1955 Disneyland General Admission Ticket — Serial #000003

Here’s Vintage Disneyland Ticket if ever there was one! ScottDisney, a friend and contributor to the blog has decided to sell one of his very rare tickets. You can view the eBay listing "1955 Disneyland Opening Day Ticket — Serial #000003" here (link). In the spirit of full blogger disclosure; I am in no way connected to this auction and will not profit from it, but I might bid on it!





A potential bidder asked if there is proof that this ticket is from July 18, 1955. That’s a pretty fair question given the rarity of such an item. Of course it would be difficult if not impossible to prove with certainty that this ticket is from July 18, 1955. ScottDisney offers this answer as to the lower serial number and the possibility of it being repeated as some individual attraction tickets may have been; “it is my understanding that Disneyland kept ‘stricter’ records of the admission tickets rather than the ride tickets”.





I’ll offer up a couple of supporting facts on the July 18, 1955 premise and then please feel free to comment on your thoughts.

First up, Roy O. Disney’s Ticket Number 000001 (thanks for the photo Daveland). Ticket number 000001 is generally believed to have been pre-purchased by Roy O. Disney on July 18, 1955 (link). Roy’s ticket sure does look like ScottDisney’s ticket. Roy’s is from ticket booth number 2 (why not booth number 1?) and ScottDisney’s is from booth number 8.






Now is where it get’s interesting. Below is a scan/color photocopy of a page from the "ticket binder" that was once kept at Disneyland. From what I have deduced, the ticket binder was originally used to reference the various types of ticket media that could show up at the park. After 1982 it was updated and used to help identify/qualify/quantify the eligibility and value of the old tickets to "redeem" them towards a new Passport (link).

Check out the top center ticket, I think we have a match! Not just a similar ticket, but the exact same one. All you Sherlock Holmes out there do some comparisons, the color is off (Color copiers in the 90's were not so good) but you can tell by the staple holes and other unique characteristics that this is indeed the same ticket. So we know at least that ScottDisney's ticket was from Disneyland and its old!

The ticket binder page shows a 90¢ ticket as being "1st", however the 90¢ tickets came later after the Federal Admission taxes were repealed sometime in 1956 (link). Here you can see a 1955 flyer (link) where its $1 for general admission.





Is this ticket from July 18, 1955? I would guess more yes than no. It may have been "pulled" from booth #8 on July 18, 1955 for the sample book and hence never used (kind of like Roy's ticket #1). From what I have heard, the admission tickets (stub or ticket book type) were usually torn in half at the main gate, so any un-torn admission tickets must have never been used, making them all together pretty rare.

Passports to Disneyland - Spring 1977

This article from the Spring 1977 edition of the Disney News explains the new “Exclusive” Passport to Disneyland (available only to Magic Kingdom Club Members). The article refers to some vintage passports that were “brightly colored wrist ribbons” has anyone ever seen one of those?






Here are two unused passports from the first run in 1977, just think of those unrealized happy memories. These Passports were only good until May 31, 1977, so forget about using them in the busy summer months and you’ve only got 4 days to use them for the new Space Mountain.






The basic disclaimers are on the back. What if you have nowhere to tie the little string?






The 1977 passports are HUGE! As you can see here by 1978 they got the passport down to a more reasonable size. And they added a little brass grommet to prevent the string from tearing loose; I wonder how many complaints City Hall got with the first tickets “All I have left is this stupid sting!”






The cover to the Spring 1977 edition of the Disney News.






On page 18 you’ll find the prices for Disneyland and fun note about the up coming Space Mountain – is that Space Mountain font great or what?






A nice two page article about the La Boutique d’Or in New Orleans Square. Is this shop still there? With 35+ visits to Disneyland in the past 2 years you’d think I would know this!!






Artificial snow at Disneyland, like that’ll ever happen!






Possibly more than you ever wanted to know about the Disneyland Band.






“Ooo-la-la” Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, I remember waiting in line to see this in a theater that had only one screen, do they still have those?

Disneyland Ticket Flyer - June 1960

“Important” Here’s a great Disneyland (parking lot?) flyer from June 1960. This flyer is filled with the tons of details about the tickets books, the number of each lettered tickets they included and the 43 exciting adventures you can chose to enjoy.





Most of these “Important” flyers are small, tri-fold shirt pocket size on basic 20 pound paper. This 1960 flyer is huge, measuring 15 ¾” by 10” when fully open. It’s also on thick coated paper sort of like a birthday card.






Here’s closeup of the inside sections.






Who doesn’t love those little attraction drawings?






The inside back page is a hoot, it’s a “Special Message for Adults”. I wonder what qualifies an attraction as having “Adult Appeal”?






