More Pressed Pennies, & Other Souvenir Coins From Disneyland

Back in March of 2016, I did a post about "pressed pennies" from various amusement parks and tourist attractions. In that post, I stated, "Believe it or not, I don't own one single pressed penny from a Disney park."  Well, I was wrong! I can't believe it, but I somehow managed to forget about the following pressed pennies within my collection of Disneyland souvenirs. I came across these recently and of course after seeing them, NOW I remember them!

Okay, these are actually pressed nickels, instead of pennies, but that's a minor technicality. These are from circa 1995. Note the nickel at the top, promoting Disneyland's 40th anniversary, and the one below it, which was available for the New Year:

These pennies represent Mickey Mouse, the Disneyland Hotel, and various attractions or "lands" within the park.

These nine pennies were all available back in the nineties, from machines located inside the Adventureland Bazaar. The top three are all characters from The Lion King (which was released in 1994), the next three represent various scenes in Adventureland, including the Indiana Jones Adventure (which opened in 1995), and the bottom three are all characters from Aladdin, (which was released in 1992).

Next, we will take a look at some Disneyland "commemorative" souvenir coins.

First up is this coin that I purchased in the Main Street Emporium, back in 1980.

The reverse side is divided into six sections for each of the park's "lands," with the exception of Bear Country.  I guess they thought they would solve that problem by putting two of the characters from the Country Bear Jamboree attraction, under the "Frontierland" heading.

The coin was "mounted" within a cardboard square, with a circular cut-out.  The cardboard was "flocked" with a material which makes it feel a bit like velvet.  The coin and it's mounting were then placed inside this clear plastic case.

I purchased this next coin at the same time as the one above.  Both coins are just a little larger than one and a half inches in diameter (or slightly larger than an Eisenhower silver dollar).  This coin was made specially for Disneyland's 25th anniversary.

The reverse side:

 

As can be seen by the original price tag, this coin cost a dollar more than the non-anniversary souvenir coin.

This 30th anniversary coin from 1985, was smaller in size than the previous two coins (about the size of a quarter), and came in a small cardboard box with a clear plastic lid.

The reverse side:

The price of the 30th anniversary coin was $2.50 more, than the one for the 25th anniversary, five years earlier.

For the 35th anniversary in 1990, the souvenir coins went back to their previous size.

The reverse side:

The 35th anniversary coin actually came down in price, and was only .95 cents more than the commemorative coin for the park's 25th anniversary:

 

I had an annual pass in 1995, and went to the park quite a bit that year, but I never saw a souvenir coin for the park's 40th anniversary (other than the "pressed nickel" seen at the top of this post).

In 2000, there was a coin available for the park's 45th anniversary.

The reverse side:

For those keeping track, the price had now doubled in the twenty years that had passed, since the 25th anniversary coin.

At one time, Disneyland used to have special events, such as "Viva Mexico" days and "Festival Japan" days.  These events celebrated other countries and their cultures, and sometimes featured special merchandise.  This coin was available during the park's "Festival Japan" days, in 1984.

The reverse side:

 And this one was available the following year, in 1985:

The reverse side:

 

This is my oldest souvenir coin from Disneyland.  It features the Chicken of the Sea Mermaid on one side.......

.....and the Chicken of the Sea Pirate Ship, on the other side.  I wish I knew the story on these coins.  Were they sold in the park?  Or were they given out free, in order to promote Chicken of the Sea products?

This Jack Skellington coin is from December of 2006.  It was free with the purchase of a meal, at the park's Cafe Orleans and French Market restaurants.

The coin was just one out of a series of thirteen, all with different facial expressions of Jack's.

All of the coins had this image of the Haunted Mansion (Holiday) on the reverse side:

We will end this post with a couple of arcade "tokens."  This one was available at the Starcade, in Tomorrowland.

And this token was available at "Flynn's Arcade," during the special nighttime event, "Electronica," at Disney's California Adventure.  Both the event and the arcade, opened in the Fall of 2010, and closed in the Spring of 2012.

For anyone who might be interested, here is the link to my previous blog post (from five years ago) on souvenir Pressed Pennies, which includes pennies from Universal Studios, Magic Mountain, Knott's Berry Farm, and more.

