Here is What Some of the Rarest Disneyland Artifacts Sold For At Auction
A couple of weeks back, we here at MickeyBlog brought you the news that a massive collection of Disneyland memorabilia was being auctioned off.
The three-day auction followed a public exhibit of over 15,000 rare and unusual items that chronicled the history of the Walt Disney Company.
The owner of the collection, Joel Magee, had amassed unique items over decades, and they included ride vehicles, Audio-Animatronics, and attraction props.
Well, the results of the auction are now in, and here is what some of the rarest items sold for.
Red Wagon Inn Attraction Poster
A 1956 hand-silkscreened attraction poster for Disneyland’s Red Wagon Inn exceeded the seller’s expectations. Designed by Bjorn Aronson, the artwork evoked a turn-of-the-century table-service restaurant. One of the 15 earliest posters produced for Disneyland, the poster had been expected to fetch between $6,000 and $10,00. It sold for $36,000!
Hitchhiking Ghosts Animatronic Display
From Walt Disney World’s Haunted Mansion came a set of original Hitchhiking Ghost Audio-Animatronics. Before the trio of ghosts was replaced by video projections in 2010, there were actually Audio-Animatronics that followed guests down the corridor.
This set of Hitchhiking Ghosts was mounted in a custom display which allowed them to still move their arms and heads. Additionally, when activated, the attraction’s soundtrack would play.
This was the only set of Hitchhiking Ghosts known to be sold by Disney and thus was expected to sell for between $100,000 and $200,000. The final bid was $387,200!
Dumbo The Flying Elephant Ride Vehicle
One of Disneyland’s original attractions, Dumbo the Flying Elephant has been a foundational attraction to the park for almost 70 years.
While Dumbo originally opened with hinged ears that moved up and down, the ride vehicles were replaced with new Dumbos with stationary ears in the mid-1960s. The 1960s also happens to be when this Dumbo the Flying Elephant vehicle was dated.
The restored Dumbo vehicle was expected to sell for between $100,000 and $200,000. The winning bidder took home Dumbo for $266,200!
Original Tiki Room Birds
For the Audio-Animatronic enthusiast, there is no better attraction than Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. One lucky bidder was able to take home a set of three park-used Tiki Room birds!
Included in the set were Jose and two of his backup birds. The birds had been restored to working order and featured their original internal pneumatic switches. The trio even animated to “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room”!
This set of Tiki birds also came with a tiki hut display that stood roughly ten feet tall. The Tiki birds were expected to sell for between $30,000 and $50,000 dollars. Bidding took the price much higher, with the winning bid coming in at $145,200.
Haunted Mansion Stretching Room Painting
There are few pieces of Disney art more iconic than the stretching room portraits in The Haunted Mansion.
Designed by Marc Davis, the portraits seem innocuous at first, however, when they are stretched to their full size, something more sinister has happened.
One of these iconic stretching portraits features a seemingly innocent little old lady sitting atop her husband’s tombstone. Only when the portrait is stretched out, does the painting reveal the bust of her husband has a hatchet in his head!
From 1969 until 1972, the stretching room paintings were hand painted on canvas, and occasionally they would need to be switched out due to wear and tear.
Well, one lucky bidder was able to take home one of the Haunted Mansion’s iconic stretching paintings. The auction house originally expected the painting to sell for between $80,000 and $100,000. Eventually, however, it sold for $181,500!
The Joel Magee Collection
Other notable items to sell included an original “it’s a small world” doll which sold for $66,500; the Disneyland Skyway Bucket vehicle which sold for $84,700; a Carousel of Progress original poster which sold for $51,425; a Main Street Electrical Parade display which sold for $44,700 and a Space Mountain attraction vehicle which sold for $50,820
In total, The Joel Magee Disneyland Collection brought in over $7 million! What an amazing collection.
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