Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

I moved into a house in Orange back in 1970. And the lady who sold me the house had these up in the attic. And her husband had worked for Disneyland during the construction of Disneyland, and these were drawings that he was given to use for the actual construction. He's one of the carpenters that worked on the buildings. They were just in a box in the attic. I dug them out, and I said, "Is this something you want?" She goes, "No, no, no, you can have them. It's fine."

APPRAISER

So they came with the house?

GUEST

They came with the house, yeah.

APPRAISER

So how many do you have?

GUEST

I think about 15 all together.

APPRAISER

Wow, so you brought two.

GUEST

We brought two, we have different sizes-- small ones. And some of them had the plastic, you know, sheets where there were two layers put over it.

APPRAISER

And are they all kind of building elevations or...

GUEST

Well, they're booths, and then the buildings, and then Mr. Toad's Wild Ride was a little more different... they're different shapes and sizes, but same concept.

APPRAISER

I got really excited when I saw these because they're so bright and colorful and cheery. Yeah. And they had a really talented staff of people at Disney who knew how to make things look appealing. So that's... there's a reason that they're so visually engaging. What's really interesting is these are from Fantasyland. So they're early. We can date these to the early '50s because they were in construction at that time with the park opening in 1955.

GUEST

Yes.

APPRAISER

So I would guess that this being Fantasyland, it's probably '53, '54. And these are not original drawings. I mean they're architectural elevations, so it was done in a reproductive process. However, they are painted.

GUEST

Yeah.

APPRAISER

And so, these are obviously showing the carpenters what colors go where to direct them in the construction. Which is really fantastic, and vintage Disneyland material is extraordinarily hot right now.

GUEST

Oh.

APPRAISER

And this is even better because it's specific to the construction, and we know it was used on site because this is my favorite part. I mean at the time, I'm sure whoever did this maybe was yelled at for sticking their paint can on it, but that's fantastic for a collector because we know that he used this on site, and there went the paint can. There's a lot of hand notations on it. I think they're pretty fantastic, they're striking. Some things like this do come up-- elevation drawings for different aspects of Disneyland. And for these specifically-- the Peter Pan ride and the Mickey Mouse Theater-- at auction, I would expect these to sell between $3,000 and $5,000 apiece.

GUEST

Whoa. (laughs) That surprises me, I didn't have any idea.

APPRAISER

Being so early, and Fantasyland being so colorful like a carnival, they have a lot of wall power.