1. WALT DISNEY HAND-PAINTED AND HAND-CRAFTED “LILLY BELLE” MINIATURE POT BELLY STOVE. (Walt Disney, 1950) Walt Disney was known to have a love for minatures and a fascination for trains, both of which heavily influenced him when conceiving his idea for a theme park. In the late 1940s Disney built a small-scale railroad, the “Carolwood Pacific”, in the backyard of his home on Carolwood Drive. He crafted a miniature pot-bellied stove for the caboose as a training project to acquaint himself with the tooling equipment. He so enjoyed crafting and painting the stove, that he made several more. Some he gave to friends and some he sent to an antique gift shop in New York, where two were purchased by Mrs. James Ward Thorne, known to have one of the most famous miniature collections in the world. All in all, Disney crafted and hand-painted about 100 of these miniature stoves, each with a different design. This example, hand-painted by Disney in a turn of the century motif, measures 5.5 in. tall. Although missing its doors, it still retains the charm of the maker and the attention to detail that Disney would eventually devote to his theme park. $15,000-$20,000
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