Andy's Personality Card

Yet another post in my series of personality cards not found on ThisOldToy.com. Here's Andy's:

Front of card:



Back of card:



And the text says:

Skateboarding Andy
Meet Andy! All the kids like him because he tells the silliest jokes and pulls the funniest pranks! One time he let a frog loose in the middle of a birthday party. It jumped right in the middle of the cake. It made all the kids laugh, but what a big clean up job! Andy spends most of his time outside practicing tricks on his skateboard. He's so much fun!
Birthday: April 1
Favorite thing to do: Speeding past the girls on his skateboard.

All About Key Lithos

I just received this question from an anonymous reader, and since it was a topic I was planning on writing a post about anyway, I'm answering the question here, rather than in the comments section of another post.

Here's the question:

Do you have any idea how many keys there are in total? I know I don't have them all but I am confused by the number of blank ones. Some of them I have I know are missing lithos but are there some that really are blank?

To answer your first question, there is one key per Precious Places set: 4 shops, 2 cottages, the Gazebo, the Mansion, 8 furniture sets, 6 outdoor scenes, 9 figures, and 4 mother & baby sets. That makes a total of 35 keys.

However, as far as I can tell, the Dining Room set was never sold to the public, so chances are you'll never get that key, which would make the number of available keys 34.

Of the 34 remaining sets, 28 definitely had key lithos. These are the 4 shops, 2 cottages, the Gazebo, the Canopy Bedroom, the Playroom, the 6 outdoor scenes, the 9 figures and the 4 mother and baby sets. (You can find pictures of some of the key lithos on my blog in other posts and more on ThisOldToy.com.)

That means that the sets that are not known to have had lithos are the remaining 5 furniture sets and the Magic Key Mansion. (To read my post discussing the furniture set lithos, please click here.)

Now why the Mansion wouldn't have a key litho is beyond me. It's the crowning jewel of the Precious Places village, was the most expensive set when it was sold in stores and clearly is the set with the biggest 'wow' factor. However, ThisOldToy has no picture of a litho, I've never seen a litho for it on eBay and both of the Mansions I personally own came to me with a plain pink key... thus I am sadly forced to conclude that the Magic Key Mansion's Magic Key didn't have a litho.

That said, I'm always happy to be wrong about things like this and if anyone has seen a key litho out there for the Magic Key Mansion, I would love to know about it. Please leave me a note in the comments section of this post.

So to summarize: as far as I can tell, there were 34 Precious Places sets (each with one key) that were sold to the public. To the best of my knowledge there are 28 different key lithos available, which means that there were 6 sets that came without a litho for the key. Hope this helps!

Meet Michelle

I thought I should post pictures of Michelle, our lovely figure from the Pretty Penny Wishing Well set, since it is hard to find good images of her out on the world wide web.

So without further ado, here she is:


In true mug shot fashion (sorry Michelle!) here are her left and right sides:

And finally, here is Michelle from behind:

As most of you probably know, Michelle was made from the same mold as Brittany from the Twirling Melody Gazebo. Just for fun I took a picture of the two of them side by side so you can compare.


Don't they look nice together?

The Wishing Well Watering Can

Continuing my series on the Pretty Penny Wishing Well, I wanted to highlight one particular hard-to-find piece: the watering can

In particular I wanted to address the listing on ThisOldToy.com (TOT) where it states that the watering can is a "purple garden watering [pitcher] with a handle and a round white pour spout". As you can see in the above picture, it is indeed a purple watering pitcher with a handle and a round pour spout, but the spout isn't white.

I think the misunderstanding comes from the pictures on the Wishing Well box. In the picture on the box front, it does appear at first glance that the watering can has a white spout:


However, if you look closely, you realize that the white color is merely a result of the light coming from the left of the picture which then reflects off of the flat spout.

In case you still are unconvinced, check out the picture on the back of the box:


Here you can see that the watering can does indeed have a purple spout.

Well, that's all for now, but stay tuned, because I have a few other Wishing Well posts yet to write, plus lots more on other Precious Places sets!

The Magic Key Mansion and the Mysterious Hanging Basket Part 2

In my previous post The Magic Key Mansion and the Mysterious Hanging Basket I wrote about this flower basket from the Bedroom furniture set:

The basket had always confused me because I couldn't find any place to attach it to the Magic Key Mansion bedroom ceiling. However, in the comments section my post, I had two readers who offered their suggestions as to where the basket might go, and I wanted to share those suggestions with you.

My first anonymous reader said this:

I have the Baby Cottage Nursery (it's a 2 story house with little side yard attachments) and there is a hole in the ceiling of the little victorian outcropping upstairs and I'm confident the flower basket was intended for this space, not the Mansion. :)

When I read this, I had to laugh. Of course there is a hole in the ceiling of the Baby's Nursery Cottage, it's where the little mobile goes, but why couldn't you switch it out for something else? I can't believe I never thought of that! And even if you don't want to remove your mobile, you could hang the basket in the turret of the Country Kitchen Cottage. They used the same molds for both townhouses, so there is a hole in the ceiling of that set as well.

Naturally, I had to try it out, and what do you know, the basket fits nicely in the hole and it looks really cute too!

My second anonymous reader had this to say:

I know the hanging basket goes with the Mansion because when I was little I owned the mansion and the hanging basket came with it. I think the basket went on the outside of the house under the roof on the porch. If you look under them there are little spaces to wedge the basket into.

When I read this suggestion, I was very excited. How adorable would the front porch of the mansion look with a basket of flowers hanging from the ceiling? I think we could all agree that the answer is super adorable!

However, after examining both of my Mansions, I was unable to find the little spaces to which the commenter referred. The only slots I could find underneath the porch roof are the slots for attaching the gingerbread trim. Of course, the commenter may have a slightly different Mansion than either of mine. I have noted in several posts that various small things seem to have changed over the brief Precious Places production period, and it certainly is possible that we have just discovered another one.

Also, I wanted to clarify that, according to all of my research, the only furniture the mansion originally came with was the grandfather clock and the piano that is attached to the living room wall. In fact, I have the box for the Magic Key Mansion and it says right on the front "Furniture Sets Sold Separately".


While most people probably did buy the furniture sets to furnish the Mansion rather than the Cottages, it is interesting to note that they were marketed as being for all the PP buildings. To illustrate, here is a picture of the back of the Living Room furniture box:


While I still wish there were a spot to hang the basket in the Mansion bedroom, it is nice to know that there is at least one spot where the basket can easily be hung and look great! And thank you to both of my anonymous commenters for your suggestions!