Donald Duck birthday card

In the course of looking for something else (of course...), I came across this. It's a Donald Duck birthday card, copyright 1945 by Hallmark, that has "City of West Allis" (as in Wisconsin) stamped on the inside. My wife's grandfather was the mayor there in the late 1940s or thereabouts, so the card is probably linked to him in one way or the other, although we don't know how. An obvious guess is that the city probably sent these cards to people on their birthdays, right? This may have sent to one of her parents or an older family member (it predates her). But here's my question: When was the last time Disney allowed a third-party to copyright any of its images?