Some things are created with a purpose and a short time of usefulness. When that time is up, these pieces of ephemera are intended to be thrown away and forgotten forever.
But the makers of these Disneyland Records Cardboard Display Cards didn’t count on the collecting bug infecting the Disney fan:
First we have a close up of the main graphics for one of these cards. This is why I buy these when I find them! The artwork is so cool and period specific for the characters depicted.
These cards are likely from the 1980s if the artwork is any indication. But before 1987 due to the WaltDisney Productions copyright.
Finding unused display cards is rare but not impossible. Obviously. But to find two at the same time at the same place is a bit more unusual. You can see the diagrams as to how they were meant to be used along with a metal stand. Now, finding the metal stands would be more difficult!
These are approximately 9″ x 14″ including the areas meant to be folded. A supply of Disney records would then be placed in the base of the metal stand for a very attractive and exciting display!
To see an example of the records sold using the display card on the left, check out my Peter Pan record, and the same idea with story books but in miniature 45s. And be sure to check out my Disney Movie VHS Display Stand full of… DVDs. Hey, you have to keep up with the times!
1955 saw the birth of a new era for children’s programming on television. A cast of very young and very talented kids banded together to form the original Mickey Mouse Club. It, and Annette Funicello, took the world by storm!
Do you remember the opening song? Below you can hear the Disco version sung by The New MickeyMousekeeters as they too benefit from the help of Jiminy Cricket and Donald Duck:
Mickey Mouse March – Cast
This version engenders the same nostalgic feel but with an updated (but now outdated) 1970’s vibe.
Now, is everybody ready? Let’s have a closer look at The All New Mickey Mouse Club TV Cast Album:
This crew entertained our little mice from 1977 to 1979. But unfortunately, they aren’t as well remembered as the early Mouseketeers from the 1955-1959 run or the later children from the 1989-1996 run. That run gave us Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, and Justin Timberlake.
Although many of the second run children continued in entertainment, the show’s most notable alumnus was Lisa Whelchel, who later starred in the NBC television sitcom The Facts of Life (1979-1988). She now hosts the entertaining reality show called Collector’s Corner.
This run only had one originally produced serial to brag of. But they did do themed days in earnest!
Theme days were:
Monday: Who, What, Why, Where, When and How
Tuesday: Let’s Go
Wednesday: Surprise
Thursday: Discovery
Friday: Showtime (at Disneyland, with performers usually at Plaza Gardens)
The Who, What, Why, Where, When and How Day – Cast
Why I jumped at the chance to buy this album for just $10.00 CAN was for this wonderful full-colour Official Souvenir Poster Magazine:
And if all that wasn’t enough to engage and thrill a young mouse, how about this whopping 19″ x 23″ poster of the entire cast of 12 (five boys and seven girls). As you can see, they had a more diverse ethnic background than the 1950s version:
I also love to find these little reply cards:
Notice you are asked if you own a Super 8mm home movie projector or an ultra-modern cassette tape player! Well, do you? Disney wants to know!
Side point: This falls under the ‘Simpler Times’ category as Disney expected you to send your name and address along with your child’s name and ages through the regular mail! Hey, I can’t see any problem with that. We should still do that today! Um, don’t do that today.
And that brings us to the end of this post and the back of the album cover. We have some cast photos from the set of the show along with a hip Mickey doing a little jig:
But now it’s time to say goodbye to all our company:
Mickey Mouse Alma Mater – Cast
We don’t tend to think of this version of the Mickey Mouse Club even though these 1977 Mouseketeers were part of the halftime show of Super Bowl XI on January 9, 1977. That deserves some respect right there!
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!
Enesco strikes again with a really very nice pair of candle holders. They are based on the Classic Pooh version of the Bear-of-little-brain. And oh look, they’ve put Piglet in for scale. Oh d-d-d-dear!
Have you seen anything as cute as these Pooh & Piglet Antique Oak Candleholders?
I bought these as a set, but as they are completely identical, I wonder if they were sold separately and the person who donated them to Value Village just had two? I paid $9.99 CAN for the pair.
