I'm NEW + Collecting PVC Miniature Minikins!

Post by **souwah** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:16 pm

Hi there! I'm SW from the UK. I've been recently hit with the rainbow brite fever and nostalgia after finding some of my long lost childhood miniatures in my toy chest in the attic. My Favourite being Red Butler by Schleich in Germany. Since then i've been obsessed with looking for the rest of the gang (in miniature PVC form as space is pretty limited) and watching rainbow on DVD! lol.
I got completely sucked in to a ebay bid war over a buddy blue minikin MIP last week! I was so happy to have won but i guess it wasn't that much of a bargain in the end! I hope to make some friends here who may offer their trusty collecting advice/tips/pictures particularly of the rainbow gang in miniature form. I am particularly interested in PVC minikins USA + European versions and i'm desperately seeking both versions of Starlite =) so please help!
have a nice day =)
xoxo

Post by **Rainbow Brite** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:06 pm

Welcome to the forum!!

I loved collecting the PVC's as well. The only one I don't have is the British Lurky, but he seems to be incredibly rare. Here's a list of all that were produced. Feel free to use it as a checklist

http://www.rainbowbrite.net/collect/plastic.html

And good luck!!

Post by **Maki** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:07 pm

Hi, souwah, welcome tothe Rainbow Briet forums.

Post by **Clinozoisite** » Tue Mar 15, 2011 7:41 pm

Welcome! The miniatures are adorable - you'll have to share photos of your current collection.

Tue Mar 15, 2011 8:12 pm

souwah wrote:Hi there! I'm SW from the UK. I've been recently hit with the rainbow brite fever and nostalgia after finding some of my long lost childhood miniatures in my toy chest in the attic. My Favourite being Red Butler by Schleich in Germany. Since then i've been obsessed with looking for the rest of the gang (in miniature PVC form as space is pretty limited) and watching rainbow on DVD! lol.
I got completely sucked in to a ebay bid war over a buddy blue minikin MIP last week! I was so happy to have won but i guess it wasn't that much of a bargain in the end! I hope to make some friends here who may offer their trusty collecting advice/tips/pictures particularly of the rainbow gang in miniature form. I am particularly interested in PVC minikins USA + European versions and i'm desperately seeking both versions of Starlite =) so please help!
have a nice day =)
xoxo

Hi, SW and welcome to Rainbow Land!

Sorry, but I may have been one of those bidding against you for that Minikin ;;;-D). Since you have it, is there a chance you could look at the bottom of both of his feet and tell us what is printed there? I'm curious if that was a Mattel 3D Eraser/Rubber, a Schleich figurine or something totally different.

Ebay Germany (.de) is the best place to look for the German figurines of course, but search for Regina Regenbogen and not for Rainbow Brite. On Ebay US there are always different PVC's including some from other markets as some things do move around the planet. One of the more interesting things in my collection is an MIB Starlite made for the Canadian market that I found in Australia of all places.

Where do you come from in the UK? I was living in Bedford when the original RB dolls first arrived on the scene.
.

Tue Mar 15, 2011 10:52 pm

.
QUICK GUIDE TO EUROPEAN MATTEL RB FIGURINES...

There are three families; Poseables, Stampers and 3D Erasers.

Poseables can be, uh, posed. Their arms and legs can be moved. They are all plastic. They are sensitive to being correctly balanced and may fall over if their weight distribution is incorrect. They can also sit. Poseables include RB, Twink, Canary, Patty, Shy and Baby. All but Twink have a tuft of yarn hair. They are not too difficult to find loose but finding the full set MOC can be a challenge. Printing on the cards is in (in order, top to bottom) English, French, German and Italian.

Stampers are a set of rubber stamps. They have a round base that hold the ink pad. The upper part where the stamp is happens to be a figurine. The exterior, both upper and lower, is hard plastic. If memory serves me correctly, they are the same six people as the Poseables. They are easy to find both loose and MOC. They were only sold in Italy (and perhaps in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland). All printing on the cards is only in Italian, unlike the other two series. By the way, I opened an MOC RB one to use as a loose figurine and the ink hadn't dried out after all these years!

3D Erasers were made from somewhat soft rubber. They had a certain flexibility to them. Unlike the others, there were only five in this set. They were RB, Canary, Buddy, Twink and Romeo. The only difference between the two sprites was the color. I've heard there was also a Lurky in this series but I've never personally seen one or any adverts. On the other hand, there is a Lurky out there that's about the same size and every once in a while turns up for sale somewhere. These are the most difficult to find loose and extremely difficult to find MOC. The Canary and Buddy figurines are often confused with the Schleich versions from Germany as they are quite similar.

Easy, etc. to find refers to Europe only. They were not sold elsewhere to my knowledge.
.
.

Post by **souwah** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 1:15 am

Rainbow Brite wrote:Welcome to the forum!! I loved collecting the PVC's as well. The only one I don't have is the British Lurky, but he seems to be incredibly rare. Here's a list of all that were produced. Feel free to use it as a checklist

http://www.rainbowbrite.net/collect/plastic.html

And good luck!!

Hi! Thanks so much for making me feel welcome!
I've actually been using your list to learn more about them even before joining this forum =) Thank you again, your rb knowledge has been so so helpful for us fans!

