Phineas Head

Greeting Foolish Mortals!
After a short break, I'm glad to be back and with a prize of a collectible! If only it were mine!

My good friend Guy has an amazing Haunted Mansion collection, but the pièce de résistance is this fantastic Phineas head from the Haunted Mansion attraction itself!



Here's how Guy scored this amazing piece...
"About 1990 or so, a man who worked in props in the film industry had acquired a real robot ghost head of Phineas from the Anaheim DL HM. He offered to sell it to me for the unbelievable price of $60.00!! I couldn't believe it! I don't think he realized how special this item was. Fortunately, I did. So it is now one of my most prized pieces in my ever growing collection."


Some people have all the luck! Well, we're lucky enough to have these photos! Thanks Guy! This is the closest to an authentic HHG prop some of us will ever get!





Happy New Year Everyone!

I love fanmade!

Haunted Mansion fans are the best. We love all aspects of the ride, from the music and art, to the details in the furniture, walls, and haunted halls. If there is a way for us to capture a piece of it, or recreate it...we're all over it! For some of us, its not enough to have a few Haunted Mansion trinkets scattered around the house; we have to recreate the house, or rather the mansion!

Do I dare admit, my husband and I are just those kind of people? Our collection started in the living room, with just a few items. In fact, we considered them to be seasonal and only brought them out for Halloween. It was my friend, Nat, who suggested that I leave my collection out all year long. So, yeah... I blame her! LOL In a few short years, the collection has taken the over the house. It was also my dear friend Natalie who painstakingly drew and hand cut several stencils to recreate the Rolly Crump inspired Demon Eyes wallpaper in the Corridor of Doors. And it is my favorite of the fanmades!!



Its a work in progress, but I have made progress and just as soon as its finished, I'll be posting more pics.

**BUT WAIT**

I found two more fanmade items that Natalie made that I also just LOVE!



Haunted Mansion slippers!!! I love how she pays attention to details, down to the little bat on the bow. I'm so glad the weather is getting cooler, so I can pull these out of the closet and wear them!

And here is the other amazing piece she made us for Christmas one year. Its a faux stain glass piece and this picture just doesn't do it justice. Unfortunately I don't have access to all my pictures at the moment, so I had to pull this from my photobucket account.

Don Post Hitchhiking Ghost Masks

Originally selling for around $25.00 a piece, these highly sought after masks can easily sell for $100.00 or more per piece on ebay, depending on their quality, of course. I'm not entirely sure when Disneyland started selling Don Post Hitchhiking Ghost masks. Chef, owner and creator of doombuggies.com has a Don Post Haunted Mansion Caretaker mask circa 1975 listed in the collectibles section. (I would love to get my hands on one!) My HHG masks have a copyright date of 1992. Seeing how the inherit nature of latex is to decompose when exposed to the elements, as time goes on, these masks will become harder and harder to find.

Having a little fun with the camera here...

Haunted Mansion Plant List

Being the avid gardener that I am, I'm seriously fond of this post. Again, not a collectible, but rather some invaluable info worth sharing. A couple of years ago, a good friend of mine, Ghost Relations Dept, suggested that I ask to see the plant list for the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. I didn't think that the CM's would be so accommodating, but not only did I get to see the list, they made me copies! I tried to keep them from getting so crumpled while running around the park. As you can see, I wasn't very successful. But, if you have a green thumb, or just love the landscaping at the Haunted Mansion, this is an interesting document to check out! Did you catch the mention of the Blood Family and the Pirate Bride as part of the original back story to the mansion? Great stuff!

Grim Grinning Ghost

Ok, so I know this isn't a collectible, but I just had to share this wonderful Halloween treat with everybody! Last weekend I captured the Dapper Dans singing Grim Grinning Ghost at Disneyland.

These guys are fantastic. I just love this rendition.



Happy Halloween!

The Duelists

I was always fascinated by the two ginormous portraits in the Grand Ballroom of the Haunted Mansion. These two men, locked in an eternal battle, were my favorite characters in that room. So I was thrilled when Sam decided to use his legs as a canvas to showcase The Duelists.

I've seen quite a few Haunted Mansion tattoos, but I've never seen anything like this!



If you have a great Haunted Mansion tattoo, please send me a picture at hauntedmansioncollectibles@gmail.com! I would love to share it here.

oops, it IS a pirate ship!

So, after looking through my files for some info, I came across the price list for the 30th Anniversary Event, and I have to make a correction. It turns out that the ebay seller didn't mislabel the lenticular afterall! According to the list, the Limited Edition Large Lenticular is, in fact, named the Pirate Ship. See for yourself!