Mickey's Mouseorail (& Other Vintage Tomorrowland Ride Vehicles)

In 1987, the Mark III Monorails at Disneyland were retired and replaced with the Mark V Monorails (the Mark IV was designed for use at Walt Disney World).  After retirement, the Mark III "Monorail Red" train was chopped up and converted into "Mickey's Mouseorail."



The Mouseorail was a street-legal vehicle that toured the country in 1990 to promote Disneyland's 35th anniversary.  Prior to embarking on it's promotional tour, it appeared in a pre-parade show for the 101st Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year's Day, and then again at Disneyland in the premiere performance of the Party Gras Parade on January 11th, 1990.



If you would like to see footage of Mickey's Mouseorail making it's debut in the 1990 Tournament of Roses Parade, you can watch it below. The Mouseorail appears at the 5:40 mark, but the video includes the full Disney pre-show, as well as the entire Rose Parade.



Back in the late nineties, I used to drive to and from work using West Street (now Disneyland Drive). This was back when Disney was buying up property for their "resort" expansion. There used to be a small campground/RV park located on the east side of West Street, that backed up against the Disney property. After Disney purchased this property, they put up a gate across the driveway and used this property for storage. One of the items that was stored back there for a while was the Mouseorail. Since it could be seen just sitting there on the other side of the fence, I decided to pull over one day back in March of 1997, and take some pics of it through the opening in the gate.



Note the steering wheel that was installed in the nosecone of the monorail. There is also a pirate ship parade float that can be seen in the distance. I'm not sure which parade that would have been from. In the foreground, we can see a couple boxed-up trees. I wonder where those trees were from and where they ended up?



When it came time to design a new Tomorrowland, the original plan for the former Mission to Mars space was to have it be a restaurant where guests could eat their food while sitting in an old Skyway gondola, a PeopleMover car, or the actual Mouseorail car. One of the old Mission to Mars space capsules (there were two theaters!) was going to be left intact and guests were also going to be able to eat their food in that theater while watching the original "Rocket To The Moon" footage play on the floor and ceiling. Well, as we all know, plans can and do change very easily over at Disney (Helloooo, Westcot and Port Disney!) These plans got scrapped and what we ended up with was Redd Rockett's Pizza Port where guests can eat their food while sitting next to the Monorail, PeopleMover, or Skyway......attraction posters. Waaa waaaa!

It was then decided to just use the old attraction vehicles as decor in both Tomorrowland's Premiere Shop and in the queue of the new Rocket Rods attraction. At this time, the Mouseorail/Monorail Red was chopped up again and a portion of it went into the Rocket Rods queue along with a couple Rocket Jet vehicles, a couple PeopleMover cars, and a car from Space Mountain. (To see pics of the old Tomorrowland attraction vehicles that were used in the Premiere Shop, click here for my previous post from 2009: Vintage Tomorrowland Ride Vehicles.)

For the Rocket Rods queue, the vehicles were painted blue and tape was applied to them to give them a "blueprint" appearance.



You can see in the photo above and below that a mirror was used at the end of both the Monorail and the PeopleMover cars to give the illusion that they are longer and that they are coming out of a tunnel.

I love the way that the PeopleMover cars were just placed on top of the carpet without a base or anything. At least a fake beam-way was recreated for the Monorail. And how about the irony of that statement above the PeopleMover cars? It reads, "In the world of creativity, there's no end to the possibilities." Oh, I think there WAS an end to the possibilities and they reached it with Tomorrowland '98!



This next photo shows a couple of the old Rocket Jet vehicles. On the wall in the background, there are blueprints for the Tomorrowland Moonliner Rocket, as well as one for the Flying Saucer attraction.



Well unfortunately, there was not a happy ending for "Monorail Red." At some point after the closure of the Rocket Rods, that last remaining section of the Mark III Monorail was scrapped and another piece of Disneyland history was lost forever. :-(

(And as a side note, the front section of one of the 1971 Walt Disney World Mark IV monorails was saved after it was retired and is now in the hands of a private collector. To see a brief video tour of it's interior and exterior, click below:)



To see footage of the rescued WDW Mark IV Monorail being reunited with it's designer, Bob Gurr (at Walt's Barn), click below: