MICKEY MOUSE FABLES

This vintage British Disney book by the Collins Clear Type Press titled Mickey Mouse Fables was recently sold on ebay for the winning bid of 54.5 pounds. The seller estimated its date as "circa 1934", an estimate which is undoubtedly off the mark by several years as the renditions of Donald Duck does not feature the long and narrow beak he sported in its early appearances in 1934 and in the subsequent few years. I would estimate the book to be from the late 1930s.

MY FAVE MICKEY MOUSE POSTCARD (1931)

This vintage postcard that I won at a recent ebay auction has just arrived today..

NARCISTIC MICKEY MOUSE POSTCARD FROM 1931

This British Mickey Mouse postcard issued by Inter Card Co. based in "Barnes, S.W." was recently sold on ebay for the winning bid of 31 British pounds (app. 49 US dlrs). The handwritten correspondance and the official postofice stamp on the reverse carries a date from 1931. The same seller sold several other Mickey Mouse postcards from the same era. The below undated Inter Art Co. card, which was sold for the winning bid of 16 pounds, is also interesting as it features a cat in distinctively British police uniform!:
However, as far as I am concerned, a more desirable one was this "Milton Post Card" issued by the London-based Woolstone Bros. which features triple Mickeys, all smoking and one apparently even drinking a liqour!!..

This particular card, whose faded postoffice stamp on the reverse appears to carry a date from 1932, was sold for the winning bid of 10 pounds. Woolstone's "Milton" postcards are probably the earliest Mickey Mouse cards in the world, I'd earlier seen one dated from 1930. I bought one myself and will post a scan when I receive it.

BRITISH MICKEY MOUSE POSTCARDS FROM 1935

I had very much wanted to buy this British Mickey Mouse postcard from 1935 off ebay, but unfortunately missed bidding for it. It was sold for a winning bid of 10.5 British pounds, an affordable price for such a vintage item with such a nice illustration in my opinion. Several more cards from the same series were also sold by the same seller. The below one fetched the highest bid at 25.8 pounds (app. 41 US dlrs), presumably because it was unused:
Close behind was this card which fetched 25.3 pounds:

And the below one, which should indeed be considered as highly collectible in my opinion as it features a mega-rare appearance of Patricia Pig, a supporting character from early Mickey Mouse cartoons, was sold for the winning bid of 22 pounds:
These cards were issued by the London-based H. Delgado Ltd. and carried the "By permission: Walt Disney - Mickey Mouse Ltd." tag. With the exception of the Patricia Pig one, which has been re-drawn from one of the illustrations in the illustrated story book The Adventures of Mickey Mouse (1931), the illustrations are very much in the style of the color plates of British Mickey Mouse Annuals. Those annuals are known to be the work of Wilfred Haughton 'though I am not 100 % certain if it was also Haughton who drew the color plates as well as the interiors; if so, the illustrations on these cards are also probably the work of Haughton. Any opinions are welcome..

VINTAGE ELMER ELEPHANT CARD

This vintage greeting card featuring Elmer Elephant was recently sold on ebay for a winning bid of 7.25 British pounds (app. 11.5 US dlrs). The UK-based seller gave no info on the publishing company or the date of the card, but it is likely to be from the late 1930s as it depicts a scene from the 1936 Sunday newspaper comics continuity headlining Elmer.

TURKISH ARTICLE ABOUT MICKEY MOUSE CARTOONS (1934)

