Auction House Mis-Attribution of David Hall

I don't normally do things like this, but this is bugging me. RR Auctions is having an animation auction that closes tonight. One particular lot is very clearly mis-attributed, the claim is that the lot listed is David Hall, and art by him is very sought after. I've contacted them about it and they agree and said they'd change the listing "...appreciate your email and we have decided to change the lot details to state that it is not a David Hall as you have stated." They haven't. By not changing the listing after they'e been alerted to the error and agreed, they are now actively deceiving their bidders. I don't know how else to proceed, so I thought I'd see if leveraging the social networks might get them to fix the listing before it is too late. It may already be too late.

Update:  The item has been withdrawn.  Go me.

Greek Chocolate Trading Cards

Knock me over with a feather, I recently acquired this partial set of trading cards from Greece.  Premiums from a chocolate company called Melo (or more properly Μὲλο) these remind me of Sugar Daddy trading cards, only larger.

These have been removed from an album, presumably an album of Disney cards as I doubt there would have been an album in the 1970s featuring 70+ cards of just Alice, but I could be wrong (geez, I'd hate to try and track down that full set).  I've seen Melo albums on other topics, and they are pretty cool, usually the cards fit flush to one another on the page to make a larger picture, it could be the case here as well, if you notice that the backgrounds could merge together to form a larger tableau.  Let's hope a full set in album surfaces one day.

There may have been a couple of different variations, as I have also seen this variant of the Dodo card

UPDATE: I love the Internet. Just two days after posting this I received an email from a reader who shared more images, and information. The set was Disney, many characters, and at least 150 cards. The different sizes came about when the company changed the size of the chocolate bars in the mid 1970s.

Alice #62

Tweedledee and Tweedledum #67

Mad Hatter #63

Queen of Hearts #66

So now we know the following list:

• 62 - Alice (probably the first card in the set)
• 63 - Mad Hatter
• 66 - Queen of Hearts
• 67 - Tweedles
• 68 - Dodo
• 69 - King of Hearts
• 71 - Carpenter

I would speculate at a minimum the following:

• 64 - March Hare
• 65 - White Rabbit
• 70 - Walrus

Palés White Rabbit - Maybe?

I may have discovered the existence of a new Palés figure from Alice in Wonderland - the White Rabbit.

I came across this photo of what I originally thought was Rufus from the Rescuers, but now I'm not so sure.  Rufus did wear spectacles, but did not wear a waistcoat and bow-tie, he wore a scarf.  Until a reference book or catalog shows up, I guess we'll never know.

UPDATE:  Thanks to reader Oli for providing this much better photo of the White Rabbit in his collection!

Little Golden Book from Japan 1958

Third new discovery of the new year, and second new Little Golden Book, this time from Japan.  Ok, I guess I can't really call this a Little Golden Book, although it is the same size as a LGB.  It is pretty much its own creature.

The cover is taken from the same art as the Japanese herald I posted about here, which in turn was taken from the Little Nipper book cover that I have not blogged about yet (stay tuned!).

The back cover tells us the year, and that this was apparently #7 in a series of books.  I'm hoping one of my readers can translate the other six titles for me.  Pretty weird art for Dinah on the back cover...

The first 4 pages of art are indeed taken from Al Dempster art, although in the case of the title page it has been cut and pasted from a variety of sources.

After that, it is all new art, with a limited color palette of blue and orange.  Until page 21, when it switches to monochromatic blue (did they run out of money?  Or just orange ink?

I'm totally digging Anime Alice in this art, and the best is the last interior page, page 36, looks like Alice in Wonderland meets Speed Racer.  "Go Arice Go!"

 

UPDATE:  A reader did provide not only a translation of the back cover, but of EVERY page pictured!  As follows:

Exclusive Disney printing rights reserved

Shogakukan's (publisher's name) First-grader, Learning
Library

---

Volume 1 (April) Picture book and fairy tales
Volume 2 (May)     Word book
Volume 3 (June)    Disney Picture Book, Cinderella
Volume 4 (July)     Ako-chan and picture book
Volume 5 (August) Kuri-chan's summer vacation
Volume 6 (September) Group of Little Detectives
1958, Volume 7
Name, Published by Shogakukan, Tokyo

---

Alice in Wonderland
(This book is due to our publishing company's exclusive
contract with Disney Productions)
A Disney Picture Book

---

Alice went to the land of playing cards.
What will happen?
See page 28.

---

(Right page)
The Wondrous rabbit-hole
(Left page)
As Alice was playing, a white rabbit went into a
rabbit-hole.
"I'll go into it, too."
"It's a little room".

---

(Right page)
The Magic Cat
"Mr Caterpillar, I want to become large."
(Left page)
"Oh, he's gone."
"Here I am".
"If you eat the mushroom, you'll become large."

---

Color the picture
Color with your favorite colors.

---

Live Action Reference Photo A-SPEC-8 - Alice with Windex Boxes

I may be wrong, but I don't recall the sequence in the movie, or the book, where Alice is sitting in a chair waving Windex boxes over her head...

I have to say this is my favorite of all the live action reference photos that I have, simply because of the Windex boxes.  Classic.  I wish I could figure out what scene this is supposed to represent.

