Vira Birthday Card 5X-415-WD

The last of the birthday cards, this time with Alice and a large red teapot.

Inside has the whole gang at a fabulous birthday tea party (I wonder if they made UnBirthday Cards, those would be pretty great).

Vira Birthday Card 5X-414-WD

Pretty gloomy color scheme for a birthday card.

This card features the Caterpillar (my fave) as well as the King and Queen of Hearts, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and of course Alice herself.

Vira Birthday Card 5X-413-WD

This one comes compliments of another collector as I do not have it in my collection. For those of you out there that may have one - hint, hint :)

I had a feeling that 413 was also a birthday card, as all the get well cards were numerically after all the birthday cards...

Vira Birthday Card 5X-412-WD

Ok, so I can't resist a series, and it appears it only takes two similar posts to push me over the edge.

Look who we have here, our old friend Figaro as Dinah (for LOTS of detail on her, look at a previous post here, with other examples here and here).

This was the first of these cards I came across, and over the years it seems to be the most common of them all, along with the Get Well version which is coming up in a couple of posts from now.

Interior art here is a little odd, there is just something not right about the way Alice looks, a little zombie-like, and her left hand looks like it has a dew claw instead of a thumb...

Vira Belated Birthday Card 5X-411-WD

Ok, so you knew this one had to be coming, after all, what Alice in Wonderland greeting card line would be complete without the White Rabbit exclaiming "I'm Late"?

So the concept is truly inspired and the art is very nice as usual...

but the text just blows..."I'm awful sappy"?! Ugh.

Vira Birthday Card 5X-410-WD

As I'm still operating in birthday mode, I thought I'd post a vintage birthday card. This is one of several greeting cards made by a company called The Vira Corporation of Mamaroneck, NY around the time of the film's release. They made both birthday cards and get well cards in a number of styles with really well done art.

This one is (I think) the first of the Alice cards, at least it is the first numerically of the cards I have. I don't know how many they made, but I have 9 cards that run in sequence from 410-420 with two missing numbers (413, 419). I know for sure there is at least one card I do not have (413), and probably there is another for the remaining missing number. And of course their could be numbers above and below the range as well...

This one is different from your standard birthday card in that the card opens the opposite direction, so that the card is tall and skinny, very unusual.

I love the fact that they used they used the film's logo on the back to identify this as an Alice Inspired card.

White Rabbit Story / Layout Drawing

This is a great little drawing, a pre-production story or layout drawing of the White Rabbit struggling with an uncooperative croquet mallet.

I always like finding these drawings with studio notations on them, gives them more of a feel of a true working drawing. This particular drawing has some aging on the right side, and someone at one time decided to clean their brush on it, but the image is unaffected and quite entertaining.

Happy Halloween Alice! - Pictorial Review Oct. 29, 1950

The first time I saw this I just about died. This piece of Alice ephemera has me written all over it. You see, my birthday is today, Halloween, and what better gift for me than an obscure piece of vintage Alice paper with a Halloween theme.

What this is, is a newspaper supplement from 1950 (nearly a full year before the film's release) called Pictorial Review, dated October 29th, 1950. Pictorial review is one of several newspaper supplements of the time that appeared in (usually) the Sunday paper. These kind of supplements still exist today, but I don't think this particular one does.

I'd love to find the original art on this...perhaps for my birthday next year.

RCA Victor Boston Pops Medley - Side B

By popular demand, here is Side B of the Boston Pops medley

RCA Victor Storyteller - Mexico

As we saw in the previous 3 posts, the US RCA storyteller 45s were quite extensive, each one adapting a segment of the film. Today we have the Mexican version of the RCA storyteller, and it adapts the entire film on one 45 rather than spread out over three. Also, there is no book or illustrations with it, just the bizarre 2-color cardboard sleeve.



Side A


Side B

RCA Victor Storyteller Single WY-436 - Alice and the Trial

Third part of the adaptation is Alice and the Trial.

