Spirit Halloween Post-Season Clearance: 2022

Yes, you read that date in the title right. Last year, after the Halloween season was over, I went to Spirit Halloween and picked up a few keychains during their post-season clearance sale. But I kept misplacing the shopping bag with the keychains in it before I could get them photographed. I finally did get the pictures taken, and now I can share my finds with all of you, almost a year late. But hey, better late than never.

This keychain is shaped like one of those old hotel or motel key tags. Except the ‘hotel’ in this case is The Haunted Mansion attraction at the Disney parks. Longtime readers of this blog will already know about my fondness for Disney in general, and for the Disney theme parks in particular. I’m especially drawn to keychains promoting ‘classic’ Disney parks attractions, and The Haunted Mansion certainly qualifies there. According to the tag, this keychain was produced by Open Roads Brands LLC., for Spirit Halloween stores.

Speaking of The Haunted Mansion, pictured above are two Disney Haunted Mansion Figural Bag Clips. These bag clips were produced by Monogram International Inc and were sold in blind bags. I have here Hitchhiker #3, one of The Haunted Mansion’s famous “hitchhiking ghosts”. The character is also known as Phineas or The Traveler. The second blind bag contained the Foolish Mortal Badge bag clip, which is shaped like a Haunted Mansion candle sconce.

And that’s it for this post. I know that this wasn’t a large keychain haul by any means. But there really weren’t that many keychains left by the time the post-season discounts at Spirit Halloween kicked in. You have to be fast to nab the good deals at Spirit Halloween after the holiday is over, but before the stores shut down for the year. So, that’s your keychain shopping tip for the day.

Signed, Treesa

Disney Figural Keyrings by Monogram International Inc.

Today, I will be discussing the Disney Figural Keyrings line by Monogram International Inc. I didn’t originally plan to collect these “Keyrings” specifically. In fact, thanks to the flood of blind bag toys and collectables that came surging onto the retail market in the 2010s, I don’t think I was really aware of this line until I came across several “Figural Keyrings” secondhand at a thrift store. I can’t remember now exactly how many the store had or which characters they were, since I wasn’t that impressed with the figures at that time. They seemed a little too stylized for my taste.

So I can’t really explain why I decided to purchase the Kristoff keychain pictured above. I think I must’ve felt a little sorry for him. He did seem a bit forlorn when I found him in his used state. I’ve always been the sensitive type, as far as my personality goes, and I don’t think I ever really lost that childhood tendency to read emotions into inanimate objects with faces. Seeing the first two Toy Story films probably didn’t help with that. The fifty cent price tag on this keychain made it appealing as well. And as a general Disney fan, I was at least aware of who Kristoff was, even though I hadn’t seen the movie Frozen. As it turned out, I may have had a good eye for keychain selection. According to online research I did for this post, this specific “Kristoff Figural Keyring” is listed as an Exclusive on the Series 5 packaging. However, I don’t know if this actually means anything in terms of its rarity.

I found the Anna keychain, without her packaging, some time later in a clearance bin at a Michaels craft store. I bought her because I thought Kristoff could use some company. Toy Story syndrome strikes again. Still, I didn’t see myself as a collector of Disney Figural Keyrings. You have to have more than two of something to call it a collection, or a sub-collection in this case.

Then one day, I found a Disney Figural Keyring: Series 2 blind box on a clearance table at a Barnes and Noble bookstore. Someone had tried to open the box, and the top was pulled up just enough for me to see Maleficent inside. Seeing the Sleeping Beauty villain rendered in such a cutesy style with a tiny smile amused me so much that I bought her. Ever since then I’ve been looking at this line differently. I guess the art style used for the figures must’ve grown on me.

Next thing you know, I’ll have crossed over to collecting Funko’s Pocket Pop Keychains. I’ve always thought Funko Pops looked sort of weird and creepy, with their strange proportions and their solid black eyes. But the company tends to release characters from a lot of underrepresented franchises that otherwise don’t get a lot of merchandise. I do own one Funko Pop keychain already. But I only bought it because it’s the Fourth Doctor from the original Doctor Who television series. My whole family loved watching the original Doctor Who on PBS when I was growing up. We were Whovians before most people in the United States knew what Doctor Who was. But that’s a story for another day.

Signed, Treesa

Update: I later ended up with this “Maleficent As Dragon” Disney Figural Keyring, after purchasing a blind bag on clearance from FYE. So I now own Maleficent in both her human form, or rather her fairy form, as well as in her dragon form.

Finding Dory (A Story Post)

I guess the primary theme of this post is to demonstrate how my keychain collecting obsession can sometimes override my common sense. This story begins at the Columbus Flea Market in New Jersey. My father and I had driven there early one morning, intending to spend a good chunk of the day browsing the stalls and tables. I think it was around mid-afternoon when I started running low on cash. But as luck would have it, the woman at the next table was selling a variety of Disney themed items, including some Disney collectable pins.

For anyone who doesn’t know, pin trading is a popular pastime at the Disney theme parks. The pins are sold exclusively through Disney, or you can trade with park employees or other park guests for both new and previously released pins. The pins can also be purchased on the secondhand market, sometimes at a considerable markup depending on the rarity and desirability of the pin.

I do love all things Disney, and over time I’ve managed to build up a small collection of Disney pins from yard sales and thrift stores. The woman at the flea market had separated her pins by asking price, and I had just enough cash left on me to purchase one pin from the lowest price bracket. I quickly zeroed in on an Oswald The Lucky Rabbit pin.

