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For Sale is an Awesome 1931 Walt Disney Type II Photo! This remarkable early photograph captures Walt Disney seated beside an illustration of his most famous creation, Mickey Mouse, presenting creator and character together during the formative years of the Disney story. Disney sits casually on a stool in a V-neck sweater and collared shirt, smiling broadly toward the camera, while an early pie-eyed Mickey Mouse stands beside him with one hand raised in a cheerful wave. The simplicity of the portrait is particularly striking: Walt and Mickey occupy nearly equal space within the composition, visually pairing the young animator with the character that had rapidly transformed his career following Mickey's emergence at the end of the 1920s.
What makes this particular photograph especially significant is its connection to one of the most important early Disney collectibles. This image was used for card #24 in the 1931 W.D. & H.O. Wills “Cinema Stars — 3rd Series,” a 50-card British tobacco-card set. Heritage sales describes #24 as the first card appearance of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse together, and collectors frequently treat it as a landmark early or joint “rookie” card for the pair. The surviving card reproduces essentially this same portrait, right down to Disney's pose and Mickey's raised hand, giving the original photographic image an unusually direct connection to an important piece of early Disney collecting history.
The Shot is 8x10in and is in Great Condition! Few images summarize the beginnings of the Disney legacy as neatly as this one. Walt Disney sits smiling beside Mickey Mouse, creator and creation presented as a pair, years before Disney developed into the enormous entertainment institution it would eventually become. The fact that this very image was selected for their landmark 1931 Wills card makes the photograph considerably more compelling: it preserves the original photographic composition behind an early collectible that generations later would command tens of thousands of dollars in its highest grades.
