The Backside of Vinyls - Summer Santa

Today I'm looking at the back side of Summer Santa from Park #12. Summer Santa can be found at the Winter Summerland miniature golf course over at Disney's Blizzard Beach water park.

If you look closely at the picture below, you'll see the golf bag on Santa's back, filled with Candy Cane striped golf clubs and a fishing pole, which has a blue fish on the end. If we take a look at the back of the Summer Santa vinyl, there's the same green golf bag, filled with 3 Candy Cane striped golf clubs and a fishing pole. The blue fish at the end of the fishing pole in the above picture, stretches around to fill the back of the left ear on the Vinylmation.

Finally, the sun in the background of Summer Santa in the above picture, can also be found on the front and back of the figure's right ear. It would have been really easy to leave the back of this vinyl pretty plain, with just the back of Santa's hat and shirt, but I'm glad Thomas Scott incorporated some of the Winter Summerland logo, plus Santa's humorous golf bag and clubs.

Park #12 Vinylmation Deal at the DisneyStore.com

The Disney Store Online is currently running a deal on Park #12 Vinylmation - 3 blind boxes for $24.95 against a regular retail price of $12.95 each. I think Park #12 is a wonderful series and this is a great deal! No promo code necessary, just add 3 to your basket. Currently no date has been set on when this promotion ends.

Temptations...

(Photo credit: VinylmationWorld)

The more I see pictures of this set, the more I want it! It's tempting me something fierce right now! I think if it's still being sold at D-Street Orlando when I'm next there in October, I'll have to pick it up. It'll be a sign from the universe.

Park #12 Contemporary Set Release

The Park #12 Contemporary Set has been released at D-Streets today. The set draws inspiration from the famous Mary Blair mural inside the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. The set features two 3" figures and two 1.5" Jr. figures - a brand new combination in the world of Vinylmation combo sets. This set has a Limited Edition of 1,200 and all figures were designed by Caley Hicks. The set retails at $49.95.

A Closer Look at the Park #12 Contemporary Set

I am pretty excited about this set! I love it when seasoned Walt Disney World fans are acknowledged through Vinylmation. Sure we all love the big icons like the Earful Tower, the Tree of Life, Spaceship Earth... but there are only so many of those big icons to transfer into vinyl form before we end up with repeated designs. Not to mention that for someone who's been to Disney World a number of times, sometimes it's the little things we want to see as a Vinylmation, things that others might not immediately recognize. Like the Blizzard Beach Snowman for example.

The Contemporary Resort is probably one of, if not the most well known Walt Disney World resort. Even some of my friends who have never been to Disney World know that there's a triangular shaped resort with a monorail running through it. So this set is a good choice because it sits on the brink of being popular with Disney World veterans and at the same time, still potentially appealing to less frequent Disney visitors. I have never actually stayed at the Contemporary Resort, but I have passed through a number of times for meals, shopping trips, monorail fun and of course to take a look at the beautiful Mary Blair mural, on which this Park 12 set is based.

This set contains 4 figures in a new combination: two 3" figures and two Jr 1.5" figures. Let's break down this upcoming set. First up, let's take a took at the Native American girl figure and the inspiration for her design.

Here's one section of the mural: take a look at the girl in the center with the fruit on her head

And here she is in vinyl form as the first 3" figure in this set:

Now let's move on to take a look at the second figure in the set - the five legged goat. The story says that Mary Blair gave all the goats in her mural four legs, except one (seen in the picture below). When asked if this was a mistake, Mary replied, "well no one is perfect so I gave one goat five legs".

See the two goats in the top right? The one on the left has 5 legs whilst the one on the right has 4

And if we take a look at the second figure in this set, we can see two hooves on the front of the figure and three on the back, making him the five legged goat from the mural.

Now we'll move on to the third figure in the set and the first of the Jr. figures...

Returning to this picture, we can see the blue rabbit at the bottom

Here's a closer look

And here's the Jr. figure:

And now we move on to the final figure in the set and the second Jr. figure. Here's the section of the mural that the Orange Owl figure was taken from:

The Orange Owl is sat on top of the Native American child's head

And here is the Orange Owl Jr. figure:

And finally, here is a picture of the full Mary Blair mural:

Just beautiful! If you're ever at or near the Contemporary Resort, check it out!

The Park #12 Contemporary Set will be released at D-Streets tomorrow.

What do you think of this set?

Park #12 Country Bears Release

The third release of today was the Park #12 Country Bears release. This is a 3-figure Limited Edition set of 1,500 by artist Monty Maldovan. The set features Max, Melvin and Buff, the three animal heads mounted on the side of the wall at the Country Bear Jamboree. This set retails at $49.95 (not the advertised $39.95) and is only available at D-Streets.

My Park 12 Haul

I ordered 8 blind boxes from the Disney Store online on the day of release (June 14). After what felt like an eternity for them to arrive (I was super excited, in reality it only took 5 days) I was pretty impressed with what I pulled, so kudos to the guys in the Disney Store warehouse who picked out these for me.

I ended up with 6 different figures and 2 duplicates. Out of those 6 figures, I wanted 3 of them and decided to keep a fourth. So I ended up with two figures plus two duplicates in my trade pile. Duplicates don't bother me too much, but when you didn't want that vinyl in the first place, getting 2 of that same one is a bummer. But I got over that quickly when I remembered what I pulled in the very first box I opened...

