Italian Wührer Premium Trading Cards Series II

Today we have Series II of the Wuhrer premium trading cards. As with Series I it consists of a set of 6 cards illustrated with scens from the film in essentially film order, back containing a synopsis of the scene illustrated.

Card 1 features Alice getting ready to recite for the Caterpillar


Card 2 features the angry mother bird atop a giant Alice


Card 3 features the Mad Hatter drinking tea at the Mad Tea Party


Card 4 features the same image from the promotional postcard of the March Hare instructing Alice with the Mad Hatter in the background at the Mad Tea Party (two tea party scenes?! were's the Cheshire Cat?)


Card 5 features Alice and the Painter Cards painting the roses red


and Card 6 features the Queen of Hearts getting ready to let one fly during the croquet match.


There is also an album you could get to hold all your Wuhrer trading cards. There were a total of 12 series, the album held all 12 sets of 6 cards, for a total of 72 cards. I have only ever seen one (not in my collection), but I do have pictures of the cover and the Alice pages.

The album itself is fairly simple, just construction paper pages with slits cut to hold the corners of the cards.

Italian Wührer Premium Trading Cards Series I

Series I of the Wuhrer Trading card set is part one of the Alice in Wonderland series. The set consists of 6 cards beautifully illustrated with a scene from the film, with the back describing the scene. The scenes go pretty much in film order. Also on the back, as I alluded to yesterday, is an illustration of the Wuhrer product for which these cards were a premium. Looks like boullion cubes to me.

Card 1 is Alice falling down the rabbit hole


Card 2 is a little odd, it is Alice leaving her first meeting with the Tweedles, but they are offscreen in this particular image


Card 3 is the Walrus enticing the baby oysters to join him in a pleasant walk


Card 4 shows the Carpenter constructing his makeshift seafood restaurant


Card 5 shows Alice approaching the White Rabbit's house


and Card 6 shows the garden of live flowers, and a nice closeup of the Rocking Horse Fly.


Each series came bundled by a paper strip that said which series it contained, and the upcoming series soon to be available. Notice that Series II is also Alice in Wonderland.

I recently discovered a photo of the original mailing envelope for the card series, thanks to Francis and his excellent website Effedibi on the Web for allowing me to reproduce these envelope images.


Stay tuned for Series II!

Italian Promotional Postcard for Wührer Premium Trading Cards

Title is quite a mouthful. This beautiful postcard from Italy features art from the Mad Tea Party sequence, and was an announcement for a set of premium trading cards offered by Wührer.

It took me a while to figure what exactly the product that Wührer made was, having seen mostly references to beer on the web, which seemed unlikely (Hey kids, get liquored up and trade these nifty cards with your friends). Just didn't seem quite right.

The clue to the product is really on the back (or front depending on how you look at it). I believe the product was boullion cubes. Brodo is Italian for broth, and Brodo di Manzo is beef broth. Turns out that Wührer expanded its product line over the years to include other things like soup and soft drinks. Tune in tomorrow for more.

Not One But Two Dormouse Shaw Figures on eBay

There are currently two Dormouse Shaw figures for sale on eBay. This makes three to appear on eBay in as many weeks. Prior to this there haven't been three on eBay in as many years! If you are missing this figure, now's your chance.

Disney American Pottery Alice in Wonderland Dormouse - eBay item 260552384503

SOLD: $310





DISNEY ALICE IN WONDERLAND DORMOUSE CERAMIC SHAW POTTERY - eBay item 290403996131

Reserve not met @$159

Photos of Alice Attractions

I received an email from the proprietor of the Think Disney blog, he currently has up TONS of photos of the various Alice attractions at the various theme parks - some even from me ;-) Go take a look!

Happy Valentine's Day - Teacup Ride Valentine with Alice and Mad Hatter

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! From the same set as last years post comes this valentine featuring Disneyland's teacup attraction (with some holiday-specific modifications) with Alice and the Mad Hatter having a spot of tea.


UPDATE: According to Dave Smith at the Walt Disney Archive, this is from 1964 and was produced by Whitman.

Japanese RKO Movie Herald

Very nice original RKO herald from Japan. Interesting that this features art similar to the Little Nipper record set rather than movie poster art.


Of course, all the text is in Japanese, so I have absolutely no idea what it says. I assume the single row of text beneath the picture on the front is the name of a theater, but there is a ton of text on the back. Anyone out there read kanji, hiragana and katakana (come on, you have to be impressed that I at least know the names of the 3 alphabets)?


UPDATE: A kind (and bilingual) reader translated this for me - thanks Wayne!

Front says:

Alice in Wonderland, a Walt Disney Production
Beautiful and enjoyable
Color Feature Musical Fantasy
Distributed by RKO
The Odeon Theater (hah! I knew it was a theater name)

Back says:

Color feature musical fantasy
A Walt Disney Production
About "Alice in Wonderland"
"Alice in Wonderland", like "Snow White" and "Cinderella", is a Disney film version of a fairy tale. But unlike the other two films, here Disney spreads his wings of fancy all the way, and soars with music and color. In this film where several fun episodes merge, it's a great fantasy where color and music are wonderfully blended. Lewis Caroll's work "Alice in Wonderland" is from about 100 years ago: during a pleasant English summer as he was taking a walk in the garden with the sweet little girl Alice Pleasance Liddell, at her urging he told this story. Later, it was suggested to him by a friend to write the story down, and 3 years later in 1865 it was published.
Ever since, it has become one of the world's most loved stories. Not only is this merely due to its being loaded with humor, but it also contains sharp satire and morals. There's plenty in it for an adult to ponder. The film proudly boasts this story, the musical fun and the gorgeous colors, and it's a work that children will love as much as adults.

Libby's Wonderland of Values Newspaper Ads - October 1951

In addition to the in-store display items previously posted here, and the Life magazine double-page ad referenced here, Libby's ran a series of newspaper ads in the month of October 1951 . Each ad features one character promoting either peas or corn. To date I've found ads for peas and corn with Alice


Mad Hatter


and White Rabbit


but only an ad for corn with the Walrus; I can only assume that there is a corresponding ad for peas that I've not seen yet.


If the remaining ad follows the above pattern, the peas ad will have a black banner across the bottom saying "Try Libby's Peas...'Sweet in Summer'".

UPDATE:  The Walrus Peas ad has been located, and it does conform to the pattern.

Libby's Annual Report - March 1, 1952

One of these turned up on eBay this week, and a friend asked for some scans of mine, so seemed like a good time for a post!

This is the annual report for stockholders in Libby, McNeill & Libby (know to most of us as Libby's Libby's Libby's on the label label label) for the fiscal year ending March 1, 1952.

It has your typical stockholder financial information, how the company did in the past year and so forth. The Alice connection is the advertising endorsement Libby's had with Disney for Alice in Wonderland.

Way back in the first month of my blog I posted a bunch of images of the in-store display material for the Wonderland of Values promotion Libby's had in conjunction with the original release of Alice in Wonderland. This annual report mentions that in several places. But, best of all, it reprints the double-page ad that ran in Life magazine as the centerfold of the report. A lot smaller, and a lot better quality paper! Much easier to fit on a scanner. We say Frabjous!

Aside from the Alice stuff, there is some interesting info about food supplies, panic buying and the Korean war, things I never thought about. Oh, and apparently Libby's was big into pineapple research.