Disneyland Railroad Hat Badges, ca. 1957
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GUEST:
This is just a small portion of what my grandfather had saved.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
My grandfather was, he's right here. And he was the first employee that Walt Disney hired as a park employee. His employee number was 001. You'll see that on his timesheet. But prior to being the chief enin, engineer running in Disneyland, he worked in the shop with other machinists, and they built the train engines that now run at Disneyland. There was the first one, uh, second one was Ripley, third one was the Gurley. And this is my favorite. My grandpa was born in 1894, and the train was born in 1894.
APPRAISER:
Trains were a major part of the original Disneyland park. Your grandfather was a big part of that whole...
GUEST:
He was-- he couldn't say enough good about Walt Disney. The only time he had to l, give up his position as chief engineer, when he was driving a train, was when Walt Disney appeared and Walt wanted to drive it himself.
APPRAISER:
Well, here we have documentation of his status as, uh, 001, employee number one. It's fun to see this pay slip. A little different back in 1956. He got all of $2.81 an hour. So he collected some badges. And you showed me some of the others.
GUEST:
He did. I did.
APPRAISER:
These are two of my favorites here. Obviously, he didn't have badges. He wore the workman's cap.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
And some of the conductors wore badges.
GUEST:
Yes, they did.
APPRAISER:
These are great relics of that era at some of the most important parts of the original Disneyland. This one is really exciting. Collectors of Disneyana value this, at auction, around $2,000 to $3,000.
GUEST:
No! No! Who's driving me home today?
APPRAISER:
(laughs)
GUEST:
No-- just this one alone?
APPRAISER:
Just that one alone. It's really very desirable, it's in great condition. And it's such an important part of Disneyland.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
Now, this one, I was checking with some fellow experts on Disneyana, and they said this has never been seen. So it's really hard to come up with a price.
GUEST:
(laughs)
APPRAISER:
At least $2,000 for that one.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
So...
GUEST:
Wow. Wow, that's amazing, okay, great.
APPRAISER:
So we have some neat things that, we're looking at $4,000 to $5,000.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Provenance is everything. I think those numbers might be the starting point.
GUEST:
That's nice.
APPRAISER:
At auction.
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