Collection Diary 08-15-05

Unlicensed vs. Very Licensed

Today's mail brought in an envelope and a box. The envelope? Hong Kong. The box? shop.starwars.com, the official fanclub store.
My fabulous Darth Vader keychain / backpack tag arrived today in mint condition. Unlike most of the Singapore postage amounts I've been paying ($15US for lighter objects) this one came in at a reasonable $4.90. Since my final bid was only $0.01, it was worth it to keep my keychain collection current.

A tale. When in line at Celebration III, the cashiers couldn't easilly locate the labelled product buttons on their registers the first night. Likewise, I couldn't see all the goods they had to offer due to the overwhelming crowds of people gawking. To make life easier for the two of us, I just went down her rows of buttons and ordered one of each item I wanted. There was a key marked 'coasters', so along with the rest, O paid for a set. After my order had been picked, I was informed that the coasters were not ready in time for the convention, and so my money was refunded.

Today from shop.StarWars.com I received my latest order of two sets of ... (you guessed it!) coasters! I have no idea if these were the ones to be sold at CIII, but they're pretty cool all the same. The drink side is tin and the table side is cork. They come five of the same deisgn to a pack, and include a nice storage tin. At first I thought $10 a set was a bit pricey. Then I remembered that Jedi Force conversion vehicles were $12, and I decided that $10 for nice functional memorabilia wasn't that bad.