Been There, Done That, Bought The Keychain (Souvenir Keychains)

Keychains have been a popular vacation souvenir for decades. Unfortunately, if the lack of keychains stocked by the gift shops I've visited on my most recent vacations is anything to go by, then that popularity seems to be waning. It used to be that no matter where you went, any gift shop worth the name would typically feature a rack of keychains. The display would most often be located either on the counter by the register (a prime location for impulse buys) or on the opposite side of the rotating rack where the postcards were displayed.

One of my very first keychains was a souvenir from the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania.

My mom still likes to tell the story about the nice people at the leather shop who gave each of us kids a free keychain, and gave my then baby brother a scrap of leather to chew on.

My all-time favorite 'vacation destination' has got to be the Disney parks. I've been lucky enough to visit Walt Disney World three times in my life and Disneyland once. As someone who had multiple siblings and could only get to Florida or California by airplane, I can say with certainty that these trips were huge undertakings for my parents, both logistically and financially. It took my mother and father years to put aside enough money for each of these vacations, but they did it because they wanted their children to have the chance to go. I happen to think that the memories we made on those trips were worth the cost, even if I still have nightmares about that Snow White dark ride.

Here are just some of the Disney parks keychains I've collected.

There are keychains here from Walt Disney World resort, Disney's Animal Kingdom park, Epcot, Typhoon Lagoon water park, and even Hong Kong Disneyland. Most of them were purchased secondhand. I can't seem to resist Disney parks keychains when I find them at flea markets or yard sales, especially knowing how much they must've originally cost at the parks. There was one time when my parents and I went to a pop-up Disney outlet store that had leftover merchandise from the parks, deeply discounted. I must've bought half a dozen keychains.

One great thing about buying keychains on vacation as souvenirs is that their small size makes them easy to pack for the trip home. Keychains are also, for the most part, fairly sturdy. Try packing a souvenir snow globe or sand sculpture in your luggage and you'll see what I mean.

It saddens me that souvenir keychains appear to be going the way of the dinosaurs. But then, unless they end up in someone's permanent collection, souvenir keychains tend to have a rather limited shelf life. Sure, they're fun to buy while on vacation. But when it comes time to do the spring housecleaning, chances are the souvenir tee shirts and the souvenir keychains will be the first to go. I've been shopping at thrift stores long enough to know that vacation souvenirs are some of the more heavily donated items.

However, in the back of my mind is a nagging worry that fewer souvenir keychains in gift shops will mean fewer souvenir keychains ending up on the secondary market. There may come a point in the future when the supply of souvenir keychains available to collectors dries up, which could cause the prices of the remaining keychains to rise. Granted, this isn't really likely to happen, since I can't imagine that collector demand will ever be high enough to exceed the available supply, even if the supply of souvenir keychains dwindles in the future.  However, it may already be happening.

I was at an antique show recently, and one of the dealers had a basket of souvenir keychains. Due to their appearance and the materials used to make them, it was obvious that these keychains were not 'antiques'. However, the dealer was charging three dollars each for them. In the past, these same keychains would likely have been priced at a dollar each or less at a flea market or yard sale. Of course, the pricing may have had more to do with the venue than with the keychains themselves. As I wrote in a previous post, adding the word 'antique' to anything always seems to up the price.

Signed, Treesa