Carousel

Although there’s nothing much to a carousel ride – it just goes around in circles – children love it. What I like is the old carousels made of hand carved and colorfully painted animals. They’re delightful. I wish I could buy one and display it in my home – although it would clash with my furtniture and other art, I still want one. Actually, I think I would need a much larger house so I could have plenty of open space and mount it to the floor and ceiling – maybe three carved animals.

Gustav Dentzel was a Prussian carousel builder from the second half of the Nineteenth Century. The first stamp in the set of carousel animal stamps shows a buck was made by him. His family brought the first carousel to America in 1864. He formed the Dentzel Carousel Company, which built many carousels, such as the King Arthur Carousel in Disneyland in 1922 and the one in Knott’s Berry Farm in 1912.

Daniel Müller from Germany designed the armoured horse shown in the second stamp. He worked for the Dentzel Carousel Company when he was a young man. He built the Midway Carousel in Cedar Point in Ohio, which is the oldest operating carousel in the U.S.

Charles I. D. Looff was a Danish carousel builder, who also worked for the Dentzel Carousel Company in his youth. In 1876, he built many carousels, including the first at Coney Island, New York. He was also known for designing and building amusement parks, such as the Santa Monica Pier. The other two stamps show a camel and goat that Loof made.

Note

The carousel animal stamps are so neat. There’s another set on the Great Lake Lighthouses page. There’s another carousel animal carved by Daniel Müller in that set. By the way, I do not like the set of stamps showing cats. Of course, that’s because I don’t like cats and I’m allergic to them.

Contains 13 spots: own 13 – 13 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Jul 25, 2025

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

American Automobiles

1.1	✓	2381	Locomobile	25c (aug 1988) comm., multicolor
1.2	✓	2382	Pierce-Arrow	25c (aug 1988) comm., multicolor
2.1	✓	2383	Cord	25c (aug 1988) comm., multicolor
2.2	✓	2384	Packard	25c (aug 1988) comm., multicolor
2.3	✓	2385	Duesenberg	25c (aug 1988) comm., multicolor

Folk Art

3.1	✓	2390	Buck Gustav Dentzel	25c (oct 1988) comm., multicolor
3.2	✓	2391	Armoured Horse Daniel C. Muller	25c (oct 1988) comm., multicolor
4.1	✓	2392	Camel Charles Looff	25c (oct 1988) comm., multicolor
4.2	✓	2393	Goat Charles Looff	25c (oct 1988) comm., multicolor

Domesticated Animals

5.1	✓	2372	Siamese & Exotic Shorthair Cats	22c (feb 1988) comm., multicolor
5.2	✓	2373	Abyssinian & Himalayan Cats	22c (feb 1988) comm., multicolor
6.1	✓	2374	Maine Coon & Burmese Cats	22c (feb 1988) comm., multicolor
6.2	✓	2375	American Shorthair & Persian Cats	22c (feb 1988) comm., multicolor

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.