One of my favorite images of my great uncle Sal’s masks and I have hundreds of them, I even have 65 of them in my collection this photo was taken in great uncle Sal’s mask studio in 1949 when he was with the world of mirth the bazaar traveling carnival most of the mask in there were created in the mid 30s for the Chicago world‘s fair they never made it that’s all the big ones that are hung up, Sal made around 300 masks in his lifetime he started making them when he was 16 years old in 1927 he continued to make them until his death in 1995 the ones you’re looking at we’re also used for his mind reading act and hypnotizing people a lot of special ingredients went into the papier-mâché mix pyramid scrapings from Egypt, Haitian voodoo dust, a lot of secret potions from around the world, Sal did a lot of traveling he was an undercover photographer for the OSS that was CIA during World War II In the early 40s, he also did some work for them during the Korean War in 1951 Most of these masks of this size are gone the three in the middle I have, they’re actually in two of our rooms I have 65 the masks and they do have special powers I forgot to mention the special secret ingredients in the papier-mâché mix that will be in the book lease and I have 30 mass hung up in our house we have the rest in storage check out the mask section on this website pretty cool