This article from no. 27 (from the year 1934) of Turkish cinema weekly magazine Holivut was kindly brought to my attention by my friend Özge Özyılmaz (*) who came across it while researching old Turkish cinema magazines for her PhD thesis on the coverage of Hollywood in pre-war and war-time Turkish film magazines. The article is apparently about animation in general with one section on p. 11 on Mickey Mouse cartoons which, the article reports, will began to be screened in Istanbul cinemas "in the coming season." Unless the author of the article has unknowingly missed any previous release of MM cartoons in Turkey, this indicates that they made their Turkish debut in 1934, with a six years delay from their inception in the US. I know that MM cartoons were being distributed in Britain as early as 1930, but I cannot find any info on the dates they began to be distributed elsewhere in the world. If anyone can kindly provide any info on the distribution of MM cartoons outside the US, esp. in continental Europe, that will be great. In any case, 1934 is a somewhat curious date for the possible debut of MM cartoons in Turkey as MM strips, possibly reprinted from French albums, had already began to be serialized in Turkish children's magazines as early as 1932 and even Turkish illustrators themselves had made several MM gag panels from that date onwards prior to 1934. And yet, it is also a fact that MM comics and story books did really proliferate in Turkey from 1935 onwards.
By the way, if anyone can point out the original source of the illustration on the upper right corner in which Mickey is reading an issue of Holivut, we will be very grateful.
(*) I also thank Cemil Yıldızcan for converting the pdf file into jpg format so that I could post it in this blog.

DUMBO CARD GAME

This British-made card game based on Dumbo (1941) was today sold on ebay for the winning bid of 23 pounds (appr. 37 US dlrs). Below is a close-up of two of the cards:
And below is the reverse of the cards:

CINDERELLA CARD GAME

This British-made card game featuring characters from Cinderella (1950) was today sold on ebay for a winning bid of 7.5 pounds (appr. 12 US dlrs). Gus and Jaq are my fave characters from this movie, so here is a close-up of their card:
And below is the reverse of the cards:

PETER AND THE WOLF CARD GAME

This British-made card game featuring the characters of the 'Peter and the Wolf' segment of Disney's feature-length compilation animation Make Mine Music (1946) was today sold on ebay for the starting bid of 4 pounds (appr. 6.5 US dlrs).Above are the cards featuring the cast and below are the cards featuring scenes from the cartoon:And below is the reverse of the cards:

BRITISH-MADE COVER GAG (1948)

Above is the cover of the no. 479 (dated Nov. 27th, 1948) of Britain's Mickey Mouse comics magazine, featuring a British-made gag. While fogs are not obviously unique to Britain, they are ann integral part of the popular image of London, so this fog-themed gag has a distinctively British feel to it.

FRENCH-LANGUAGE MICKEY POSTCARD FROM 1932

This vintage Mickey Mouse postcard was today sold on ebay for a winning bid of 9.5 British pounds. The reverse side has a stamp dated from 1932. Even though the illustration's caption text is in French, it was published by the German label Hegelberg, which was one of the earliest publishers of Disneyic postcards in the world.

BRITISH WAR INSIGNIA WITH PLUTO

This cover of Britain's Mickey Mouse comic dated Nov. 6th, 1943, which was recently sold on ebay, features a British war insignia with Pluto. While Disney characters are known to be featured extensively in US war insignia, this is the first such British item that I have come across.

DONALD DUCK AND THE PELICAN

Above scan is of the cover of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly no. 476 (dated Oct. 16th, 1948) featuring a British-made Donald Duck gag strip. The splash panel is actually re-drawn from the last panel of a Donald Duck daily strip (dated Jan. 24th, 1948) from the US:The British version was also used as the cover of the no. 3 (dated June 1949; seen below in a 2002 reprint) of Italian Topolino:

MICKEY MOUSE PICTURES TO PAINT (1931)

In an earlier post in this blog, I had covered the Mickey Mouse Coloring Book from 1931. Mickey Mouse Pictures to Paint is another similar publication from the same year. A copy of that book was recently sold ebay as part of a lot of other Disney books. Above is its cover and below is a sample page:

BRITISH MICKEY MOUSE CARD FROM 1930

Here is a very early Mickey Mouse postcard from the UK. I have bought (will post scan when I receive it) another card from this same series whose user had dated his inscription on the reverse as Easter 1930, so this one must also be from the same year even though its inscription carries no date:
You can see two more samples from this series in this link: http://classicdisneypostcards.com/Publishers/Woolston.html