Oswald was an animated character created by Walt Disney for Universal Studios in the 1920s. The Walt Disney Company arranged to buy back the rights to Oswald in 2006. I’d actually wanted an Oswald pin for my collection for a while, so buying this pin should’ve been the obvious decision for me. However, before I paid for my purchase, I made the mistake of checking the rest of the table, to see if the seller had anything I wanted more. That’s when I saw a previously ‘blind bagged’ Dory keychain from Pixar’s Finding Nemo film. Blind bag toys had become quite popular, and so were being sold in a wide variety of stores across the country. Of course, the problem with blind bags is that you’re not supposed to know which toy in a series you’re getting until you open it. Dory specifically was from “Series 5” of the “Disney Figural Keyring” line by Monogram International Inc.

So, on the one hand I had the Oswald pin, sold exclusively through Disney and their theme parks. While on the other hand I had the ‘blind bag’ Dory keychain, most likely sold at just about any retail store that featured toys. As you can see, Dory came home with me. I guess I decided that the convenience of knowing which blind bag item I was getting, without having to pay online shipping costs, was worth losing out on the pin. Sometimes I feel like kicking myself for not getting the pin instead. But then I look at Dory’s sweet face and decide that it was money well spent. Besides, Finding Nemo is my favorite Pixar film.

Signed, Treesa

Season Of The Witch (Harry Potter Keychains)

 In popular culture, witches often get lumped into the same 'paranormal' category as vampires, werewolves, and other, frequently sinister mythological beings. Although Wicca and various 'modern-day pagan' groups have, in more recent years, made efforts to combat the age-old stereotype of equating witchcraft with devil-worship.

The seven book Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, set primarily at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is statistically the best-selling book series in history. Add to this a blockbuster film franchise based on the books, as well as "The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter" at Universal Orlando theme park, and it could be argued that Rowling's characters rank among some of the most famous magic practitioners in fiction, right up there with Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth or even Shakespeare's 'Three Witches'.

With Halloween fast approaching, I thought that now would be a good time to show off some Harry Potter themed keychains. I already shared a couple of 'wizarding' keychains in my "Buy What You Like" post, under the header "Pop Culture Touchstones". Also, in another previous post, I wrote about a blind bag Ron Weasley wand keychain made by Paladone Products Ltd. that I found at Dollar Tree. In that post, I mentioned how another company had released several blind box wand keychains made from metal, rather than plastic. I also hinted that I would be sharing more information in a successive post. Unfortunately, that follow-up got buried in my list of future post ideas, where I eventually forgot about it. I will attempt to make amends to my readers here, and I apologize for keeping you waiting.

The metal wand pictured above is from the "Harry Potter Collectible Keychains: Series 1" line by Se7en20. It's meant to be Ron Weasley's broken wand from the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. If you look closely at the photo, you might be able to see the molded 'Spellotape' wrapping on the wand.

This "Wingardium Leviosa" keychain is also from the same line. I actually bought this one in its original blind box, at an actual retail store. I more often buy 'blind' items used rather than at retail, so that they're pre-opened and I know exactly what I'm getting. However, this was on clearance at the time.

The Triwizard Cup keychain pictured above is from a similar collectible keychain series by Monogram International Inc., the "Harry Potter Collectors Keyring: Series 1" line. This keychain would've been a blind bag item originally. However, I bought mine secondhand.

This Hogwarts crest, labeled as a "Harry Potter Soft Touch Keyring" on the tag, is another Monogram International Inc. product. However, this item wasn't blind-packed.

Speaking of crests, here's the official emblem of Hogwarts' Hufflepuff house. Each Hogwarts house features a different animal on its crest, with Hufflepuff represented by an animal that some refer to as 'the badger of mediocrity'. However, judging by the number of times that I've walked into a Build A Bear Workshop store and found all of the Hufflepuff merchandise sold out, while merchandise for every other Hogwarts house was still in stock, I think a lot of Harry Potter fans must have a soft spot for this particular house. And in my mind, this actually makes a lot of sense. While many of us may aspire to be Gryffindors or Ravenclaws or even Slytherins, I think that deep down, most of us identify more with Hufflepuffs. Incidentally, this Hufflepuff house keychain was put out by ATA-BOY Inc.

This Lego keychain also features the Hufflepuff house emblem.

When I told my online keychain collecting friend, Heathersmoo, that I'd acquired a secondhand time turner souvenir keychain with identifying markings from Universal Orlando theme park's "The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter", Heather seemed very interested in seeing it. There's also a story behind my managing to snag this keychain from an online auction site that I think could be useful to other shoppers who buy from secondhand sites. I first stumbled across the auction listing for this time turner keychain by accident, when I typed in a search for, I believe, "hourglass keychains". The auction details stated that this keychain was an estate sale find, and I have a strong suspicion that the seller didn't know what it was actually called because neither the auction header nor the item description included the words "time turner". This may have worked in my favor, as it might partially explain why I was the only one who put in a bid. My guess is that because those crucial keywords were missing from the listing, no rival bidders were able to find the auction, despite the fact that the name Harry Potter was included in the title by the seller.

Let's shift our attention to Paladone Products Ltd., the company responsible for that "Harry Potter Backpack Buddies" blind bag wand keychain I picked up from Dollar Tree. This "Harry Potter Light Up Key Ring" is another Paladone Products item. Coincidentally, I bought this keychain from Dollar Tree as well.

I don't really know a lot about this Harry Potter name/logo keychain, since I bought it secondhand from an outdoor flea market. An online seller who also had one listed for sale stated that it originally came from Hot Topic, a store specializing in pop culture related items. But so far, I've been unable to verify this.

I hope that you enjoyed this 'seasonal' post, and Happy Fall to you all.

Signed, Treesa