The Final Four Goebel Figures - DIS 85 Dinah

Third in the Final Four is DIS 85.

This has got to be the most innocuous figure I've ever seen from Goebel, with the possible exception of the frog from the Bambi series.  I wrote a series of extensive posts on the question of 'is this Dinah' here and here, take a look at those for more details on why I believe this is indeed Dinah.  Again why two different Dinahs?

This photo illustrate a unique feature of the Final Four:  the Goebel Archive Tag.  What's that you may ask?  I'll tell you.

As some of you may recall, back in 2008 Goebel announced that they were closing and ceasing production.  They later sold off the Hummel division and the remainder of Goebel was purchased and both Hummel and Goebel continue to produce gift items, although independently.  But, as a result of the split and sale, the original factory, and the accompanying archive of figures, was sold off.  And these figures came from that sale.

Each figure from the archive is identified with one of these small metal tags or plombe (feels like aluminum), and to my knowledge there was only one of each figure in the archive, and perhaps not every figure was represented.  Luckily for me the four I needed were indeed in the archive!  The word 'archivmuster' loosely translates to 'archive specimen' (or sample or model), essentially the file copy of the figure.  The reverse says 'W. Goebel Oeslau', which was the name of the company and its location at the time the figures were made.

Several very rare figures from the archive have surfaced on eBay in the past 5 months, and I'm sure there are more to come.  It may be that for some of the rarer figures, the archive example may be the only known example.

The Final Four Goebel Figures - DIS 108 Dodo Ashtray

The first of the Final Four is DIS 108, the Dodo ashtray.

As with the previously posted DIS 106, this is merely the Dodo figure from DIS 66 applied to a standard ashtray base.  This same base was used on many different ashtrays in the Goebel line.  Gotta love the 1950s when everybody smoked, when a Disney-themed ashtray was a good idea.

The Final Four Goebel Figures - DIS 71 Dodo Smoker Ashtray

Last but not least, the fourth figure from the Final Four, DIS 71 (I saved it for last because it is my favorite).

The parade of ashtrays continues with our friend the Dodo, this time modeled as a figural 'smoker' ashtray.  This is cool because the cigarette would rest on his tail, and the lit end would extend into the body of the Dodo, and the smoke would rise and come out of his pipe!  That is a genius design.  Too bad I don't smoke.  Goebel made several different 'smoker' ashtrays, but this is by far the coolest, and apparently the rarest too!

The Final Four Goebel Figures - DIS 107 Tweedledee & Tweedledum Ashtray

Second of the Final Four, DIS 107.

As with both DIS 106 and DIS 108, this is just the DIS 65 figure on the generic ashtray base.  While I understand that smoking was extremely prevalent at the time, I fail to see the need for so many different ashtrays, and especially this one.  With all the other ashtrays in this set, the character is a smoker, but no so with these two.  Nit picky to be sure, but just sayin'

23 Years in the Making

Yesterday I received a package that completed a 23 year collecting odyssey.  I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would one day be able to say this:  I have completed the Alice Wonderland set of Goebel figures! <insert fanfare music here>

It was a long road, that started when I found a copy of this Collector's Showcase magazine.

In the dark ages, before the World Wide Web, there were these constructions of paper issued on a periodic basis called 'magazines', and they covered a wide variety of topics.  This particular magazine was all about collecting, and this issue had a very interesting article.

This article was all about the Walt Disney Studio archive, and talked about what kinds of things the archive had with a few illustrations, including this one

This was my first image of an Alice in Wonderland Goebel figure.  And the hunt was on.

I have previously posted a large article on the Goebel figures here, I encourage you to read it.  Stay tuned over the next few days as I reveal the Final Four.

Goodbye 2012 - The Year in Review

It's been quite the topsy-turvy year for us here at the Vintage Disney Alice blog.  The real world made itself know in several ways.  There was work, travel, illness, and of course new acquisition!  Here is a sampling of what we saw this year.