For years, I've heard fans refer to this piece as the Ghost Ship Lenticular and I doubt that anyone will start calling it by its true name anytime soon. Ghost Ship sounds better, anyway.
:)

I also just noticed that lenticular is spelled incorrectly...lol

Ghost Ship Lenticular

The story behind how we acquired this lenticular has to be my favorite. As some of you know, Sam loves lenticulars, I mean, really loves 'em! We had collected all of the other lenticulars made by Disney for the various events. This particular lenticular was captivating collectors and getting top dollar on ebay to the tune of $2400!! It seemed this lenticular had suddenly become everyone's holy grail and Sam was no exception. He was searching ebay daily, almost hourly for newly listed items.

After seeing how often sellers were mislabeling collector items, Sam decided to broaden his search of 'Ghost Ship Lenticular' to 'Pirate Ship Lenticular'. Not too long after, low and behold, we were notified of a lenticular that had been misidentified but was indeed the ghost ship! We watched the auction like a hawk. So desperate were we for this piece, we contacted the seller, begging her to sell it to us, offering her as much $$$ as we had available on a credit card. Thankfully, she declined, saying that she enjoyed watching auctions, and had a feeling that this was going to fetch her the big bucks. Feeling defeated, we went back to daily checks, but noticed that the number of views wasn't rising that rapidly. We became hopeful again, that maybe, just maybe, other Haunted Mansion fans wouldn't catch wind of this auction. As the seconds slowly ticked away during the final minute of the auction, we placed our bid, and prepared to snipe if we had to. We both sat there holding our breath as we hit the refresh button over and over again. As that final second approached, the price never moved and suddenly, it was ours! Just like that and for half of what we had originally offered the seller! We couldn't believe our luck!

This piece was offered at the Haunted Mansion 30th Anniversary Event at Disneyland. It was labeled Limited Edition, and I had heard that only 75 ( or so) were made.

Reunited

For those uber fans of the Haunted Mansion, these next pieces are a match made in heaven!

In the fall of 2005, in honor of their 50th anniversary, Disneyland released the Hatbox Ghost big fig. This reincarnation of the elusive spirit, who briefly resided in the attic, caused quite a stir among Haunted Mansion fans, rekindled some rumors of his return to ride, and was even showcased in the special Halloween issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

A year later, the Attic Bride big fig made her appearance on the pages of the disneyshopping catalog, providing fans an opportunity to reunite, what many believe to be, the original couple of the Mansion.

Silhouettes

Sam and I picked up these silhouettes on Main Street in Disneyland. The artist who made the Haunted Mansion silhoutte managed to put in a doombuggy and a hidden mickey. See if you can spot 'em.

Haunted Mansion Magic

Did you know that Griffins in the Gallery (stretching room) are very sensitive? It's true, according to the "Magic from the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland" book. Circa 1970, this 59 page booklet comes with colored illustrations of characters from the Haunted Mansion ride, including Madame Leota (looking very much like Maleficent), the executioner, and the opera singers. There are several chapters, each dedicated to a specific genre: card magic, money magic, paper magic, mental magic, and handkechief magic. There is even a ventriloquist lesson! Phineas J. Pock is given credit for the introduction. A wonderful addition to any fan's collection!

Here's a picture of the crying griffin.


My friend, Guy the Ghoul, also a booklet titled "Magic from the Haunted Mansion". Notice that 'in Disneyland' is NOT part of the title. Everything else about the two booklets are identical, from what I can tell. I would love to know the secret behind that little mystery....

Welcome Foolish Mortals!

"Welcome, welcome, well....come in! " Thurl Ravenscroft muttered those words while recording for the famous Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. It was never used in the ride, but was released as part of the outtakes. And, while it may be super cheesy, I can't help but use that as my greeting whenever somebody new stops by our home. You see, my husband and I are monstrous Haunted Mansion fans and have been collecting memorabilia for almost 10 years now. What started out as a seasonal collection to add spooky atmosphere during Halloween has rapidly become a year-round way of life. What started out in one room has spread to every room in our 1700 square foot home.

I’ve always enjoyed seeing other collectors’ collections, and hearing their stories. I thought it was time to share ours.

This was the first piece to start the full time Haunted Mansion décor we live in. This large poster was purchased from eBay several years ago. Nat, a kindred spirit and fan/collector, suggested that it was possible to leave our collection up after Halloween. When I saw this re-creation of the attraction poster from Disneyland, I knew it would have a permanent place in our soon-to-be haunted corridors.