Thursday, July 09, 2009

Souvenir Thursday: Donald Duck Art Corner Postcard!

Everybody loves a good Disneyland souvenir! Even hippies. Today I am presenting you with a humble, yet wonderful, postcard. It's one of my favorite items in my collection! This postcard was sold at the venerable Art Corner (and elsewhere within Disneyland, I'll wager) for a mere 15 cents. Since then I have seen them fetch hundreds of dollars!

As you can see, Donald Duck is the engineer on this miniature railroad, with Chip and Dale along for the ride. This is presumably a reference to the 1951 short subject entitled "Out of Scale", in which Donald has a backyard railroad layout. This in turn was a reference to Walt Disney's own "Carolwood Pacific Railroad", which ran in his backyard.

This is the only "mechanical" Disneyland postcards that I know of (unless you count the lenticular "wiggle" cards, which I don't). Donald is currently in Frontierland, but turn the wheel and...


... he's in Tomorrowland, with a new hat and a new sign!


If there's a pith helmet, than it must be Adventureland.


And finally, a Tyrolean hat, much like the one that Pinocchio wore, for Fantasyland.


Here's a look at the back of the card. For you folks who need to own every variation, I can tell you that there is a version with a box around the word "stamp". This postcard is so appealing, and how can you not love the simple-yet-clever design?

12 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

TOO COOL!!!

Hippies said...

Love those good Disneyland souvenirs!

A duck with many hats, Chip looks puzzled.

Zanuck said...

Very fun post, even with the backhanded hippie comment. I can't decide which hat I like best. Thank you for the choice. I'll post at least one at theinnbetweener on twitter, if it's OK. I could use the collector street cred.

Chiana said...

don't worry zanuck, the hippie comment is "tounge-in-cheek," kind of a running joke going back a ways, not meant nastily. (Is that a word?)

Cute card. :)

Matterhorn1959 said...

Also one of my favorite postcards. I found one years ago for a good price.

Evelyn Yvonne Theriault said...

This is a spectacular series of postcards.
I wonder if you would allow me to link to this post in the next issue of A Festival of Postcards which is dedicated to SIGNS.
If you'd like to check out a previous issue, here's last month's:
http://acanadianfamily.com/2009/06/24/a-festival-of-postcards-2nd-ed-main-street/
If you want to take part just leave a comment and I'll take care of it for you.
Happy postcarding,
Evelyn in Montreal

Katella Gate said...

What a great concept, all the better because the drafting is so good.

The Viewliner Limited said...

This is a first for me Major, never seen this one before. Always cool when you see something for the first time. What a truly great Disneyland card. Awesome!

TiggerNick said...

Not only is the postcard clever in itself, but it's a fine tribute to the "Out Of Scale" cartoon --one of the few that has D Duck in harmony with C&D at the end.

Do you think that this postcard was available in 1955, or did it come out later?

Nancy said...

ive never seen one of these before...very cool!

thanks for sharing it with us :D

Sheila said...

I've seen that mechanism in greetings cards, but I'm fairly sure not on a postcard before. I imagine many of them will have been damaged over the years.

TheJaLeonard said...

I think I know that engine that Donald Duck is driving. It's the same engine from The Brave Engineer & it is frequently veryfied as Johnny.