Fabulous Fan Site: FindDisney.com

One of the reasons that I began this blog was to feature some of the wonderful fan sites on the interweb. It is amazing what people are doing as part of our little Disney fan universe. Today, I want to feature, FindDisney.com which has been built and maintained by John and his family and features his awesome collection of Disney postcards, books and trading cards and other paper Disney Collectibles. I found this site about a year ago and John’s collection along with George’s book reviews over at Imaginerding have helped to grow our mini library of Disney books. The whole site is fabulous but what I like the best is the way that it is organized. Books are grouped by year which helps you target a “Disney Era” to find what you are looking for. The postcard collection is particularly noteworthy for its documentation of the changes in the characters over the years. As someone who now saves every Disney related scrap from our “grownup” trips and laments the fact that I didn’t keep the papers from my Disney trips when I was a kid, I am just plain green that John has kept all of this stuff over the years. I wrote to John and he was gracious enough to share a bit more about his collection and what got him to develop this treasure of a site.



What made you start collecting? and why paper goods? What prompted you start your site?

I made my first trip to Disneyland in 1977. It was for my senior class trip. We road a bus all night, went to Disneyland all the next day, and rode the bus home that night. I had such a great time, I knew I had to go back. My wife and I were high school sweethearts and were dating at the time. Her sister lived in Long Beach, so we had our own bed and breakfast. So over the next couple of years we made trips at least once a year. My wife is a dog fan. She breads and shows Gordon Setters, so it was natural that she would fall in love with Mickey's dog PLUTO. She began collecting anything Pluto. We had Pluto figures, Pluto glasses, Pluto clocks, Pluto toys, well you get the picture. Anything that we saw that was Pluto we had to have. Then the family got involved and Pluto's were coming from everywhere. When we first got married we had a room dedicated to her Pluto collection. I saw how much fun she and the family were having with her collection, I decided I wanted to collect something. I really wanted to collect something that had to do with Disneyland itself. That was really were my interest was. So, I began collecting Disneyland Paper. I collected guides, books, postcards, maps, anything having to do with Disneyland. Then we started to have children and ran out of room, so much of the stuff got put into storage. But, the collecting did not stop. My wife's sister and her husband then moved to Anaheim. So, now our bed and breakfast was only 8 minutes door to door. Also, my brother-in-law became a Disney collector. So, he would always get 2 of everything and give me one. They were annual pass holders and went to Disneyland weekly. That is why I have a large collection of stuff from the 80's and 90's. My children have been going to the park at least once a year since they were 6 months old. They are both fanatics like their parents. Lindsay helps me with the website when she has time. But being a busy 16 year old, it does not happen on a regular basis. Which brings me to the web site. I started with a free website provided by my ISP. I thought I would like to share all of this stuff I had in storage. Since I could not have it all out on display, I would put it on virtual display. The site just kept getting bigger as I would continue to add stuff. I eventually had to go to a paid ISP because I was using too much storage space on the free ISP. Then I decided to expand. I would look at other sites on the internet and when I saw something I liked, I tried to recreate it on my site. It is now a hobby that I truly love and wish I had more time to dedicate to it.



Do you have any favorites in your collection?

My favorite items would be my Disneyland Pictorial Souvenirs. I have just about everyone of them now. It has been a blast looking for them and making the special find on E-Bay :) When Disneyland first opened they were making changes every year, so they would put out a new one every year. In the 80's and 90's they stopped doing that and they only came out every couple of years. It has been hard to find out which years the guide were available and which years they were not. I even reached out to Dave Smith, the Disney Archives Director. He was able to help me with some items, but he really did not have all of the answers. This made me want to investigate further. I did find that some of the pictorial souvenirs had more then one version in a given year. Some of them had inserts. Some of them you could only get by sending in a coupon from a magazine. It has been a lot of fun researching them and I wanted to share my findings by publishing them on the website. I have had people e-mail me thanking me because they could come to the site and not have to spend the hours researching as I had. E-mails like that have made it worth while.



Have you always been a collector?

Now that I think about it, I guess I have been a collector most of my life, at least since high school. Starting with Pluto and now with Disneyland items.



Are you involved in any other Online communities or activities?

Not really active. I do spend a lot of time looking at Disney sites, newsgroups (I especially liked alt.Disney.Disneyland, but it has not been available for quite some time now, and E-bay. I will however ask a question or 2.



What sites do you read each day?

Miceage.com, Disneygeek.com, and Laughingplace.com are the sites I visit regularly. But, I do visit many sites and have a bookmark list of about 50 sites.



Do your 'real world' friends know that you are a Disney geek?

Yes they do. Its hard for them not to know. I have some of my collection displayed in the house. My daughter's room is totally Disney. She has Tinkerbell Banners that hung at Disney World hanging on her walls. She has Disney pictures with autographs, Disneyland posters, and Disney memorabilia everywhere. Some of my friends are Disney fans as well. Some do not understand, but that is OK. They cannot understand why I use my vacation every year to go to Disneyland. If you are a Disney fan, you understand why.

My car license plate says DSNEYLD and I get a lot of comments from I love your License plate, I am a Disney fan too to one time we had a car flag my wife down and ask her if she had tickets.



Is there anything else that you would like for our readers to know?

I have seen and met a lot of interesting people and had a lot of wonderful experiences because of my interest in Disneyland. I have met Michael Eisner, I have eaten at Club33 twice, Roy Disney had my site as one of his links when he had the Save Disney site up and running, I was interviewed by a Japanese TV station and we have met and made friends with some of the Disney artists.


Thanks John for sharing your collection with all of us! If you have a site that you would like to nominate as a Fabulous Fan Site please let me know in the comments section.