BRITISH-MADE UNCLE SCROOGE CHRISTMAS 1-PAGER FROM 1956

The above photo is of the page 5 of the no. 868 (dated Dec. 29th, 1956) of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly featuring an apparently British-made Uncle Scrooge one-pager. I have no idea as to the identity of the artist. This issue was recently auctioned at ebay along with some consecutive issues, but I opted not to bid because the seller was asking for a ridiculously unfair postage charge, so I cannot unfortunately post any scan but only this photo from the ebay listing. And below is the photo of the central pages of the same issue, featuring a pleasantly colorful Christmas illustration; the non-Disney characters are Strongbow the Almighty and Robin Alone, the heroes of two non-Disneyic British comics serialized in MMW at the time.

MANDRAKE ARTWORK IN SHUFFLED SYMPHONIES

'Shuffled Symphonies', Basil Reynolds' illustrated story series in Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly, initially began with narratives bringing various characters from Disney's 'Silly Symphony' cartoon short series together with regular Disney characters as Mickey and Donald in novel plots. Over the years, storylines evolved into more and more off-Disneyic terrains with Donald et al embarking on various fantasy-oriented adventures. It seems that during the course of this evolution, Reynolds occasionally (or perhaps frequently?) borrowed graphic material from non-Disneyic sources. One such case is in the installement in MMW no. 147 (dated Nov. 26th, 1938) where Donald, Mickey and his twin nephews time-travel to the future. The illustration of the "metal man" in the above scan is clearly redrawn with minor alterations from the illustration of the 'wheel man' in a Mandrake the Magician adventure (with art by Phil Davis) from 1936-37 titled 'Chamber into the X Dimension':

I am certain that the helmeted figure in the lower left corner (or perhaps even the whole background landscape) of the below illustration from the same installement is also redrawn from a non-Disneyic comics, but I cannot immediately pinpoint the source

GOOFY WATCH FROM 1939

This pocket produced by the Ingersoll company of the US in 1939, said to be "in good working condition , was sold for a winning bid of app. 134 US dlrs on ebay today. The illustration is from the poster of the cartoon short Goofy and Wilbur (1939).

BRITISH DEBUT OF DONALD'S NEPHEWS

Donald's nephews first appeared in a Sunday strip in the US newspapers on Oct. 17th, 1937. They were created by Al Taliaferro, Disney's Sunday strips artist of the time. By the time the first strips with the nephews were reprinted outside the US, they had already returned to their home after staying on with their uncle for six consecutive Sundays in the US newspapers (*). In the UK, Donald's nephews were first heralded at the bottom rim (see above scan) of the back cover of the no. 98 (dated Dec. 18th, 1937) of Mickey Mouse Weekly. The art on this slim herald, by an unknown British illustrator, is rather substandart, but it is somewhat historically important for being the first non-American rendition of the nephews. Nevertheless, talented British artist Wilfred Haughton used them in his cover illustration for MMW no. 100; below scan is of the portion of the said cover with the nephews
...and below image is of the full cover:
And here is the first strip with the nephews as reprinted in the color central pages of that issue:The same issue also featured a puzzle with British-made illustrations of Donald's nephews (along with Mickey's nephews):

(*) Donald's nephews would return to Donald's home in daily strips in 1938 for "just a few days", but stay on indefinetely.

DONALD DUCK WATCHES FROM 1937

Above scan of an ad promoting Donald Duck watches in the 1937 Christmas season is from the bottom rim of the back cover of Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly no. 96 (dated Dec. 4th, 1937). Disneyic watches produced in the US since 1933 are well-known, but I'd never heard of these Donald Duck watches, "Swiss made", according to the ad and produced for and/or distributed in the UK by London-based Louis Newmark, before. If anyone knows more about them, please let us know.

JUNGLE CLUB MEMBERSHIP CERTIFICATE

This 'Jungle Club membership certificate' issued by Britain's Mickey Mouse Weekly in 1952 was sold on ebay for a surprisingly high winning bid of 104 pounds today!