Father-Husband-Marketer-Geek

Critter Hut I found this online store, an Ebay store, actually, while browsing the Yahoo! Group and it had a few Department 56 listings for sale. Sale items include the Amish Family Set of 3 from the Heritage Village collection, Send in the Clown Snow Village, Skating Pond of Heritage Village, Village Pine Cone Trees, Little Women Literary Classics' March Residence, Stoney Brook Town Hall from New England Village, Buck's County Horse Barn and Countdown to Christmas Headquarters from the North Pole series. Some of the items start @ 99 cents! Replacements.com This site seems to have some ok deals on Department 56 pieces. The link above will bring you to some items from the Snow Village Halloween collection that are on sale.

Department 56 introduced a second village series in 1986, the New England Village. This village also included "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". Not unlike Dickens' Village "All Hallows Eve" series, this subset fits in well with the halloween theme. While I am still searching for an authoritative collectors' checklist of pieces for this specific subset (as well as for All Hallows' Eve), here is a list of pieces that are readily available online: Sleepy Hollow Church (pictured above) Sleepy Hollow Ice Harvester Ice Cart Sleepy Hollow School Van Tassel Manor Sleepy Hollow Sleepy Hollow Ichabod Crane Cottage Sleepy Hollow Characters

I recently struck up a message thread about new ideas for D56 with the good people over at the Original Department 56 Yahoo! Group, asking them: "I was thinking about this today, especially with the 4th of July coming, as I usually find myself drinking margaritas with friends on the deck of the National Hotel on Block Island. What a great idea for a New EnglandVillage sub-series. Several of the island's hotels: the National, the Harborside, the Surf Hotel, would be perfect buildings for a set. You could even have the ferry landing and the Block Island Ferry accessory. Around noon on Wednesday, there will be 100s of people standing on the deck of the National Hotel as the annual 4th of July parade goes down the main street, in front of the ferry landing. What other ideas do you have for buildings/pieces/sets that D56 could make?" Several people from the group stepped up with the following responses and some wonderful ideas. Victorian Resort Village: "I really like my...