Again, very nice art on the sleeve illustrating the story.


Take a listen!

Side A


Side B

RCA Victor Storyteller Single WY-435 - Alice and the Mad Tea Party

The second of the three story singles is Alice and the Mad Tea Party. For some reason I had a very difficult time acquiring this particular record for my collection, it was the last one of the three I found, and took me about 10 years to get it!

I really like the art on these sleeves, wish I knew who did it.

Take a listen!

Side A


Side B

RCA Victor Storyteller Single WY-434 - Alice and the White Rabbit

As you may (or may not) recall from this post, RCA put out a lot of records in a lot of formats for the Alice in Wonderland release. This is one of three storyteller singles, Alice and the White Rabbit, WY-434.

Check out that cover, our old friend Figaro-as-Dinah makes another appearance.

The storyteller singles came in two speeds, 45 (WY prefix) and 78 (Y prefix). This is the 45, and all the 45s were this cool transparent yellow vinyl (the transparent quality does not show up well in this scan).

The gatefold sleeve opens up to some pretty nice art illustrating the story segments told on this single, Alice meeting the White Rabbit, and entering Wonderland. Love those red-striped stockings!

These singles have some of the original cast from the film recreating their roles, but the dialog is not lifted from the soundtrack, these were all new recordings. Hard to imagine that they would go to the expense to re-record dialog...something I'm sure they would never do now, unless they used alternate cast. Some of the alternate cast on THIS recording is ... interesting. I must say that I find the Doorknob particularly annoying ... but I love the name of the vocal quartet - Three Beaus and a Peep! Quintessentially 1950s!

Take a listen!

Side A


Side B

Big Golden Book - Australia

Another interesting foreign edition of the Big Golden Book, this time from Australia. At first glance (and a quick one at that) this also looks like an early US edition, except for one thing.

The 'gold' highlights on this cover are not really gold, or rather they are not an applied metallic highlight. On the US (and Dutch) editions the highlights are actually metallic gold, but here on this Australian edition, they are merely gold colored, they are not metallic but just a golden color, like a goldenrod color, and part of the printed paper cover, not applied. Except for that one very odd difference, the rest of the book is identical to the first printing of the US edition, down to the A100100 on the inside front cover. Published by Golden Press Sydney.

Big Golden Book - Netherlands

Continuing with our foreign Big Golden Book editions, we come to one of the most interesting of them all, the Dutch version.

This version is from 1955, and at first glance looks to be an early US edition since the title in Dutch is the same as in English and the cover has the same gold highlights. But, the Dutch apparently really liked the whole 'gold highlighting' motif, because they continued it on every interior page.

It was quite surprising when I first saw this, seeming a bit much, but has acquired a certain charm for me in years since.

Big Golden Book - England

As with the Little Golden Books and the Cozy Corner book, the Big Golden Book was published in a number of countries. Some were almost identical to the US versions with similar covers, but in this instance new cover art was created. This edition by Collins is softcover and smaller than a standard Big Golden Book, with fantastic new cover art, but the interiors are identical to the US.

To the best of my knowledge this is a first printing coincident with the original release of the film, but as there is no printing information within, I cannot be certain.

Big Golden Book - EBF Big Story Book Edition

Who here remembers filmstrips in school? It was a staple of my elementary education. This next edition was part of a large filmstrip set that included 8 filmstrips of popular Disney movies, along with the corresponding 8 Magic Mirror albums, and 8 story books like this one.

The set was put out by Encyclopedia Britannica Films (EBF). It is difficult to find the complete set, and quite frankly I'm not sure there is anyone other than me that would really be interested in it. The book is a rebound Unbreakable Binding edition, complete with funky endpapers. This one happens to be a C printing. Truly uninspiring cover, but the line art of Alice is quite nice.

