Tuesday, May 1, 2007

WDCC Continued

Here's some more sculptures from my collection:

The bottom shelf in my left cabinet is home to my Fantasia sculptures. Since Fantasia happens to be my favorite film, I devoted a whole shelf to Fantasia-themed collectibles, not just WDCC's. Partially showing on the left is a Sorcerer Mickey snowglobe & on the right is a Harmony Kingdom box (Harmony Kingdom boxes are pretty cool looking. They make great gifts).

Sorry for the extreme close-up on this picture. The Mickey sculpture was a VisaCard owner exclusive. Although it's roughly the size of a soda can, it happens to be one of my favorite sculptures in the collection.

These happen to be some of my favorite pieces, especially Ben Ali Gator on the right. This is the "Dance of the Hours" set. I bought each of them on eBay, before I quit buying there.

I stopped using eBay mostly because of all the anxiety you go through bidding on items. Like a real auction or gambling, bidding on eBay is an addictive & dangerous habit. I nearly got caught in the rush... hook, line & sinker. By then, money disappears instantaneously.

My father caught "eBay Mania" not too long ago. He bought everything: license plates, train whistles, slot machines, candy dispensers, old postcards, road signs, stuffed & mounted animals, fax machines, old film projectors, 8mm & 16mm films, space heaters... the list goes on. He spent thousands on all kinds of junk.

Anyone out there who uses eBay should be extremely cautious & careful of who they're buying from. It can & will lead to trouble down the road.

There's another Harmony Kingdom box (Notice the tiny grapes beside it. Some H.K. boxes have little pieces hiding inside, kinda like a prize in a box of Cracker Jack). The cupids were also purchased through eBay. Luckily, none of the petals, wings or arms broke off in shipping. That happens pretty often when buying fragile collectibles. Luckily, I've been spared from those instances.

In the right cabinet, the top shelf is another "Misc." section.

The Scrooge sculpture is another one of my favorites. One time I took him out & drew him. It took me over a half hour to draw all the coins. It was worth it, though.

The Devil Donald on the left was one of my first sculptures. I didn't know it at the time, but it was signed on the bottom by the sculptor of the piece, Patrick Romandy-Simmons.

The Goofy on the right happens to be my LEAST favorite sculpture in my collection. I'll tell you why:

When I spotted that sculpture on eBay a few years ago, I bid on it immediately. The description said it was "IN MINT CONDITION... NO SCRATCHES, DIRT, BREAKS, ETC...". When it finally was delivered, I was shocked. The horn Goofy is playing was chipping & rusting, the base was covered in what seemed to be oil grease, the paint was chipping & the surface felt rough & jagged to the touch. It was almost like it was left out in the rain. There was nothing else to do but give the seller a dissatisfied review & a bad rating (like that does much).

That's one of the other reasons I don't use eBay no more: distrustful sellers.

The shelf below houses my "Membership" sculptures.

When you sign up & pay membership, you receive a free sculpture plus a few other goodies like sketches & pins. Each year, the sculpture changes.

When I first became a member back in 2000, I received the Jiminy sculpture on the left. Not only does membership come with a sculpture & a Certificate of Authenticity, but it also comes with a pin, a coin, a replica sketch that the sculpture is based on, a subscription to the WDCC official newsletter & magazine, plus the chance to buy "Members-Only" pieces.

The Jiminy Cricket sculpture was the only sculpture in this picture that I got through membership. Timon, Dumbo & Pooh were eBay purchases.


The Membership pieces from the past few years were not as good as the older ones. Ariel was another story. The Ariel sculpture was the Membership sculpture of 2006. For a membership piece, Ariel was a fairly large & detailed sculpture. It's simply beautiful. Scuttle was a companion piece & Sebastian & Flounder were for VisaCard members only.



Since the Bambi sculpture came out in 2004, each membership sculpture has had a companion piece to go with it. Bambi had Thumper, Belle had a sheep, & so on. While the Bambi set is pretty cute & well designed, the Belle set piece is pretty plain & unappealing. After Ariel came out, we were expecting something to top it...


We got this instead. It's a lot like the Belle set. Cinderella is somewhat plain, almost like a china doll or one of those Children of the Corn. Bruno at least looks pretty appealing. Still, it is a nice set though. I'm going to renew my membership probably sometime this week & get this set.

More to come soon!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow,
this is an excellent collection Mike. It's really cool how you have them depict movie scenes or just make them appealing to the eye in some way, and by curiosity did you have these shelves installed in your house already or did you have to custom build them yourself. Awesome blog looking forward to more. Have fun at Hofstra on saturday I can't make it.
David Spector

Michael J. Ruocco said...

Hey Dave! Thanks again!

As a matter of fact, when I had only about 10 of them, I had them on a small shelf hanging on my wall at home. As my collection grew, I ran out of space on my shelf (plus they were in danger of falling off).

So I went searching for curio cabinets with my dad. One day as we were going through Roosevelt Field Mall, we noticed that Remington's (a knife shop) was going out of business & selling their furniture. We saw those two cabinets, & my father (the saleman that he is) scored both of them for a measly $350. My cousin made the shelves for me & VOILA!... it was done.

The cabinets & sculptures are now in my father's upstairs loft at the auto shop in Freeport (where we're building the Rockman).