There isn’t a bad side. You have the obligatory Hunny Pot (for Pooh, of course) along with a flower pot (presumably for Piglet). Although they are both holding flowers:
I love the Classic Pooh style but have a soft spot for the Disney version with the red sweater for Pooh. I’ve seen fan images of Mickey giving Pooh the sweater which is why he only has pants now. A fun idea!
Although Enesco released these, they were designed and perhaps manufactured by the Border Fine Arts Studio. If you visit the website, you can scroll down through the Archives (on the right of the site) and find ‘disney’. Currently they have several Winnie the Pooh items along with a couple items featuring the characters from Frozen. Unfortunately, the site does not contain an ‘About’ page so I have no information about the company to share.
Enesco has a large selection of all the main Disney brands as well as a link to the ShopDisney site.
These candleholders are 21 years old at the time of this post as they were sold in 2003. They are 5″ high and 3″ round at the base.
Shanghai Disney Resort opened to the public on June 16, 2016. It was the first Disney Resort in mainland China. It’s also the sixth Disney resort worldwide.
So I was happy to find these Shanghai Disney Resort Grand Opening Character Notepads to add to my growing collection of “off-shore” collectibles:
At not even 10 years old, these are hardly vintage, but still a nice item to have. A set of six notepads each feature a different character with an accompanying attraction. Let’s start with Mickey:
Mickey is dressed in his finest and standing outside the Enchanted Storybook Castle. I think this is the only Disney Castle not named after a specific Princess.
Donald seems happy to introduce the TRON Lightcycle Power Run. Daisy might be standing beside the Clock Tower, and Chip and Dale are pointing the way to what is likely Camp Discovery.
Minnie Mouse is just thrilled to ride the Fantasia Carousel! A nice feature of each notebook is that the attraction image is repeated in the bottom corner of each page.
Pluto is waiting to board one of the many ships at Treasure Cove. The back cover of each notebook has the same information repeated.
How much is 59 Yuan? About $11.00 CAN or about $8.00 US.
I acquired these for free at a local Flea Market. The vendor asked me what I was looking for and I said ‘Anything Disney’. He immediately reached under his desk and pulled out these notepads and said I could have them, no charge! Awesome. So I looked around and bought a couple of other things as a way of thanking him.
I found many examples of this little gem on the Internet sporting many different designs. All of the pictures showed mint condition pieces while this one sports the traditional rust that most vintage metal lunch boxes tend to have. I believe it gives it a more authentic look, don’t you?
Why these were made and how they were distributed is a mystery. Most other posts I found with similar items claimed they were vintage but gave no exact year of manufacture.
But let’s take a look at what may be a vintageMiniature Coca-Cola Metal Lunch Box:
On a diet? Have I got the lunch box for you!
Again, I love how it has a bit of rust to show it’s age! But what really blew me away was that it actually opens:
I paid $2.99 CAN for this at a Charity Shop but the selling sites have them for 10 USD or more. They’re really worth what a person will pay for them at this point.
I haven’t found another example with this same pattern. As said, there are multiple designs which is awesome, though I’ve never seen another one in the wild.
Well, time to go to work. I’ll pack my grape and a peanut and be off!
Many years ago my parents owned a retail building. In the basement was a pottery studio ran by a very nice woman. I would talk with her at times about the process of pouring and firing the pieces she made. She also gave classes to any who wanted to learn.
I never took a class but I did learn something interesting. I learned that Disney licensed some of its characters to be made into molds that could then be mass produced by anyone who could afford the mold. This was rarely an individual, but most often a business. Depending on how popular the mold was, there could be dozens or thousands of a particular piece. Or just one. There is no way of knowing.
Charity shops end up with many of these types of artwork. Usually I pass on them because of the rough casting and poor painting work, and the fact they aren’t technically official Disney merchandise. At least, they never have a Disney branding on them. Occasionally I find a nice example, though, such as:
Goofy is my favorite Disney character so that played heavily into my purchase. That and the $5.99 CAN price tag made it easy to finalize my decision to buy.
I’ve noticed that most of these commercial molds are copies of official merchandise. They may not be exact matches but often pay homage to a more polished offering, such as this character tankard. Scroll down to the end of the post to see the example featuring Goofy.
