A good friend who has to sell some exceptional items in the upcoming
Heritage auction just sent me the following which will interest many of you:
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PROBABLY ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DISNEYLAND HAUNTED MANSION AUCTIONS OF ALL TIME
THE HAUNTED MANSION GENESIS: This auction contains the HOLY GRAIL Haunted Mansion piece ever offered (LOT #95314); in fact Heritage Auctions wrote about the item, "Here is one of the single most important lots we have ever offered in relation to Disneyland." Strong words. We all know the history of Walt's Haunted Mansion and how he approached Ken Anderson in 1957 to work up a story and an attraction for Disneyland's Haunted House. After working on it for the first portion of 1957, Ken had an idea, but Walt sent him back to the drawing board. Ken returned with this piece, "The Haunted House, 2nd Revision, Sept. 17, 1957 by: Ken Anderson." It included a story and a flow through of the attraction, a fold-out architectural rendering of the walk-through attraction, a fold-out brownline of the front of the Mansion (with the Jungle Cruise boat peaking in at the very far left), and history was begun. Also included are two-pages of Ken's hand-written notes taken at the Winchester Mystery House, where Ken tried to track the habits of people walking through the famous Northern California haunted house. This "report" was placed in Walt's hands and the rest was history. (Ken also included for Walt's pleasure, a drawing of a ghost done in ink at the end of the report. There are less than a half dozen of these reports (all different revisions) in existence, but they are all owned by the Walt Disney Archives ... except for this one, Ken's personal copy was given back to him and this piece of rare Haunted Mansion history is now being offered in Heritage Auctions July 2, 2017 sale. An amazing, one-of-a-kind Disneyland historical like nothing else ever offered.
The above image is a little ink sketch that Ken drew for Walt Disney in the book.
The below is the far left of the fold out photostat in the binder. You can see fare left and down a bit there is a Jungle Cruise boat, which gives people a bit of the proximity of where the Mansion might be.]