This wonderful bell was released by the German company Schmid. Sadly, they folded in 1995 and no longer produce for the collectible market. But you can find all sorts of interesting things like music box sets, night lights, ceramic figurines, and even snow globes on the secondary market.

But in this post we are featuring the Walt Disney 1979 Signature Series Annual Bell:

For whatever reason we have Thumper as the central figure for this image. You can read the story of this image on the back of the box below. He is flanked by some of Disney’s most famous characters including, of course, his pal Bambi. In case you’re wondering, that’s Louie (green) and Dewey (blue) without their brother Huey (usually red). Maybe he was at home with a cold or finishing a ‘Time Out’.

These bells are fairly common on retail sites with prices starting at about $20 US. As always, if it has the original box, it can fetch more.

The front has the character image with the back of the bell sporting the famous signature of Walt Disney along with the year.

This was made in Japan and is numbered 2,054 out of 10,000 produced by the Schmid company for Walt Disney Productions.

It doesn’t look like this series was very well received as I can’t find any other years represented. 1980 sees a switch to a Walt Disney Character series also from Schmid, but it doesn’t continue the annual line from this 1979 bell. If you type in for 1978, there is no bell represented.

It’s such a weird thing to start an annual product at the end of a decade and then abandon the project. Disney is famous for pulling the plug on under performing products or IPs though, so I guess it shouldn’t be any surprise. At least the bells were ringing in 1979!