Big Golden Book - Goldencraft Edition

Western Publishing (aka Golden Press, aka Simon and Schuster, aka Dell, etc etc) made a habit of offering their Disney books to schools and libraries with more durable bindings, that could handle more wear and tear than the books would typically encounter in a private home. These special editions were called Goldencraft Editions. Below is the Goldencraft Edition of the first printing of the Alice Big Golden Book.


It has all the first printing points of the standard edition except the gold highlights (not possible because of the special binding) including the floral borders and the A100100. The Goldencraft Editions seem to have been offered throughout the print run of the book, but only the first printings have this nice cover with a vignette of the standard edition cover.

The back cover has this cool logo for the Goldencraft Edition which shows children entering a what is presumably a school. These editions are difficult to come by as they would have only been distributed to schools or libraries, so only via some sort of library sale would these ever see the light of day ... or perhaps someone 'forgot' to return it ... it has been known to happen.

UPDATE: Steve Santi in his excellent reference book on Golden Books identifies this as a Series Three Goldencraft book, which would be the first Goldencraft version available for this title. Series Three bindings were produced from around 1950-1959.

Big Golden Book - Unbreakable Binding Edition

The second variant of the Alice in Wonderland Big Golden Book is what as known as the 'Unbreakable Binding' variant, due to the fact that that phrase is printed on the price sticker (on those copies that retain the sticker).

This is a second printing, or "B" printing. Unbreakable binding editions are about the same size as a standard edition, but the construction of the book makes it look like a very large Little Golden Book, with the hard cardboard covers that are trimmed even with the pages, and the gold foil spine, just like their Little cousins.

The end papers of these editions are wild, with lots of red and yellow flower-like things on a white background. The printing information is a little odd too, it is a single letter, just like a Little Golden Book, and it can be located in one of two areas. The first is on the last page near the gutter at bottom right, just like a Little Golden Book.

The second is just like the standard edition, on the third page, which reprints the endpapers of the standard edition, in the same location, to the left of the baby oysters.

I'm not exactly sure of the dates of this edition, but my guess is that it is much later than the standard edition. This "B" copy here has a Golden Press imprint, and I have a "C" copy that has a gift inscription dated 1964.

Big Golden Book - First Printing Standard Edition

The Big Golden Book for Alice in Wonderland was in print for a bazillion years, 30 years at least since earliest printings are from 1951 and I have a 35th printing from 1980. With all those printings over all those years, it can be very difficult to figure out which printing you have, since the earlier printings don't actually say 'first printing', and all have a 1951 copyright date.

So how do you tell? Follow along with me, it is pretty simple. Pictured above is a first print standard edition (there are 4 editions of the Big Golden Book for Alice, although 2 are variations of the other 2). There is an easy way to tell if you have an early printing just at a glance. The first TWO printings have gold highlights on the cover, making it instantly obvious that you have an early printing.

Secondly, the interior pages on early printings have this funky floral border. Also, the stock number (located at the top of the spine) for the first 7 printings was 3 digits (426), and afterwards it was 5 digits (10426). Additionally, the imprint for the early printings is Simon and Schuster, whereas for printings as early as 7th (G) the imprint changes to Golden Press. Early printings also have fully illustrated endpapers, in fact the same art used as the backdrop for the Whitman Stand-Up Figures set (stay tuned for a future post) whereas later printings have plain white endpapers.

And finally, although only useful if you have several various printings side by side, the earlier printings are taller, a fact that remains true throughout the print run: the taller the book, the earlier the printing.

But, the only sure fire way to determine if you have a first printing or not is to look in the lower left hand corner of the inside front cover, and you'll see printed just to the left of the baby oysters the text A100100. The 'A' is the printing (A = first, B = second, etc), and the 100100 is the price in cents twice ($1). The last printing to use the code was the thirteenth printing (M). Beginning with the fourteenth printing, the print information was located at the bottom of the title page and lists printing number and year - e.g. Fourteenth Printing 1968.