Welcome back to “Disney Stuff.” I appreciated all of your e-mail and feedback. It looks like we’re going to have a good time talking about all of our various collections of stuff.
Figment, one of the few we’ve found and liked at Walt Disney World recently. Photo by Rosina Liquori.
One of the comments that stood out in my mind was a response from our good friend Barry, over at Tomart’s Disneyana Update. Barry pointed out that the majority of us Disney fans are “accumulators” rather than “collectors.” I kind of like that description. A collector, he pointed out, picks a certain item and tries to complete an entire collection. I’m that way with Disney Magazine, Mattel Pixar cars, and the topic of today’s article as well. Most of my “Disney stuff,” however, I accumulate. While I do consider myself a collector, I think he’s right—I’m definitely an accumulator. So here’s to all of us Disney collectors and accumulators. However you look at it, we all have a lot of Disney stuff and we all like to talk about it and share it with one another.
Jack Sparrow Mickey and Minnie “The Redhead.” Photo by Rosina Liquori.
I thought that a good plan of attack to start our discussions on collecting—or accumulating—Disney stuff would be to start simple. Start with something inexpensive and relatively common. I’ll start with something that most of us probably have, and that’s a Disney PVC figure (and the photos of the PVC figures you see today are some of my favorites from the collection that I share with my 9-year-old daughter Samantha). Somewhere, on a shelf in your house or in your office, or maybe in your car even, there’s a small Disney PVC (polyvinyl chloride) figure, isn’t there?
Companies have been making Disney PVC toys for decades, going all the way back to, at least, the Disneykins collections of the early 1960s. We’ll talk about them in a future article. PVC toys are available everywhere. It’s the action figure material of choice and thousands, if not millions of Disney PVC figures have been produced over the years. I started collecting mine when my daughter was about 2 or so. She’s 9 now, and between the two of us we’ve collected, or accumulated for that matter, hundreds of different great looking and inexpensive PVC models of all of our favorite Disney characters, and then some.
One of my favorites finds from eBay, Brer Fox, used to be available in the shop near Splash Mountain in the 1990s, I understand. Photo by Rosina Liquori.
The more you look for these toys, it seems, the more you will find. Once I spent some concentrated time on the good old Internet searching for things like, “Disney PVC” or “PVC toys,” I realized there’s a veritable goldmine of these things out there. EBay’s got hundreds of them. FantasiesComeTrue.com has hundreds, also. There are Web sites devoted strictly to them. There are people who aren’t selling, but just posting photos of their collections. You can buy whole collections for hundreds of dollars or buy them individually. Most of them can be had for a few dollars, averaging around $3 to $5 each. You’re more likely to come across random collections on eBay, which are more like PVC grab bags.
We’ve also got Brer Frog, definitely a rare PVC to find these days. Photo by Rosina Liquori.
I’ve done well with eBay and equally well with a site called GoAntiques.com. The cool thing about GoAntiques is that you can sign up for their e-mail notification list. When I signed up I listed Disney, New York World’s Fair, and my wife’s favorite collectible pottery, McCoy, as my choices and whenever anything comes along I receive an e-mail. I don’t even have to search.
This is one of my favorite Mickeys. Photo by Rosina Liquori.
Of course, you can always check the flea markets, antique shows and garage sales. I’ve rarely stopped at a yard or garage sale without coming across a box of PVC characters. They’re cheap, more often cents instead of dollars. Be smart and go with your adorable daughter, like I sometimes did, and people will just hand them over to the child free of charge. She got some of her favorite ones in this manner.
Another unusual one would have to be Horace Horsecollar, made by Applause. Photo by Rosina Liquori.
The great thing about PVCs are they’re virtually indestructible and they clean up well. The big problem is usually a little paint rubbing off, but even some of the ones that my daughter has played with still look pretty good. Remember, in my first article, I said that I’m a collector, but I’m an enjoyer as well. A few pieces of the collection are off limits, but most are on display to be handled and enjoyed.
One of my favorites is Gyro Gearloose made by Bully and stamped 1984. I have an unconfirmed report that these were given out as premiums at Sunoco gas stations in the 1980s. Can anyone confirm? Photo by Rosina Liquori.
One would think that the theme parks would be a natural place to find figures. Aside from similar figures that you can buy at the local mall, the pickings have been pretty slim at the parks lately. A rather standard set of the Fab Five is readily available, and I do like the safari characters available at Animal Kingdom and Adventureland., but I do wish that more loose figures that were area-specific would be available throughout the parks as opposed to sets.
I did well with several of these. They are from the Lil’ Classics collection sold at The Disney Store in the 1990s. I paid a few dollars for each of these and have seen them for as high as $20 apiece online. Photo by Rosina Liquori.
The other standby in the PVC world is old reliable, the Disney Store. We all accept the fact that it’s not what it used to be, but it’s pretty much guaranteed that a set of PVC figures would always be on the shelves. When a new film comes out they release a corresponding set. Of the recent movies, I haven’t really been crazy about some of the PVC sets. The Meet the Robinsons figures were a little fragile and the one figure I really wanted, “Bowler Hat Guy,” didn’t stand up on his own all that well. The Pirates of the Caribbean PVCs don’t really resemble the characters as well as the animated characters resemble their counterparts. That said, however, whenever Disney rereleases a classic film on DVD, they do release a nice set of figures. Recent sets such as Peter Pan and The Jungle Book have been favorites of mine. If they’re gone in the stores, they’re pretty reasonable and easy to find online.
A favorite of all three of my kids thanks to the DVD box sets, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers were available in Kellogg’s cereal boxes. They must have been mass-produced because they are readily available. Photo by Rosina Liquori.
I could go on and on and show picture after picture, but I think I’ve shown you a well-rounded lineup of my PVC collection. There are hundreds more and it will continue to grow. It’s an easy collection to get started on, generally inexpensive and to be quite honest; artistically they really do a nice job with these small figures, especially for the price.
I scored these Enesco Lion King figures at a local CVS on the clearance shelf. They ended up costing me 49 cents each, brand new in the package! Photo by Rosina Liquori.
I enjoy finding them and it’s been a great reward system between my daughter and me. I find them. I buy them. I hide them and when she helps out around the house or gets a good grade, I dig into the secret stash and increase our collection. She must be a pretty good kid, because I have to keep adding shelves to hold them all.
Looking forward to next month, when we’ll share some more of our “Disney Stuff.”
