Friday, August 11, 2017

Vintage Ceramic Figurines from Japan

In the early days of Disneyland, many of the collectible figurines that were sold in the park's gift shops were produced by California-based Hagen-Renaker (see earlier Archive entry). Yet, by the 1960s, more and more pieces were being imported from Japan. The glazed ceramic figures were all hand-painted.

This Japanese set of eight figurines dates from the 1960s. Snow White measures 7.25" tall; the dwarfs between 4.5" to 4.75". Original tag and boxes.




Images via Hake's.


In another vintage set, Snow White is 5.5" tall and the dwarfs about 2.25" to 2.75". Some are stamped "Disney" and "Japan" on the bottom, others are unmarked. All of the dwarfs have a foil label with their name.






3 comments:

  1. My brother and I had the Doc and Dopey from that first set. We also had a Snow White that was different from the one pictured. She was positioned as if she were sitting on the ground, which made that figurine just about the same height as the Dwarfs. These sat on a shelf in our bedroom, but unfortunately, Snow White and Dopey were broken beyond repair and were tossed out. I still have the Doc figurine. His feet were broken off at some point, but they were glued back on and he survived.

    That second set is identical to the Snow White and Seven Dwarf figurines that were sold at Disneyland in the seventies and eighties!

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  2. Ooops! I see that you did mention that both of these sets were sold at Disneyland!

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  3. It's very cool that you had some of these Tokyo and that you still have Doc. I'll have to look for the sitting SW.

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