I’ve mentioned that many of the amateurs that produce these items usually don’t do a very good job. I don’t say this to criticize as I realize that most are beginners when they bring these into the world. It looks like this sitting Goofy was done by a more advanced student if the paint work is any indication.
He or she did a wonderful job of capturing the original coloring of Goofy’s vintage clothing!
Again, you know this is not an officially released Disney product because it has no trademark inscribed in the base. For an example of such a mark, check out my Minnie Mouse Ceramic Planter.
Would you add such a DIY piece to your Disney collection?
Is it a coin or a medallion? Either way, it’s a nice little keepsake to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Walt Disney World.
1996 was a good year for merchandise and controversial Cake Castles. If you know, you know! Yes, some of the ideas Disney had for this milestone in WDWs history worked and… some didn’t.
But dollar for dollar you just can’t beat these coins! Small and inexpensive, they were the perfect transportable souvenir of a wonderful event. Were you able to visit WDW in 1996 or 1997 when the anniversary festivities were in full swing?
I would have drawn in Piglet for scale, but he wasn’t available to pose for me, so instead I’ve included a photograph of the coin in my hand. It’s probably about the size of an American Silver Dollar.
For more on that Castle Cake I mentioned earlier (the one you either loved or hated, there really was no in-between), check out my two-part article on the Walt Disney World Holiday Planner VHS tape.
The Tobacconist shop was located on the left side of Main Street U.S.A. near the House of Magic. It harkens back to a day when smoking was allowed in the Disney Parks and you could even indulge your habit with a purchase of the noxious weed.
The Cigar Store Indian is still keeping his lonely vigil even to this day. His purpose may be gone, but his dedication to his duty lives on!
I’ve never been a smoker myself but do have a few related items in my collection. I love these old matchbooks for the artwork and Park history they preserve. Among my other smoke-related acquisitions are glass ashtrays, ceramic ashtrays, vintage character ashtrays, and a wooden cigar box, Honestly. I don’t smoke!
It’s hard to find a completely full matchbook. And it’s even harder to purchase one online due to the shipping restrictions on flammable materials. I was able to get this Tobacconist example from a fellow Canadian seller who happily sent it in the regular post. I asked no questions.
The other examples I’m sharing in this post are just the flattened matchbook covers themselves with no matches. These are very easily found on selling sites for good prices. I paid around $5.00 CAN for each.
All of these would have been from the early days of Walt Disney World. The Tobacconist closed in 1985 and was replaced by the Main Street Stationers, which sold cards and stationary sponsored by Gibson Greeting Cards. Obviously the Contemporary Resort is still going strong but the Polynesian Village changed its name also in 1985.
So that makes it almost 40 years since these babies lit a cigarette!
Although it’s interesting to find and collect such pieces of ephemera, it is also sad to reflect on how smoking took Walt Disney from us in 1966. Is it strange that the Parks still sold such items after his loss?
I believe it was way back in 2006 that my wife and I first visited Walt Disney World as a couple. We wanted to enjoy as much of our time as possible so we chose to fly from Canada to Orlando International Airport. It was a great decision that I don’t regret! It gave us almost two extra days of vacationing in saved driving time.
We flew in a real plane, of course, but it’s replicated by this Walt Disney World Boeing 747 Diecast model airplane:
Our plane was a boring old white thing. Not at all like this colorfully wrapped Disney version! Ours wasn’t branded, dated, or festooned with Disney characters. More’s the pity.
I’m focusing my Disney collecting on smaller items now so as to save my ever-dwindling space. At under 3″ long this diecast model fits the parameters.
When we started visiting Walt Disney World year after year starting in 2006, I went a little bit overboard with the souvenir acquisitions! I was one of those people who really needed to buy another suitcase just to get all of the new swag home. No exaggeration. Small stuff. Lots of big stuff. Too much stuff.
If I was to give any advice to souvenir seekers now, I’d say to buy little things like this plane. It’s fun. It has the date on it to commemorate the trip. And it has Disney characters on it. What more could any rabid Disney fan need?
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