I'm NEW + Collecting PVC Miniature Minikins!

[Clinozoisite]

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!

Wow. That is quite a move! Have you lived in the US before, or will this be a completely new adventure for you?

Garage sales, flea markets and thrift stores (Salvation Army, Goodwill, St. Vincent De Paul, etc.) are all excellent places to find vintage 80s toys. Some members of this forum have found really cool pieces for bargain prices!

What do you like collecting?

I mainly collect Rainbow Brite animation cels and the 11" dolls, but I do have an assortment of other Rainbow Brite items hanging around my house.

[souwah]

Wow. That is quite a move! Have you lived in the US before, or will this be a completely new adventure for you?

Garage sales, flea markets and thrift stores (Salvation Army, Goodwill, St. Vincent De Paul, etc.) are all excellent places to find vintage 80s toys. Some members of this forum have found really cool pieces for bargain prices!

Thanks for the all the advice, i will definitely hit up the places you mentioned!

I've not lived in Cali before but i've visited a lot of times to see my fiancé and his family. My fiancé is from Sacramento, we're both wedding photographers and we met at a photography convention in Spain a few years ago. Meeting him has been quite the adventure for the two of us

What part of the US are you from? What do you think of the re-release of RB in the US? Is it popular?

[Clinozoisite]

I've not lived in Cali before but i've visited a lot of times to see my fiancé and his family. My fiancé is from Sacramento, we're both wedding photographers and we met at a photography convention in Spain a few years ago. Meeting him has been quite the adventure for the two of us

What part of the US are you from? What do you think of the re-release of RB in the US? Is it popular?

Wow! That's a great story about how you two met! If only I were ever so lucky when I attend conferences...

I live in Michigan (colored orange on this map):

Specifically, I live in the southeast corner, right next to Canada.

[Blondine Arc-En-Ciel]

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.
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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!

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Which MIB Starlite? I've got a number of them

OK, seriously, I'll put a link on here to the Canadian one.

I've been living on the other side of the Channel for some years now. My screen name of Blondine Arc-En-Ciel litterally means the little blonde girl of the rainbow in French. It's also what Rainbow Brite was called in European French. In Canada she is called Azurine in Quebec.

I'm at work now so I'll reply to you at length this evening.

A bientout!!!

[Rainbow Brite]

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!

You bet! Hopefully one day soon I can devote some time to taking better pictures of those figures...lol

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?

Yes, (apart from that Lurky) I have all of the PVC's and figures listed on that page. And I've been collecting for 16 years...lol...now I feel old!

That's so exciting that you're getting married and moving to California! Congratulations!

[Blondine Arc-En-Ciel]

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[/quote


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!

Do you still have access to the auction? Maybe it's still on your want list somewhere? Do you have anything from paypal about the financial transaction for it? What I'm leading up to is to find the 12 figure Item Number. When you have that, put it into any ebay search window and hit Enter or whatever and it will come up. If all else fails, search for RB in finished transactions.

What I'm leading up to is once you have the auction page on your screen, click on Bid History and look for someone with over 1500 feedbacks. That's most likely me. Then you can see how each of us bid for the item.
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[Blondine Arc-En-Ciel]

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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.
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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??

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The 3D Eraser versions of Canary and Buddy look very close to their Schleich counterparts. With Canary the biggest difference is her shoes. The Mattel version has yellow ones and the German version has brown ones. The two different Buddys look very much the same. And there are other figurines (non-Mattel) in the US that were never sold in Europe.

Also don't forget the large banks made by Kat's Meow. They're a little big for figurines but they're pretty good. There's one of RB and another of Starlite. there are two variations of the RB bank. One has blue eyes and the other has brown eyes. There are a number of other small differences between them.

[Blondine Arc-En-Ciel]

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!

.
.
.
I knew you had an American connection because you mentioned Buddy's butt rather than his bum in the third sentence. And I know what carbooted means even though it's a mystery to Americans.

And I'm an American but I've spent a good part of my adult life in Europe.


Here are my Canadian and some other RB dolls. I've now got an MIB La La Orange from Canada on the way to join them.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1180251549 ... lAndOthers#


Here are some other RB items. These pix are 6 months old and are seriously outdated

https://picasaweb.google.com/1180251549 ... 7O7pjpyKZQ#

I hope all of the links work...
.

[souwah]

Do you still have access to the auction? Maybe it's still on your want list somewhere? Do you have anything from paypal about the financial transaction for it? What I'm leading up to is to find the 12 figure Item Number. When you have that, put it into any ebay search window and hit Enter or whatever and it will come up. If all else fails, search for RB in finished transactions.

What I'm leading up to is once you have the auction page on your screen, click on Bid History and look for someone with over 1500 feedbacks. That's most likely me. Then you can see how each of us bid for the item.
.

So you're B***e with feedbacks of 1588! lol

[souwah]

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I knew you had an American connection because you mentioned Buddy's butt rather than his bum in the third sentence. And I know what carbooted means even though it's a mystery to Americans.

And I'm an American but I've spent a good part of my adult life in Europe.


Here are my Canadian and some other RB dolls. I've now got an MIB La La Orange from Canada on the way to join them.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1180251549 ... lAndOthers#


Here are some other RB items. These pix are 6 months old and are seriously outdated

https://picasaweb.google.com/1180251549 ... 7O7pjpyKZQ#

I hope all of the links work...
.

OMG OMG RAINBOW BRITE ENVY! it looks like a RB LITTLE TOY SHOP! =) WOW! so so impressed! I was looking at the pix for ages! lol
Where do you find all this space to keep all your treasures!
is there anything you don't have in your collection and you mega want??
How long have u been collecting? Is it a personal choice to keep on price tags?