The back panel was blank except for this code. The date is pretty obvious, and I believe the 135M is for 135,000 copies.






How about a set of tickets to go with the flyer? Keen eyes will notice the “B” ticket is from June 1959 and does not completely match the flyer, the rest are June 1960. I can’t find a June 1960 “B” ticket, if anyone has one, please send me a scan.

A Trio of Mark Twain Tickets

Today let's take a look at a “Trio of Mark Twain Tickets” (say that fast five times in a row!). The Mark Twain is truly a functioning antique. There is a certain irony in the fact this 105 foot “replica” is getting older than the “old time” steamboat she represented when she was built in 1955.

From opening day individual tickets were sold for the Mark Twain. I don’t know when they stopped selling them. The Mark Twain was on the “D” ticket as early as 1956 (D ticket link) but I am pretty sure they sold these individual tickets thru at least 1957.

There were three colors that I am aware of, but there could be more. These are beautiful tickets, done in the same style as the early Disneyland Railroad tickets (RR ticket link). These realistic tickets must have added something special to the experience, too bad they don’t have a similar ticket today, even if just for a souvenir.

All three colors:








The backs; I could stare at Globe Ticket paper all day long…






From Jed’s blog “Vintage Disneyland Goodies” here is a day-one Mark Twain ticket with the purser’s check still attached - WOW!






And from “Stuff from the Park” here is an ultra rare shot of the Mark Twain ticket booth. I believe this booth was removed after the Columbia came online, but that’s just a guess. I have never seen a “Columbia” specific ticket - that would be insane!!!!





*** Just in - The Mark Twain on the River this morning around 11am.****



Wow, what a beautiful day at the park today!

Tiki Room Vintage Tickets and Music

Forty five years ago today Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room opened its doors and thrilled audiences for the very first time. Today let’s celebrate with a few vintage items.

First up is a pair of what I believe to be the original style of Tiki Room tickets from 1963. I have seen these for sale (rarely) for lots of money (too much) and they always state they are from 1963. They are not dated, but they do match the style of all the original 1963 Enchanted Tiki Room art work. Those of you that have been with the blog since the early days will recognize these from a prior post (link). These have been rescanned and hey, it’s a celebration so we get to see them again.






The back is not very interesting, consisting of just this:







Here is a rare ticket; this is from a “Magi-Pak” ticket book from February 1964. The ticket book contains 15 “Any Attraction” tickets, but since Walt’s Tiki Room was owned by him, not Disneyland, it required a separate ticket (like the ones above). This ticket book has 15 tickets, but one is special, it’s also good for the Tiki Room. The accounting on all of this must have been interesting. How much did “Disneyland” pay Walt to include this ticket in the book? It’s kind of like moving money from your left pocket to you right pocket!






How about some Vintage audio visual fun? “A Disneyland Record” presents songs from Walt Disney’s The Enchanted Tiki Rook. The cover is dated 1968. The 29¢ price was “blacked out”; I wonder what it was changed to?






The record itself is in fine shape for being 40 years old.





This must be the original sound track, it sure sounds fun. I broke it into two pieces, blog spot was not letting me load part two, check back later, I’ll try and update it.

Tomorrow; More Grad Nite? Sure, why not....

A couple from 1985

Today's simple post is a couple of passports from 1985. Boy the tickets sure got simple after the A thru E's went away in 1982. These were printed in April 1985.






"Senior Fun Pass" A $5.00 savings!






The cover of "Your Souvenir Guide 1985" 1st edition. Check back on Bonus Sunday for the entire Guide.





Here's a sneak peak at tomorrow's post, can you guess what year it's from?

Gift-Giver Extraordinaire - Guess the Prize

After watching the debut of the Disneyland TV Show last night, I stayed up late and watched the "Kraft Theatre", then "This is Your Life" with Ralph Edwards. So today's post is a light one.

As part of Disneyland's "30th Birthday Year" these Gift-Giver Extraordinaire tickets we given out, I am guessing you got one as you went thru the main gate. This ticket has not been "Scratched Off". Try and guess the prize. Check back later this afternoon, I will be "scratching off" the prize and posting the results. If you guess correct, I'll split it with you.*

From the back of the ticket, here is the list of possible prizes. Notice this contest is open to persons age 3 and above, what's a 3 year old gonna do with an 85' Buick?




For the Lawyers out there, here is the entire back of the ticket. *Notice the January 31, 1986 expiration date. If we split the prize, we might need a time machine to collect it.




Check back here later for the prize results.

UPDATE:

*********** What a surprise ***************

Well there's a fine "how do ya do"! Oh well, at least we got to see that high tech band printer font telling us "Sorry No Win"... Maybe we'll have better luck next time, I have a few more tickets.