Photo album documenting the June, 1960 visit of the Princesses of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway to Southern California, on the occasion of SAS starting service between New York and Los Angeles

Hardcover. Fine. Folio three ring binder containing 93 large and professional glossy gelatin silver photographs. Slight rubbing on the boards, small scuff on two facing images, but overall fine. Each page is approximately 9" x 11.5". The photographs document the activities of the three 20-something Scandinavian Princesses: Princess (now Queen) Margrethe of Denmark, Princess Astrid of Norway, and Princess Margaretha of Sweden, accompanied by other Scandinavian dignitaries. SAS (now Scandinavian Airlines) was and remains jointly operated by Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

The images include the princesses at the airport, their deluxe accommodations in the first class section of the plane, being served by an impeccably dressed chef (who also appears to be knighted by another dignitary in one image), and visiting with the pilots in the cockpit. When they arrive they are seen touring Los Angeles and Orange County, with a couple of images of them visiting a roadside diner, touring Hollywood, where they meet Jerry Lewis and seen delighted to be photographed with Elvis Presley, who is wearing an Army uniform. Elvis is seen kneeling in front of the princesses on the set of *G.I. Blues*.

Perhaps a little less than half of the images are devoted to their trip to Disneyland where they are seen on several rides: riding in a firetruck, on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, demurely posed in a spinning teacup at the Mad Tea Party ride, and engaged in high level discussions with Mickey Mouse. They later visited Sea World, and in another image, a Princess rides shotgun in a California Highway Patrol car. The album concludes with their return home.

A letter of recommendation laid in from a vice president of SAS at the rear notes that William Widder, almost certainly the owner and quite likely the photographer of this collection, "served as Publicity Manager for the entire Scandinavian Airlines System from 1956... executed and supervised every important publicity campaign... This included the introduction of the SAS route over the North Pole to Tokyo... and the introduction of our DC-8 jet services to both New York and Los Angeles."

Professionally prepared with very nice images and in many ways completely charming. While we found a copy of the Elvis image online, we suspect very few of the others have been published.