Do you have all the PVCs from around the globe too? I'm sure UK Lurky will pop up sooner or later! How long have you been collecting?

Post by **souwah** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 1:30 am

Blondine Arc-En-Ciel wrote:
souwah wrote:Hi there! I'm SW from the UK. I've been recently hit with the rainbow brite fever and nostalgia after finding some of my long lost childhood miniatures in my toy chest in the attic. My Favourite being Red Butler by Schleich in Germany. Since then i've been obsessed with looking for the rest of the gang (in miniature PVC form as space is pretty limited) and watching rainbow on DVD! lol.
I got completely sucked in to a ebay bid war over a buddy blue minikin MIP last week! I was so happy to have won but i guess it wasn't that much of a bargain in the end! I hope to make some friends here who may offer their trusty collecting advice/tips/pictures particularly of the rainbow gang in miniature form. I am particularly interested in PVC minikins USA + European versions and i'm desperately seeking both versions of Starlite =) so please help!
have a nice day =)
xoxo

Hi, SW and welcome to Rainbow Land!

Sorry, but I may have been one of those bidding against you for that Minikin ;;;-D). Since you have it, is there a chance you could look at the bottom of both of his feet and tell us what is printed there? I'm curious if that was a Mattel 3D Eraser/Rubber, a Schleich figurine or something totally different.

Ebay Germany (.de) is the best place to look for the German figurines of course, but search for Regina Regenbogen and not for Rainbow Brite. On Ebay US there are always different PVC's including some from other markets as some things do move around the planet. One of the more interesting things in my collection is an MIB Starlite made for the Canadian market that I found in Australia of all places.

Where do you come from in the UK? I was living in Bedford when the original RB dolls first arrived on the scene.
.

Hello Blondine, thank you for making me feel so welcome and all those handy tips!

Wow! i think it's so funny i was probably bidding against you for buddy blue! We were probably getting carried away! lol! Well on Buddy's feet it says "W. Germany" and on his butt it says "Hallmark Cards Inc".
Is it pretty rare to find MOC/MIP versions of the PVCs? as i really want loose and MOC/MIP ones. Any tips on where to ideally look for the MIP/MON ones? Please do let me know if u see any and that you already have.

My collection is pretty small at the moment, when i was younger i had the original 10inch(?) RB and tiny velcro twink but then my big sister convinced me that my RB doll was actually Chuckie's gf (u know that horror movie about the evil doll!) as they had the same colour hair! As you can imagine i was completely freaked out so i refused to have her in my bed anymore! lol I used to have all the poseables as a child but my sister carbooted all but RB a few years back! Grrrr! Anyway so i'm on my mini quest to find the gang again!

I am actually from Cheshire, England. Do you still live in Bedford? I am currently in transition, i am getting married in June and moving to California and have actually been dreaming about hitting US garage sales to hunt for little RB treasures! hehe

Oh please do show me your MIB starlite, i'd love to see!

Post by **souwah** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 1:31 am

Clinozoisite wrote:Welcome! The miniatures are adorable - you'll have to share photos of your current collection.

Thank you for your kind welcome! I will definitely share my collection soon (when it's slightly more impressive!) lol!

What do you like collecting?

Post by **souwah** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 1:34 am

Blondine Arc-En-Ciel wrote:.
QUICK GUIDE TO EUROPEAN MATTEL RB FIGURINES...

There are three families; Poseables, Stampers and 3D Erasers.

Poseables can be, uh, posed. Their arms and legs can be moved. They are all plastic. They are sensitive to being correctly balanced and may fall over if their weight distribution is incorrect. They can also sit. Poseables include RB, Twink, Canary, Patty, Shy and Baby. All but Twink have a tuft of yarn hair. They are not too difficult to find loose but finding the full set MOC can be a challenge. Printing on the cards is in (in order, top to bottom) English, French, German and Italian.

Stampers are a set of rubber stamps. They have a round base that hold the ink pad. The upper part where the stamp is happens to be a figurine. The exterior, both upper and lower, is hard plastic. If memory serves me correctly, they are the same six people as the Poseables. They are easy to find both loose and MOC. They were only sold in Italy (and perhaps in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland). All printing on the cards is only in Italian, unlike the other two series. By the way, I opened an MOC RB one to use as a loose figurine and the ink hadn't dried out after all these years!

3D Erasers were made from somewhat soft rubber. They had a certain flexibility to them. Unlike the others, there were only five in this set. They were RB, Canary, Buddy, Twink and Romeo. The only difference between the two sprites was the color. I've heard there was also a Lurky in this series but I've never personally seen one or any adverts. On the other hand, there is a Lurky out there that's about the same size and every once in a while turns up for sale somewhere. These are the most difficult to find loose and extremely difficult to find MOC. The Canary and Buddy figurines are often confused with the Schleich versions from Germany as they are quite similar.

Easy, etc. to find refers to Europe only. They were not sold elsewhere to my knowledge.
.
.

Wow! Thank you so much for all your handy tips! So so interesting!

In regards to the Canary and buddy Figurines - which ones are confused with the Schleich ones? Do you have pictures? as my fiancé found me a Canary Yellow in the US and now i'm worried it'll be wrong??