Skip to main content

Featured D56 Collector #6: Brokerage House

What got you started collecting villages?
I had been buying DV pieces for my BIL & a cousin as gifts, but never any for myself because we lived in a very small apt in NYC. I always said that someday, when we moved into a house, I would start my own village. That day came & did I go crazy!! Someone told me about a store that was going out of business & the village pieces were being marked down weekly. By the time they closed, I had 16 bldgs & a bunch of accessories & didn't pay full price for any of them. That was it, I was hooked for life! Now I'm in a bigger house & thinking about a permanent CIC (Christmas in the City) display.

How many years have you been collecting?
I started in '96 with my 1st 2 bldgs...Grand Central Terminal from CIC (for my DH who was a NYC Transit Cop & Grand Central was his post for many years) & North Pole (for my 4 yr old son, had to get a train station just like daddy for him too). When D56 started Time to Celebrate, I became consultant #80 in it's 2nd mth of operation & stayed until the bitter end (sigh). That started me on SVH (Snow Village Halloween) because I had to get other pieces to go with Boo Mansion. 2 yrs ago, DS decided he wanted to start SV (The Original Snow Village) & Ebay became my "best friend". I'm done with NP (North Pole) now, have pretty much stopped with SVH, but CIC & SV are still active.

What is your favorite D56 series?
CIC without a doubt! I have mostly all of the New York City pieces & it's my largest village.

How many displays do you build per year?
I just put my summer vignette away. Working on my Halloween displays now. Will have a permanent CIC NY Yankees vignette in my "Yankee Room" soon. I do an Easter vignette & have alot of D56/TTC Easter & spring items & then there's Christmas!

Do you keep a list of all your pieces that you own?
Yes. Right now they are in a notebook & a Greenbook. Maybe I'll get them on the computer someday.

What's the latest piece you've bought?
Back in April at MAVG in the silent auction. I got the CIC Brokerage House signed by Judith Price & her husband.

How many people have you turned on to D56 collecting?
My older brother started NEV (New England Village) to go with his lighthouses.

Do you keep track of values of the pieces or not?
Yes. I do mark what the MRP (Manufacturer Retail Price) is & what I paid in my list...most of the time.

What else do you collect?
Let's see...C.Radko Halloween, Christmas & Easter ornaments, mostly his Shiny Brite collection & his Sparkletown Houses (yes, another village!) Baseball memorabilia...I have small collections of Hummels, Thomas Clark Gnomes, Wee Forrest Folk mice, Lenox & Belleek...whatever sticks my fancy.

What's the most unique display you''ve ever built?
My Summer vignette was done in & around a picnic basket.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomorrow is Labor Day, Next Up is Halloween!

Hooked on Department 56 has a great article on tips for creating your halloween village . The article features tips and informative links on all of the wonderful and scary options for outfitting your decorative halloween villages, including haunted sounds, spooky lights, and flying witches. The story also features information about The 2008 Haunted Rails Engine & Coal Car, and Rickety Railroad Station, two of Department 56's Halloween village pieces created to mark the ten year anniversary of D56 Halloween. While the train itself is ceramic and non-working, you still get the feel of the haunted railroad. The also is not limited to just D56, as it also mentions Disney Villains from Hawthorne Village. An excerpt from the story: "In 1998, Department 56 introduced the first Halloween village collection. Department 56 Halloween Village features spooky castles, flying witches, skeletons, and gravediggers. Many of the buildings are lighted with fiber optic light effects, that fli...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lego in the news this week

Olin administrator builds Lego Needham Town Hall It turns out that two Town Halls were built in Needham this year. One was the brick-and-mortar building sitting in Needham Center, which underwent renovations and additions and will be officially unveiled at a Needham300 event on Nov. 5.  The other Town Hall is made of Legos.  Nick Tatar, Assistant Dean of Student Life at Olin College, built this second Town Hall at Olin over the course of three months, starting in January. Working with Olin professor Brad Minch and seven children and Olin students, Tatar built the Town Hall out of fifteen thousand Lego pieces, sometimes working 10 to 15 hours a week on the project. On Nov. 5, Tatar will break the Town Hall into chunks and transport it to the other Town Hall. At noon, he will reassemble it, then step back and let people admire his handiwork. Tatar said that he decided to build this Lego Town Hall for kids to enjoy during the Nov. 5 Needham 300 gala. “I wanted to see if we c...
1 comment
Read more

Celebrate the arrival of the February/March Village D-Lights!

Fresh in my mailbox was a brand new issue of Village D-Lights , a magazine designed for village collecting enthusiasts, featuring great articles, display tips product information and much more. This edition's cover features the "Canton Tea Trading", a new piece for 2008 for Dickens' Village. Here is what you'll find in this (February/March) issue: * The cover story describes some of the 2008 introductions for Christmas in the City, Alpine Village and Dickens' Village. * A great feature on Randy Miller, president of the NCC . * A spectacular ad by D56 for the "American Diner". * Ms. LitTown writes about the new Department 56 showroom, which is being prepped for the 2008 convention. * A letter from Mrs. Dickens * Brandon Taylor's take on variations of some of the pieces * A Valentine's Day feature on themed pieces for that special day There's also many regular sections of the magazine: reader submissions, letter from the editor, trivia, di...
1 comment
Read more