Most Wanted List Revisited

Last December I published my Precious Places Most Wanted List that detailed the five sets that are rare to the point that I thought they might be non-existent.  Since I wrote that post, I've gotten more information, so I thought it was time to revisit the list.

5) The Pretty Penny Wishing Well - Aqua Well with Pink Roof

 

Current Status: More rare than pink well with aqua roof, but definitely findable
Since writing my first list, two or three aqua wells with pink roofs have turned up on eBay including one that had a pink watering can.  (I still have yet to see a purple ladle though.)

4) Wendy and Her Ice Cream Cart with Aqua Wheels

Photo courtesy of eBay seller kcaparso22

Current Status: The picture says it all, this set is out there!  
Unfortunately my eBay app failed to remind me to bid at the end of this auction, so I missed the chance to actually own this set.  Grrrr..... But it is nice to know that it does indeed exist.

3) The Mother and Baby Pony in Pink 

 

Current Status: Still unsighted.  No further information available.

2) The Dining Room

Current Status: Still unsighted, but...

I've had one particular commenter give me good reason to hope that this set may yet turn up.

Anonymous commenter on 7-7-11 said:

"... about the dinning room set. i remeber my dad taking me to zellers in canada. i had the choice of the dinning room set or the purple bedroom set. i chose the bedroom! however knowing what i know now i woulda chose the dinning set lol!"

This is the first information I've gotten from anyone who remembers seeing the set in a store.  It's a promising sign, don't you think?

1) All the County Fair Sets

Current Status: Still unsighted by me, but...
Had a recent conversation with another collector who told me that about twelve years ago there was a Ferris Wheel prototype set for sale on eBay.  She didn't remember much about it except that it was definitely listed as a prototype (the seller said she got it from a friend who worked for Fisher Price) and that it sold for hundreds of dollars (no surprise there).

I also got information from an anonymous commenter on 8-4-11:
"I got news for those of you interested- I have spent the last hour on the phone with fisher-price and they said the county fair sets WERE sold to the public!! Only for a limited time and they are not sure how many but they ARE out there!! Also none of the precious places sets had more than 26,000 made and there are 4 sets that I have not found on any lists but that fisher price told me exist and were sold but in a smaller amount. They are number 5192 combo scene, 5179 special furniture, 5210 special kit and 6563 sign- that was all the info they had and they said they were promotional items. Also the dining room was also mass produced so those of you looking don't give up!!"

All this gives me just a glimmer of hope that whether prototype or mass-produced set, I may yet find one or (can I dare to dream) two of the County Fair sets to call my own.

(PS. If the winning bidder of the Ferris Wheel prototype set is out there, please contact me!  I'd love to know more about it.  You can reach me here: PreciousPlacesCollector@gmail.com)

Precious Places Most Wanted List

Here is my top 5 list of Precious Places sets I still need for my collection:

5) The Pretty Penny Wishing Well - Aqua Well with Pink Roof

Okay, so I know it's rather greedy of me, but even though I have a complete Wishing Well set (pink wishing well with aqua roof), I still want the variation with the aqua well and pink roof.  I haven't seen it on eBay recently, but I think I saw it once a long time ago, maybe...  Hopefully it will come up again soon so I can be sure it does truly exist.

4) Wendy and Her Ice Cream Cart with Aqua Wheels

In my attempt to get every Precious Places piece in every color, one particular figure has been the most difficult to find, and that is Wendy and her Ice Cream Cart with aqua wheels.  The particular cart I'm looking for is featured prominently on Wendy's personality card, but does it ever appear on eBay?  No, it does not.  Why not?  This may be one of the great mysteries of the universe.  Hmmmm...

3) The Mother and Baby Pony in Pink 

I've got a complete Mother and Baby Pony set with a white baby pony, but I cannot for the life of me seem to locate the pink baby pony.  She's on the front of the Mother and Baby Pony box and ThisOldToy lists her as a variation, but I haven't seen her.  Have you?

2) The Dining Room 

I agree with ThisOldToy where they say this set is so rare that they've never seen any of the parts to the set.  Where oh where art thou, my elusive Dining Room furniture set?

1) All the County Fair Sets

Now I know these were never put into mass production, but there must have been at least one prototype made of each set since they took pictures of them.  What research I've done indicates that there were probably several prototypes at some point.  Where are the prototypes now and how can I get one?  I haven't been able to make much progress in getting answers to those questions.

If you have any of these sets, please contact me.  I would be more than happy to buy them from you.  And even if you don't want to sell them, please still contact me so that I at least know they exist!!!

A Little Something About the Dining Room

Until recently, this picture of the Dining Room from the Village Map was about all the information I had regarding this elusive Precious Places set:



But I recently acquired scans of several pages from the 1989 Fisher Price Toyfair Catalog and there was just one more bit of information about the set that I never knew:



In addition to the picture showing a slightly different room arrangement, the catalog has text that says the magnetic "Key makes table leaves go up and down!" This was sort of a surprise to me since I'd always figured the key made the cart move.

While not as amazing as finding the actual set (or even part of it!) I thought it was a fun tidbit that I ought to share with all of you collectors out there.

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!

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!

The Elusive Dining Room

During my several years searching e-bay and the internet I have never run across any parts of the Dining Room set. On the This Old Toy website they say about the Dining Room, "This one-year-only set is so hard to find that we have never seen the set nor any accessories to this set. We are beginning to wonder whether this set was ever mass produced."

How about you? Have you ever seen any of the pieces of the Dining Room furniture set? Do you have any of the pieces? If so please tell me about it so that I know my search is not in vain. Thanks!