Cinderella's Golden Carousel

[captinhookedondisney]

Is it true that there are special horses that is worth more than the carousel it's self with out the horses. If so which horse is it and can you tell them apart


Thanks Captain Hooked On disney

 

[Jim from Jersey]

I do not know if it is worth anything more than the other horses, but "Cinderellas horse" is the horse with the golden bow on its tail. It's the only horse on the carousel with a golden bow. I can't see what would make that horse or any of the horses worth more than the whole carousel itself though. Jim

 

[tinkersmama]

My daughter always has to ride Cindy's horse. Maybe the Golden ribbon is made out of real gold....LOL!

 

[Disneywoz]

Learned this at a Disneyana convention. My understanding from Ida the CM who takes care of all the carousel horses, is there are some very valuable horses. The most valuable is the horse on the outer ring with the Indian Head and the Bald Eagle. It is the outer horse right behind the Cinderella horse row. If memory serves, she said this horse was valued at around $210,000. Not the price of the whole carousel, but still a very expensive horse. Especially when you consider all the kids climbing on it. It works great for me as this has always been my favorite horse and my daughters is Cinderella's, so she rides with DW right in front of me.

 

[TheDisneyGirl02]

I rode Cinderella's horse my last trip to WDW. I was so excited! To me it's just exciting that she has her own horse! I'll always look for her horse now whenever I ride the Carousel.

 

[mamamary]

We also looked for Cindy's horse. My daughter got to ride on it after about the third ride. It's silly but she was glad to ride on it.

 

[BamaFan121s]

Here's a thread w/ some pics of the horse.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1242222&referrerid=&highlight=

 

[jlovesee]

I love hand carved Carousels, and Cinderella's Golden Carousel is classified as PTC #46 (Philadelphia Toboggan Company, the number is the order in which it was built, meaning it was PTC's 46th carousel). It was built originally in 1917 for Palace Gardens in Detroit, MI, and then moved to Olympic Park in 1928. PTC was known at the time for making the best carousels that money could buy.

The Magic Kingdom version is greatly altered. Every other Carousel by PTC has atleast 2 chariots, PTC #46 originally had 4, these were removed to add more horses (increasing the number up to 90) to increase the capacity. I believe they also changed the legs on many of the horses, as most PTC's have a combination of jumpers (all legs in the air) and standers (all feet on the ground). Plus they painted all the horses white, most PTC horses are natural colored, brown, greys, spotted, etc)

Please don't take those comments wrong, there are very few PTC carousels still in working order, that are maintained as well as Disney's version, and none are as large, Disney's is a 5 row, which is HUGE. Sadly Carousel horses are usually more valuable as themselves then as an entire whole ride. Which is why there are so few left.

I am not at all suprised in the worth, in fact I would expect more. The horse you are referring to is the King/Lead horse, every Carousel has one. It's usually distiguished by being the most ornate, it will usually have the PTC shield on it somewhere, and sometimes the bottom of the foot will be marked with a #1. I am terrible at recognizing the lead horse, but from what you are saying it sounds correct.

Magic Kingdom's is a beautiful carousel and is an work of art in all the meaning that word has. Each horse at the time was hand carved (they later came out with carving machines but not at 1917) and many carving artists later went on to form their own carousel manufacturing companys.

For more information on the Magic Kingdom Carousel and carousels in general you can visit the National Carousel Association's website at www.nca-usa.org
They have a census database there as well.

Jennifer