Collection Diary 07-30-06

Star Wars Collectors, Christmas has arrived.

I'm not speaking metaphorically about the bonanza of 30th anniversary merchandise revealed at Comic Con, either. Welcome to Christmas in July!

In case you don't happen to peruse Shop.StarWars.com on a regular basis, you may have missed the Kurt S. Adler Christmas Star tree topper featuring Yoda. (It's in stock now and ready to ship! for $29.99)

While you've got your debit card out and ready, there's a brick-and-morter store here in Texas who just put out some Christmas goods of their own!
The store is named Garden Ridge. It's a home decor outlet plus lots of craft-type goods.

They've just stocked their shelves with a variety of the 2006 Kurt S Adler ornaments. Collector's will recognize many of them from their 2005 debut year last fall.



The M-Pire characters are back! The actual sculpts for the M-Pire are identical with the exception of Boba Fett, who now has a more sturdy design to this rocket pack (many didn't survive shipping last year), and the sticker on his base has the correct spelling of his name. (Last year he was Bobba Fett and it was unclear if it was a cute name for the little M-Pire guy or if it was a miss-spelling. Well, it looks like it was a screw-up after all. They've fixed it for this year.) Along with changing the color of of the box to a different blue, they've also changed over to bi-lingual packaging. Here in Texas you'd expect a bit of Spanish would go a long way on packaging, but alas... it's English and French.



Last year there was a set of six 4-inch ceramic painted figures. Boba Fett, C-3PO, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Yoda, and R2-D2. Not surprising, they're all back as well in bi-lingual boxes. The pleasent surprise is that this set, which is one of the nicer ones Kurst S. Adler produces, has been expanded by an additional five figures. For 2006 they've added a stormtrooper, X-Wing Luke, Emperor Palpatine with holiday smile, a hooded Princess Leia, and Queen Amidala.



The hand crafted glass ornaments are back. Again, same production, different packaging graphics. And again, English and French. Last year we had the droids, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and Yoda. So far Fett is the only one not accounted for, for 2006.



There are two brand new eight-packs of mini-ornaments. The first is THE DARK SIDE holiday ornament set, and the second is... you guessed it... THE FORCE holiday ornament Set. Both had a "Limited Edition" plackard printed on their covers, and both seemed to be over-abundant in the aisles, even compared to all the other figures.

I'm a huge fan of the Hallmark ornaments and their unbelieveable sculpting detail, but I've got to say... at only $3.99 an ornament, I'd much rather shell out $40 for a set of ornaments then for oh, say... a pair of giant PEZ dispenser.

Joyeux Noel!