Also displayed there are an old-fashioned service station and (shades of Archie, Betty and Veronica!) an ice cream parlor, Native American tepees and a Roma caravan, and a single-level shopping center and a palatial study – as well as a horse-drawn New Orleans cortège.
Marquee pieces include miniatures of August Busch Sr.’s much-loved mill itself, on loan from the Carondelet Historical Society, and downtown St. Louis’ Old Cathedral (formally the Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France).
Website background on the latter describes it as a 1975 labor of love from a local dentist, Dr. Richard Wunderlich, and suggests what a maximized effort miniaturizing can entail.
“This replica was constructed by hand on a scale of ⅜ inch to the foot, taking approximately 3,800 hours,” that background states. “Dr. Wunderlich incorporated such items as golf tees, hypodermic needles, tongue depressors, wooden applicators, dental burs, antique buttons, pill bottles, Christmas decorations and other everyday items.”
For those still haunted by childhood disasters involving Aurora Plastics Corp. models, Zerbolio has both good news and bad. “We have all scales on display in the museum,” she notes, adding that most creators miniaturize at an inch per foot – but also adding that some microminis can go below a quarter of an inch per foot.
And what does creating miniatures like those on display at the museum demand?
