Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Yet Even More Vintage Mickey Mouse Pinbacks

Today I am sharing the last of my vintage Mickey Mouse (and friends) pinback buttons. 

Here are four smaller pins, an inch or less in diameter. The first two are nice early examples with "waving Mickey" poses. The third is from a set that featured various movie stars, and The Mouse was included along with the flesh-and-blood actors. The drawing resembles Mickey as he was seen on a number of British products, but I don't think that the button is from England. The fourth pin is apparently from Australia… I've seen color variations of "Pick-Me-Up" pins (Hake's Americana says that Pick Me Up was some sort of sauce, possibly a spaghetti sauce). I think every one I've seen had at least some spotting.


Speaking of Australia, the Donald pinback is from down under… Parramatta is just outside of Sydney. The second pin is unusual, printed on cloth; I've seen color variations of this one - it seems to have been made to put on your felt beanie. The third pin is from a set given away with Donald Duck peanut butter. The fourth pin features good old Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, but this is from after he was taken away from Walt Disney; Walter Lantz over at Universal was making Oswald cartoons.


Now for some larger buttons, around 2 inches in diameter. The first example was supposedly worn by employees in music stores… I'd love to find a copy of this book to accompany the button! "Mickey Mouse: World Reporter" was a pin given out by Vicks cough syrup (bleah), and the Peter Pan pinback is another one that is rumored to have been worn by store employees.


And now for the final three! The example on the left is supposed to be one of the first Mickey Mouse pinbacks produced; the drawing of him is oddly stylized (as if Mickey wasn't stylized enough to begin with). In the middle you have a button with a fold-over tab for Mickey Mouse shoes. This one must be pretty rare, I don't see many of them. And lastly, we have a generic walkin' & wavin' Mickey in a scarce small size.


I hope you have enjoyed these vintage pinback buttons!

8 comments:

Nanook said...

All the pins are very nice. Special kudos for the "cloth" Mickey.

Thanks, Major.

K. Martinez said...

Interesting to see that the various pinbacks have "W.E. Disney", "W.D.P." or "Walt Disney Enterprises" on them. These are great Major. Thanks for sharing the last of your awesome pinback collection.

Pegleg Pete said...

Thanks for these – I've really enjoyed them. I especially like the 'Mickey Mouse – World Reporter' pin. Not sure what's going on with Peter Pan's mouth, though, in pin featuring him.

Major Pepperidge said...

Nanook, that is an unusual one… the only other pinback I can think of that is like it is a cloth one from the 1933 World's Fair for the log rollers exhibit.

K. Martinez, a number of early toys include Walt's middle initial… I wonder if Walt just liked the sound of it, like Cecil B. DeMille?

Pegleg Pete, it looks like they drew the mouth of some other character on Peter Pan. Either that or he just ate a big bowl of spaghetti.

Melissa said...

I don't recall ever seeing a Mickey with ears as small as the third one in the first picture. I can't remember seeing an Oswald pin, either! Maybe Oswald stole some of Mickey's ears to extend his own, the little scamp.

I'd love to have that songbook, too. I be it has all the baggage arias Dumbo keeps in his trunk. Peter Pan looks pretty alarmed at the yellow rays emanating from the seat of his tights, Can't say I blame him. "Tink? Where are you, Tink?"

Wow, holy German Expressionist Mickey! Die Maus des Dr. Caligari! Walkin' & Wavin' Mickey always looks like Pizza Waiter Mickey to me.

It's sad to see the last of the pins, but it was a great bunch to go out on. Do you have them all displayed somewhere, or are they kept put away? 'cause the full display would make a neat picture to see. Thanks so much for sharing them, Major!



Anonymous said...

Wow, that folded tab pin is not folded, pristine.

How cool is that?

Major, these are fun and make me regret the ones that passed through my younger hands without appreciation.

JG

Major Pepperidge said...

Melissa, I've never understood why the British Mickey would look slightly different than the American version, but sometimes he has little "whiskers" and other times he has a sort of 5 o'clock shadow. And as you noticed, his ears are wrong. I think I've seen one other old Oswald pinback, but even it might be post-Disney. The Caligari-Mickey is an odd one, it's as if it was drawn by somebody who had only had Mickey described to him. I don't have the pins displayed, though they are in nice glass-topped Riker display boxes.

JG< unfortunately the Mickey Mouse Shoes tab has been folded over… it was straightened out pretty well, but you can see the warping where it was bent.

Matt said...

Love the pinbacks. Clearly you need more so you can write some more blog posts about pinbacks :-)