- A toy collector is putting 1,500 Disneyland memorabilia from his private collection up for auction.
- The items include a Dumbo ride vehicle, vintage admission tickets, and trash cans from the Disney parks.
A toy collector is putting some 1,500 pieces of Disneyland memorabilia from his private collection up for auction — and it even includes trash cans from the parks, which are expected to fetch between $5,000 and $6,000.
Other items in the auction include a restored Dumbo ride vehicle, three 1980s animatronics from Magic Kingdom's Enchanted Tiki Room, and a car from The Barnstormer rollercoaster ride at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm, per the auction's digital catalog.
The auction — named "The Joel Magee Disneyland Collection" — belongs to Joel Magee, a collector who's appeared on TV shows such as History Channel's "Pawn Stars."
According to AP News, Magee has the world's largest individually-owned Disneyland and Disney Park collection, with more than 6,000 items that he amassed over the past three decades.
"I'm one of those guys — go big or go home. And if you don't have the biggest, then it ain't the best," Magee told AP News.
The auction, managed by Van Eaton Galleries, is slated to start on July 17 — which also happens to be Disneyland's 68th birthday, per the auction webpage. Leading up to the auction, Disney fans can see the items displayed at the Burbank Town Center Mall in California until July 16.
"It's really kind of exciting. This is the first time that all of my things have been in the same room at the same time," Magee told AP News.
He added that he got into the hobby after encountering a man selling Disneyland memorabilia at a toy show.
"At the time, I couldn't afford too much. I bought a couple of pieces, but that's where it all began," Magee told AP News. "In my travels as 'the toy scout,' I meet people all over the country, and for the last 25 years, they've just been bringing me all their stuff and here it is today."
Although some items start from $50, others are expected to fetch hundreds of thousands during the auction, Mike Van Eaton, the co-owner of Van Eaton Galleries, told AP News.
"Some of these items, such as the Dumbo ride vehicle, may go for $200,000 to $300,000," Van Eaton said.
That said, both Magee and Van Eaton believe that a hitchhiking ghost animatronic display from the Haunted Mansion ride may be the item that fetches the highest price during the auction, per The Orlando Sentinel.
According to the digital catalog, the display was removed from the ride in 2010 and sold at a D23 Convention Auction in 2011 for $38,000. D23 is the official fan club for The Walt Disney Company.
"It's going to be really crazy... But I do believe that those hitchhiking ghosts are going to be the wild ones. Will they hit a million dollars? We'll see," Magee told The Orlando Sentinel.