Even Cast Members Get Left Out...

As I've posted here before, there have been many license plates that are produced specifically for cast members. These license plates are not available to the public except through auction sites like ebay, and sometimes through more esoteric channels (a friend of a friend of a friend knows a guy...). Some of these license plates are very highly sought after and the prices of these plates have soared into the hundreds of dollars on very regular occasions.

There are times when being a cast member isn't even enough. Disney has, on numerous occasions, gone even deeper and separated specific groups of cast members from the rest. These specific groups have, much to their good fortune, been the recipients of some very hard to find license plates. Who are these cast member groups? What makes them so special?

The groups that I am speaking of are the Opening Teams. Cast members who are in some way associated with the opening of a new resort, attraction, or even a park. Disney has established a history of producing Opening Team license plates which are distributed only to these cast members. This means a limited number are produced and distributed, oftentimes making these license plates more valuable than even other cast member plates. If you are a collector and you have to good fortune to run across one of these for a decent price, buy it, they don't show up very often.

Both sides of the story...

When Mickey's Philharmagic opened, It was anything but a normal 3-D show. It stands to reason then that the license plate associated with it should be anything but a normal license plate.


This marks the first time that Disney has continued the artwork onto the back side (using a backside) of the license plate. I truly hope they continue to try new things with these plates.

Early Variation...

As I've said before, Disney developed the habit of producing variant license plates very early on. Many of these variations have no real rhyme or reason as to why they were made except to put more plates on the market. Disney has no official standpoint on these variants, and since they're listed as general merchandise there is no completely accurate way to track them.

There is, however, at least one variant plate that was produced, whether intentionally or not, with some purpose behind it:





This license plate, which was produced for our nation's bicentennial, was produced with two different backing colors as well as variations in the red on the front of the plate. The red backed plate uses the same color red on the front while the aluminum backed plate is more of a pinkish shade on the front.

Unlike other variants, the differences in these two plates were because they were produced for two different parks. While I haven't been able to find out for sure which is which, I have been able to find that one plate was produced for Walt Disney World and one was for Disneyland in California. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure based on what I've found that the red back was issued in Florida. So far this is the only instance I have been able to find where a color variation can be used to denote the park of issue.

Outside the Parks...

When it comes to collecting Disney license plates, as with any other aspect of Disneyana, sometimes we have to look outside the parks to find our collectibles. When Disney started producing their license plates they didn't restrict themselves to only plates that pertained to their theme parks. Some plates were made to commemorate special events in the history of our nation:



Other plates were made to spotlight some of our favorite classic Disney characters:


Still others were made to remind us of some of our favorite types of characters:


One thing is for sure. No matter what the subject matter Disney does a terrific job of reminding us that the parks and resorts are not the only stars in the Disney galaxy!

SSSSmokin'...

If talk of tobacco use bothers you then you may want to skip this post and check back in a couple of days.

Remember when one could actually buy cigarettes right on Main Street U.S.A.? Prior to its closing in 1985, and its subsequent move across the street to a tiny corner of the Smucker's store, there was actually an entire store right on Main Street devoted almost completely to the sale of tobacco products. It was called "Tobacconist." I wasn't old enough to buy cigarettes then, but I do remember walking through the shop more than once when it was open. I did, however, buy cigarettes at the new location across the street after it moved (I wasn't actually old enough at the time, but they didn't seem too worried about seeing an ID). One of the other things that I remember was the sight of people walking around freely in Walt Disney World lighting up everywhere. Let me also say that as a smoker I never did much approve of this practice. I always tried to get off to the side where my smoking wouldn't bother anyone, but it was nice to not have to walk a country mile just to find a place to have a quick smoke.

Anyway, enough about the reminiscing and talking about touchy subjects. The whole reason for this entry is that I was looking through the old collection again and ran across these:





These used to be widely available all across Walt Disney World, and each matchbook design was specific to where it was available. I'm sure I have plenty more hanging around somewhere but I just need to find them. The cool thing is that all four of these have never had a match used out of them, and they're still in great shape. I really believe that these are a part of Disney history that many people would like to forget about, but it did happen, and now we have some great pieces of Disneyana to show for it.

Round and Round...

Who says a license plate has to be a rectangle? Apparently Disney doesn't feel that way, as they have released a number of oval shaped license plates. Unfortunately these license plates have not been made available to the general public for sale, but they can be found on ebay pretty regularly. These oddly shaped plates have shown up to commemorate a number of different events, and at least one was made to resemble a Disney Cast Member name tag (look at the bottom of the page!). I really think these are some of the most original license plates that Disney has produced, and I'm really hoping that they produce more of them. Once again, these are not all of the oval plates I own; I actually have plans for posts involving some of the others.




This is definitely one of those instances where Cast Members have been treated to a nice little bonus that us run of the mill Disney Nuts missed out on!

It's been a while...

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated the blog. I've been in the process of moving and have been without access for a little while, but things are back up and running now. The good news is that you, my wonderful audience, get a whole load of license plates on this one!

Disney has been producing yearly license plates for some time now. I believe they started this during the millennium celebration and have continued it each year since. I have not posted up all of my license plates, but a selection to sort of whet the appetite. Some of these may show up again later in variant discussions or just a random post.









I would also like to ask if there is anything specific that you would like to see, please let me know! I'm always up for anything, it doesn't have to be just about license plates!