UPDATE:  As Major so eloquently put it, Orca FTW.  It is indeed from the mother bird sequence when Alice is shrinking back down to small size holding the mushroom pieces.

Marx White Rabbit Rolykin

And now for something completely different. This is called a Rolykin. The White Rabbit is the only Alice character to get one that I am aware of.

It is an inch high figure with a ball bearing embedded in the base, thus allowing it to roll around. Comes in an individual named character box.

I've also seen a blister package, but not with the White Rabbit.

I know they also made Batman characters and Daleks from Dr. Who.

UPDATE: Oh, and I forget to tell you, there is even a Rolykin playset with track like Hot Wheels. Pretty damn cool if you ask me, wish I had one.

Marx Alice Disneykin

Today begins a new series: The Marx Series. First up, the Alice First Series Disneykin.

The first series Disneykins are from 1961 and were available pretty much continuously until the early 1970s. Alice is one of 34 different Disney characters in that series, and she came in three different box variations: the blue 'candy' box you see above, and the white box below.

The third variation is a pink window box, but I have not seen the Alice. Only 32 of the 34 first series figures came that way, in 4 collections of 8 figures; Alice is in collection 4.

The Alice Disneykin is very small, just over 1 1/4 inches tall. I have not figured out if the white box figure always had a green base like we see here, usually the Alice 'kin has a white base. There are also a wide variety of unpainted and oddly painted variations out there. Lots of the unpainted figures are from Mexico or South America. The variation below with the red dress is most likely from Germany or Holland as we'll see later.

If you are interested in Disneykins or other Disney Marx figures, I highly recommend Abby Weissman's excellent site. He has a wealth of information and an amazing collection of just about everything!

UPDATE: I have finally seen the pink box variation.

Hudson Car Commercial Original Drawings

Boy was I excited to get this. This a set of original drawings for one of the Hudson car commercials I blogged about here. While these drawings are not from that specific commercial, they are clearly of the same style, so there must be at least one other commercial out there somewhere.

I acquired these from Howard Lowery's auction site, I highly recommend it.

UPDATE:  I've recently discovered that the artist on these was Tom Oreb.

Spanish Cheshire Cat Figure

Next in the What Are They and Where Do They Come From series is this Chesire Cat, from the same unknown Spanish set as yesterday's King of Hearts figure.

As with the King, his name is incised on the back, Gato de los Deseos, which seems to translate to 'cat of desires'...sounds pretty kinky to me.

If anyone out there has information on this set or manufacturer, I would love to hear from you!

UPDATE: This company has now been identified as Palés, and they are from 1969-1984.

UPDATE 2:  Reader Oli has sent this photo of a color variant in his collection.  Thanks Oli!

Spanish King of Hearts Figure

This post begins a series of unknown figures - at least to me. First up, this King of Hearts from Spain.

He's about 5 inches tall, and has his name incised on the back - Rey de Corazones.

When I first saw a picture of this I assumed it was a knock-off, but when I actually got one I discovered that it has a Disney copyright on the bottom. I am most curious to know more about this company and what all they produced. 'Productions' copyright puts this prior to 1986, but I'm guessing 1970s, probably coinciding with the '74 re-release.

UPDATE: This company has now been identified as Palés, and they are from 1969-1984.

German Alice im Wunderland - ein Großes Disney-Bücher

This lovely German book is a departure from the standard set of books we've seen before from overseas. Usually European publishers would simply re-publish the set of American books in the local language as we saw with the Little Golden Book, Big Golden Books, and Cozy Corner book.

This book does not follow that pattern. If fact, Germany only re-published two of the three Little Golden Books, and left the other two American books alone. This book is from the series of "Great Disney Books" or so Google Translate tells me. It was published in 1952 and was originally issued with a dust jacket as seen here. The book is fairly scarce on its own, but the dust jacket is rarely found. It took me 18 years to find a copy with a dust a jacket.

Some of the illustrations in this book are fantastic, like the two page flowers above and the caterpillar below. There are also some odd Alices in here as well...

There are some variants to this book, and you know I love variants! As I said previously it was first published in 1952, but there appear to be two variants from that year. The first is identified by the name of the publisher being hyphenated (seen here on the cover without its dust jacket)

and by the text on the copyright page.

Note that the final line is in English and says "Printed in Germany by K. G. Lohse Frankfurt am Main".

The second variant is identified by the publisher name not being hyphenated

and by the text on its copyright page.

Note that it is missing the final line and that the first line is in a different font or at least a different font weight.


While I'm sure these differences are ultimately meaningless, they bug the crap out of me. Why are these differences even present? Which one is truly the first edition? Was one printed specifically for Germany and the other printed for other German-speaking countries? Why do I even care?!

The final variant is a later printing, from 1967. It is easily identifed in several ways. First and most obvious is the spine is a yellow cloth rather than a red cloth. Second, the cover is glossy - or at least glossier - than the 1952 edition. Third, the name of the publisher has changed to Pestalozzi Verlag, which sounds vaguely Italian.

And finally, the back cover is completely different. On the 1952 edition the front and back covers are the same, but on the 1967 edition the back cover is bright red with the Walrus and the Carpenter peering down at the Oysters.

Whew. That was a lot longer post than I had originally intended... guess I'm a little too wrapped up in the details...

UPDATE: by request, some additional pages...