Mickey Mouse Weekly issues from England

Zaccagnini figures from Italy

The Final Four Goebel figures

and lots of David Hall story art (just a little more to come)

and a few other odds and ends.  I hope to be a little more regular in my posting in 2013.  Wishing all my faithful readers a prosperous new year.

Goebel DIS 084 Dinah - Color Sample (!)

It has been quite some time since I've posted here, and as the world has almost COMPLETELY changed it is not surprising.  But, during these crazy times I have still been on the lookout for new additions to the Tulgey Wood, and boy did I find a doozy.

This is the (already super rare) Goebel Dinah figure (DIS 084), but in test colors that are actually film correct!  That's right, the Goebel company actually create color samples of the Dinah figure in the correct colors, submitted them to Disney, and were rejected in favor of the incorrect black color.  One can only assume that at the time the color had not changed, or that the person in charge of approving these things did not know that the colors had changed and was relying on previously distributed color guides.  You can see my previous extensive post on the production version of this figure here.

The key to understanding this piece is the "MM" painted on Dinah's chest.  MM is the abbreviation Goebel used for "Malmuster", which translates (loosely) to Color Sample.

Note that this is a production ready piece, complete with standard Goebel markings on the underside of the figure.

It is unclear exactly how many of these kinds of color samples were made, presumably not very many.  They do turn up from time to time, but this is the first I've seen from the Alice set, and perhaps even from the Disney set as a whole - at least of the vintage 206 figures.

While it is unclear exactly what the origin of this piece is, it was included in a lot of other Goebels, some of which had the archive tag (plombe) attached, which leads me to believe this was part of the massive Goebel archive sale that took place in Germany back in early 2012 - which was the source of the Final Four of my collection.

Many thanks go to my friend Alfred Stumböck for his invaluable assistance in figuring out exactly what this figure is.

Goebel DIS 84 - Dinah

DIS 84 is Dinah. I hear you saying “hey Matt, Dinah is not a black cat, she's an orange cat, and what’s that thing on her head?” I’m glad you asked.

Years ago when I first studied the TOMART books ('cause that's just how much of a geek I am), I couldn’t figure out which characters DIS 84 and 85 were, since at that time no one had pictures of most of the figures nor the catalog pages (at least not in the US). Most of the figures listed had a best guess as to the character represented, but not those two figures. Based on the description “sitting cat with flower on head”, I made a guess that DIS 84 was Dinah. As you may recall, in the film Alice places a daisy chain on Dinah’s head, so it seemed a reasonable guess.

Fast forward 13 years, and the German Goebel book was released, with pictures of 84 (and 85). Still, no convincing evidence as to which Disney cat this was supposed to be, although both are pictured on the Alice in Wonderland page (but then again, so is a Donald ashtray).

As I’ve said in previous posts, the studio released stills of character designs to licensees prior to the release of the film. Sometimes the pre-production art does not match the final design. This is one such case. This is a licensee still of a test cel setup of Alice, Dinah, and the Sister from the final scene of the film. You’ll notice that Dinah is black, not orange.

This is a detail of Alice and Dinah from the Big Golden Book by Al Dempster. Again, Dinah is black, AND Alice is holding a daisy over Dinah’s head.

But the best and most compelling evidence is to be taken from the Dell Four Color comic book adaptation (FC 331). On the first page of the story there is this panel which is pretty much the exact representation of Dinah as modeled in the figure, right down to the color of the flower.

I don't know if there was additional licensee art available that has this image, but it seems an unlikely coincidence that this image and the figure resemble each other so much. And as you'll see in the next post, the "coincidence" extends even further.

UPDATE: The plot thickens. A kind reader forwarded this image of a Figaro model sheet from 1939 for Pinocchio.

Looks like the early designs for Dinah were lifted directly from this Figaro model sheet. Take a look at this side by side comparison and tell me we don't have conclusive evidence now.


UPDATE #2: I recently discovered that in an Italian book (see this post) there is another rendering of Dinah that looks just like the above. Wonder how many more will be uncovered...