I’ve been finding so many great Disney-themed plates lately!

My latest acquisition is this wonderful EPCOT Center World Showcase Collectors Plate:

EPCOT Center opened on October 1, 1982 and this plate is also copyrighted to that same year. Now we have a bit of a mystery. All eleven of the current pavilions are featured on this plate. Do you see the discrepancy?

Only nine pavilions existed when the park opened in 1982. Morocco didn’t join the World Showcase until 1984 and Norway held out until May of 1988.

I would speculate that this souvenir was released during or after 1988 and simply carries the earlier copyright for the EPCOT Center name. Notice that the Walt Disney Productions trademark isn’t used, as it was discontinued as of 1987. So we now see DISNEY as the copyright. This also dates the plate as 1988 or later.

How’d I do? Does that all make sense?

It still constitutes an early souvenir, as this park was renamed to EPCOT in 1994. Visitors would have been able to take this souvenir home only between 1988 and 1994, just six short years. So it is somewhere around 30 years old. Vintage? Oh yeah! And awesome? No question!

For another theme park related collectors plate, check out this one from MGM Disney Studios.