The blue monorail variant!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see my pulls (in order) were: Disneyland Blue Monorail, Summer Santa, Pooh's Hunny Hunt, a duplicate of Pooh's Hunny Hunt, the Big Thunder Mountain goat chewing dynamite, a duplicate of Summer Santa, the Tumble Monkey and finally, Teddi Barra.

My keeps: Summer Santa, BTMRR goat, Tumble Monkey and Teddi Barra
My trades: Summer Santa, Pooh's Hunny Hunt (x2)

I'm keeping hold of the monorail for now, they've sold for $200-$380 on eBay in the last couple weeks. Insane.

Have you bought any Park 12s? What did you blox?

Blind Boxing Blues

A member of a Vinylmation Facebook group that I'm part of, posted a picture today of his Park 12 blind box haul from D-Street. It seems the cases were mixed and he was not happy, this was his pull:

I feel for the guy - that sucks! I know that trading is part of the hobby and getting 1 or 2 out of 5 that you don't want is bearable. But five multiples, especially if you don't want even one of them, is tough to take. While blind boxing is fun, this incident serves as a reminder of how time consuming, frustrating and expensive it can be to get the vinyls you want and complete a collection if you're blind boxing.

Don't get me wrong, bloxing is fun and if the odds are in my favor I do it, but especially if you're a new collector, it's important to familiarize yourself with how bloxing works and what the outcome could be. That way you can be braced for less than desired situations.

Do you have any great bloxing stories to share? Any disasters? What happened? Share your story in the comments!

Vinylmation Review - Park #12

For today's Vinylmation Review, I will be taking a look at the newly released Park #12 series

Released: June 14, 2013

Blind Box

As I'm primarily a Park Series collector, I was very excited for the release of this series. And I mean VERY! I found myself counting down the days for this release, which is partly what this hobby should be about. Disney teased me by saying on their official Vinylmation website that Park 12 would be released online on June 7th. As the collecting community noted, an online release of a series before a park release is unheard of, and suspicion was raised that this was a mistake. Indeed it was. I checked multiple times on June 7th, but no Park 12 online. This got me worried that they'd be a no-show on June 14th, but thankfully when I checked at 7am - they were there!

I have only been to Disneyland and California Adventure once and that was in 2003. Much has changed since then. So Walt Disney World Park vinyls are my focus, as I can appreciate them far more than Disneyland Resort vinyls, which don't hold much meaning for me. Having said that, I'm glad Park 12 mixes Disneyland with Disney World, so that there's something for everyone.

I've heard many people in the vinyl collecting community voice the opinion that Park 12 is somewhat of an anti-climax. I don't feel that way. I can see why characters such as Summer Santa and Goofy's Gas wouldn't appeal to the infrequent Disney vacationer, but for a Disney World veteran like me, almost all of these characters appeal but all are recognizable (from the World that is).

Reasons to love this series:

• As I already said, there's something for everyone here. This isn't a purely Disneyland focused series, nor is it solely centered around Walt Disney World. There are characters from both resorts which makes this series appeal to a much wider audience
• We're seeing some things we haven't seen before with this series, for example the Spitting Camel. The level of detail is amazing on its back and the metallic gold color isn't used a lot on vinyls
• In my personal opinion, the inclusion of lesser known characters is a plus. Some people might not recognize the Goat chewing dynamite, or Summer Santa, but I instantly recognized them. I love that Disney is appealing to those who want a wider range of Disney World rides/attractions rather than repeats. After all, the big names are in there too
• The attention to detail is incredible with some of these figures, in particular I'm thinking of the Dinosaur vinyl. The wheels are so much better on this vinyl than on the Kilimanjaro Safari vinyl (no offense Eric Caszatt) and the CTX-ROVER written on his arm, just wow, Billy Davis covered everything. He also incorporated a ton onto a small canvas
• This series features the work of some lesser known artists. I haven't seen much from Billy Davis and I haven't seen anything from Sarah Hall or Josh Henselmeier before. It's interesting to see their work alongside the more commonly featured artists

Things that aren't so great:

• I don't really have any not so great points with this series, only little aspects or features or certain characters that I would have done differently had it been me

My Verdict:

I absolutely love this series and I have ordered myself 8 blind boxes (the max. limit) from DisneyStore.com and I can't wait to see what I get when it arrives!

Please share your thoughts on Park #12 in the comments :)

Park 12 Release

The Park 12 series released today at Walt Disney World, Disneyland Resort and online at DisneyStore.com. This is a blind box set retailing at $12.95.

I was actually pretty excited for this series! I love it much more than I thought I would and with Park series being my Vinylmation collecting theme, it added to my excitement. I just so happened to wake up at 2:30am EST today and since I was awake I decided to check online to see if they had been released. Since Disney's Official Vinylmation website said that this series would be available last Friday (June 7th), which they were not, I was worried that they would be a no-show again this week.

I know that DisneyStore.com usually updates around 3am EST, so when they were not online, I didn't panic, I just went back to sleep. Sure enough at 7am EST when I was awake again, there they were! I was beside myself. It's been a while since a Park series released and it's been even longer since I wanted so many vinyls from one series. I ordered 8 blind boxes this morning and I am so excited for when they arrive!!

I will keep y'all posted with what I blox! Are you picking up any Park 12s?