WORLD'S COLUMBIAN RARE S65WELLINGTON TICKET--OVERPRINTED IN LAST DAYS OF THE FAIR

To the many folks unaware of the ticket issue at the very end of the fair, this might just look like a sloppy printing job on the serial number.

First, it is very uncommon to have the Wellington name on its many tickets from the Columbian Expo. Wellington was the largest concession at the WCE and the only one that generated more than $1 million in its several restaurants. So while several of the "sixties" stand tickets are from the Wellington Co., very few have the company name on the ticket. Sorry, but in my decades of research into the World's Columbian Expo I have never found out why Wellington printed the company name on some tickets and not on others.

Another tidbit of information I only discovered when I was working on my Midway book (published in 2017)--relatively late in the game for such a discovery.

In the last week of the WCE Wellington actually ran out of new, unused tickets! So they took used ones and placed a purple imprint (maybe it's even a rubber stamp) over the serial number. This is one of the rarer of these rare examples. Rather than a purple serial number over the red one, this overprint is a very large number. Look at the serial numnrt and don't try squinting or doing any other tricks; the best way to see the large, purple (and light) "3" is by not straining to see it. Just take a relaxed look and "see but don't focus on the serial number." When you are casually looking at it you should be able to see the large numeral. I believe there is another large digit over the word "Cents" but it is not possible to see it in this photo. You can see a little purple the same height as the "3" but no detail

This isn't some little boring "error" like you probably have seen on ebay where recently dozens of new sellers are asking hundreds to thousand dollars for almost invisible errors. My favorite is when a "T" is barely touching the rim and is cited as some expensive error. Ridiculous. Others include Lincoln cents and other denominations of coins also being priced similarly--because the coin doesn't have a mint mark, just like about a billion (literally!) others available. No one told these novices....scammers....that until relatively recent (few decades) all Philadelphia coins had no mint mark rather than the "P" used now.

I don't think this is some rare and expensive ticket; but it has a nice backstory I personally find interesting. It's just one more little story out of thousands from the WCE.