Rugs, Rugs, Rugs

So, here's a question I could really use some help answering... You know how some of the furniture sets have rug stickers (lithos) pictured on the front of their boxes?  Well, what I'm trying to figure out is, which of the furniture sets came with rug lithos?

Here's what information I have so far...

Of the eight Precious Places furniture sets, five of them have rugs pictured with the furniture on the front of their boxes.  These sets are the Bedroom, Bathroom, Baby's Nursery, Living Room and Canopy Bedroom.  The website ThisOldToy.com (TOT) includes the rug sticker in the parts list for each of these sets, but says about the lithos: "This rug is pictured in the Fisher-Price dealer catalogue, but we are not sure if it was ever included in the sets sold in stores."

When I first began collecting PP several years ago (and was addicted to reading the TOT parts lists), I thought that I ought to investigate whether there were any rug stickers out there, so that I could add them to my collection if they existed.  There seemed to be a pretty simple way to answer the question, i.e. just buy an unopened furniture set and see if there was a rug litho in the box.  So that's what I did.  I found a fairly inexpensive, never-been-opened Living Room furniture set on eBay, bought it, and with great anticipation, I opened it... only to discover that there was no rug sticker in the box.

"Case closed," I thought, "Furniture sets did not come with rug lithos." 

And so for a couple of years, I had no reason to look any further into the mystery of the rug lithos.

Then one fateful day last August, I noticed this picture on a completed eBay listing:

 

Unfortunately, I didn't see the listing until after it was over, so I didn't get a chance to bid on this item, but as the picture clearly shows, there was an octagonal rug included with the Living Room furniture.  I contacted the seller who told me that a) it was indeed a rug sticker, b) she believed it originally came with the Living Room set and c) it could not possibly have come with the Mansion, since these were her childhood toys and she'd never owned the Mansion.

This got me on the hunt for rug lithos and what do you know, they are rare, but some of them can be found.  So far, I've got two in my collection, those from the Baby's Nursery and Canopy Bedroom sets.

Baby's Nursery Rug:

Canopy Bedroom Rug:

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "That Canopy Bedroom rug sure looks familiar."  And you'd be right.  It is the same rug litho that was included with the Mansion set itself.  But I have four reasons to be fairly certain that the one I have originally came with the Canopy Bedroom set.  

1) It was sold in an eBay auction with the Canopy Bedroom furniture

2) It is just the rug sticker by itself and as far as I know the Mansion lithos always came on a large sheet like this:

3) I later saw another Canopy Bedroom set listed with the same rug litho.

4) Most importantly, the rug litho has the numbers 5177 on the edge and that is the Fisher Price item number for the PP Canopy Bedroom set.

So put it all together and it means that I am nearly 100% positive that the Living Room, the Baby's Nursery and the Canopy Bedroom each have a rug litho that was included with some (but not all) sets sold in stores.  

Why wasn't a rug litho sold with every furniture set?  I really have no good answer to that question.  It is possible that only sets produced in 1990 had a rug litho.  Or maybe only sets sold in a certain location (the United States, Canada or Europe for example) had rugs.  I have so little information to go on, it's quite likely that we will never know the answer to the 'why' question.

One question I am still hoping to answer (and here's where I could really use your help) is...

Did the Bathroom and/or Bedroom sets also come with rug lithos?

I have not as of this moment, been successful in locating a rug litho (or picture of one) for the Bathroom or Bedroom sets.  It would be really helpful to me if anyone out there has more information.  Do you have any new in the box furniture sets?  If so, did they come with rug stickers (lithos)?  

I'd really love to get as much information as possible about these stickers so that we can all know what to look for when we're bidding on furniture sets!  Post your comments, please!!!!

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!

The Magic Key Mansion and the Mysterious Hanging Basket

As most of you probably know, this is the flower basket from the Precious Places Bedroom furniture set:



The top of the basket has a sort of two pronged plug that looks like it is intended to attach to something. Question is: what is it supposed to hang from?

If you look inside the bedroom of the Magic Key Mansion, there is no obvious place to attach anything to the ceiling. There is the ceiling fan of course, and I tried to see if you can unscrew the fan and put the basket in its place, but the fan didn't come off easily and I didn't want to force it.

My best guess about this (and it is only a guess) is that the basket was intended to attach somewhere in the Mansion's original design, but before the Mansion actually went into production, that attachment point was removed.

It's pretty clear that the Mansion underwent some changes between the prototype and the actual set that was sold to the public. To illustrate, here is the picture of the Mansion off the back of the Living Room furniture set box:



As you can see from the photo, this mansion has several differences from the Magic Key Mansion that was sold in stores, most notably, the covers for the attic rooms and the center support on the base. If those large things were changed, it is possible that something small, like a place to attach a hanging basket, was also removed.

The other thing to consider in this case is that the Bedroom set was only in production for one year, after which time the Canopy Bedroom replaced it. The Canopy Bedroom has no pieces that look as though they ought to hang from the ceiling, and perhaps part of the reason the Bedroom set was replaced by the Canopy Bedroom was because of the hanging basket that doesn't hang from anything.

Just some guesses and speculation on my part. What do you think? Have you ever figured out what to hang the Bedroom flower basket from? Please leave your ideas in the comments section of this post. Thanks!

Furniture Set Key Lithos

Before I get into a discussion of the furniture set key lithos, here's a little background on the sets themselves: of the eight Precious Places furniture sets, four of them were manufactured for the course of the two years the line was in production. These are the Kitchen, Living Room, Bathroom and Baby's Nursery sets. Two sets were manufactured only in 1989: the Dining Room (but see my earlier post) and the Bedroom. The remaining two sets were manufactured only in 1990: the Canopy Bedroom and the Playroom.

I think this background is important for understanding the key litho situation of the furniture sets. You see, thisoldtoy.com (TOT) has each PP set listed with a description of the key litho. For the Kitchen, Living Room and Bedroom is says that the key "has no litho". However, for the Bathroom, Baby's Nursery and Playroom it says "unknown description of litho". I would like to suggest that the Bathroom and the Baby's Nursery sets should also be listed as "has no litho" and here's why...

I believe that for whatever reason only furniture sets that were put into production in 1990 (Canopy Bedroom & Playroom) have key lithos. I agree with TOT that the Canopy Bedroom key looks like this:



and I would like to propose that the following key is the Playroom key, since the balloon motif matches the litho on the Playroom puppet show:



Other than these two keys, I have seen no other lithos that could possibly belong to the Bathroom or Baby's Nursery furniture sets, so unless I am wrong about the balloon key belonging to the Playroom or if there are lithos out there I've never seen, I will continue to assert that the Bathroom and Baby's Nursery (along with the Kitchen, Living Room and Bedroom) never came with lithos for their respective keys.

Have you ever seen any lithos that you don't know what sets to which they belong? Do you have a key with a litho for any of the furniture sets besides the Canopy Bedroom and Playroom? As always, I would love to hear about it so I can complete my Precious Places collection!