LAF build  Andym?). I had no idea about the books though. That is totally cool!
Lon

[SBRPearce]

I found a 1950s photo-book on CM's Fairy Castle when I was a kid (mad about miniatures of all sorts, influenced in part by my father's architectural practice).

I got the chance to see it at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry about fifteen years later... I spent over an hour gawking, peering and sketching. She had buyers in Europe and New York on retainer to pick up anything  related to miniatures, and hired famous jewelers of the day to create pieces of furniture and chandeliers...

If you ever get a chance to see it in person, make the time. It's pretty spectacular.

[Davout]

I've seen this in person as well, a very cool piece and a terrain makers dream. Also, in the basement of the big Chicago Art mueseam there is a collection of miniature rooms cataloging the progress of design from the 1500s through I think the late 1800s. No figures, but the rooms are so lifelike you expect to see someone walk in the front door. Also very worth checking out

[Vanvlak]

That's one magnificent piece of modelling.
The paintings on the roof are incredible, and that's one single tiny detail of hundreds!

One of the bits of blue foam I'm using for my ornithopter in the BSC has some scrawls from an architecture student who built the architects' model of a town I had salvaged for reuse...I wonder if that will be worth anything one day.