Inside the security-heavy Sarasota Depository, Steve Stein gingerly holds an old, yellowed drawing. The 56-year-old Clearwater man is alternately giddy and concerned. He hasn't seen this drawing in over 15 years, and the ravages of time have taken their toll.
The expensive vellum paper is yellowed and brittle. One long strip is torn. There are gouges that reveal the Bainbridge board underneath.
Yet this drawing could be worth millions of dollars — or less than the $3 he paid for it 20 years ago.
You see, Stein owns a sketch of Mickey Mouse. But not just any drawing, he says. This is not one of the hundreds of animation cels floating around in the art world or a slick Disney reproduction of the world's most infamous mouse. Stein claims this is the holy grail of Disney art — a life-size Mickey Mouse prototype drawn by Walt Disney himself.
Stein's story has all the hallmarks of a Disney classic: random luck, twisting plot lines, a powerful enemy and a righteous underdog.
It began on a cold February day in 1984, as Stein, a Manhattan native and document proofreader for the United Nations, was strolling down 28th Street. Passing by the A-Z Thrift store, he spotted a 2-foot-tall drawing of Mickey Mouse propped up against the shop's door. He kept walking, but after a few blocks, doubled back and studied the curious piece of art. It was folded, a little dirty and obviously old. He checked the price: $3.
As a kid, Stein had enjoyed the Mickey Mouse Club and even visited Disneyland, but he'd never been a real Disney fan. But something about this sketch drew him in.
After purchasing the piece, Stein kept his find in a dry-cleaning bag. Then a friend noticed the type of vellum paper and told him the drawing could be decades old. Perhaps, even an authentic piece of Disney history.
"I had chills going up in my spine, because I knew I stepped in it and it was going to be trouble," Stein recalls.
Intrigued, Stein attended animation art expos and tracked down experienced animators. Their comments gave him hope, so he quit his job and became a full-time art collector.
"I didn't trust any art dealers, so I became one," he says.
He tried to contact the Disney Corporation, to no avail. But others were interested in his drawing. Lawyers offered to buy percentages of it. Art dealers attempted to swindle him. He sold it, only to buy it back again.
"It was the little things people did, the little tricks people pull," Stein says, sneering. "They were all just trying to gain my trust and waste my time. They all got jealous. They got very crazy about it, they did."
And 24 years later, now living only a hundred miles from Disney World, Stein still clings to his smiling, cartoon lottery ticket.
Over the years, Stein has gathered a list of experts who've vouched for the piece's authenticity in writing. The late Charles Hamilton, an autograph dealer and handwriting expert well-known for his ability to spot forgeries, believed a numeral written on the back of the drawing was scribbled by Walt Disney. Ink and paper specialist Skip Palenik, formerly of the McCrone Research Institute, verified the paper and India ink dated back before 1950. Peter Adamakos, former director of the International Museum of Cartoon Art, surmised the piece was most likely done by a Disney cartoonist. Former Disney animator Willis Pyle opined that Disney Studios probably did the drawing in the late 1920s; Michael Carrigan, exhibitions officer of the Smithsonian Institute and Library of Congress, suggested Stein's Mickey Mouse could have been an early prototype.
"He [Stein] was very enthusiastic about the piece," recalls Carrigan, now retired. "I told him to contact the Disney archivist."
But Disney will not acknowledge the drawing.
When contacted last week, a company spokesman couldn't confirm if anyone from Disney had ever met with Stein but reiterated that the Disney Corporation does not accept the art's supposed history: "We have no reason whatsoever to believe the drawing he discovered more than 20 years ago is a drawing by Walt Disney."
How does Stein's drawing hold up to known Disney history? It's hard to tell.
Stein claims his drawing hails from the late 1920s — a Mickey prototype drawn by Walt Disney right after the animator lost the rights to his previous character, Oswald the Rabbit. Stein's large Mickey sketch features "pie-eyes" (the pupils represented by slice-like triangles), gloves and asymmetrical hands.
According to Disney archives, the first animated features starring Mickey Mouse debuted in 1928. In Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie, Mickey's drawn eyes have circular pupils, not pie-eyes. He also did not wear gloves in the films.
However, a pie-eyed Mickey did appear in some 1929 and 1930 animation shorts, and also in early Mickey comics that appeared in 1930.
Stein says his critics also point to Walt Disney's unremarkable drawing skills and attribute much of the early sketches of Mickey Mouse to close Disney collaborator Ub Iwerks. Stein says this argument actually bolsters his claims. He suggests that Disney did this drawing as a prototype — that the short ears, abnormal hands and buttons that are too close together reflect his lack of skill, and that the reason the Disney Corporation won't acknowledge the drawing is it would besmirch its founder's cartooning ability.
"It's pride," he says.
Disney frequently hears from individuals claiming they own a piece of Disney history. Disney's lawyers, the spokesman says, handle most of these claims of original art.
And that's exactly where Stein intends to go.
Sitting at a desk inside the Tropic Isle Motel on Clearwater Beach where he works as a property manager, Stein rummages through his folder of documents. Stein's lawyer is planning on filing a court motion in the next few months to force Disney to authenticate or refute the drawing, and he's trying to keep his papers in order.
"It's show time," says Stein, his eyes wide and animated. "I want them to prove this is not Walt Disney's [art]. Can you imagine — putting a picture of Mickey Mouse on trial?"
This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2008.