THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 25, 1994 TAG: 9412270224
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 205 lines
IT'S CHRISTMAS IN the City. And in the Dickens Village. And in the Alpine Village. And at the North Pole.
But at Judy Campbell's Virginia Beach home, it's Christmas year-round. Dozens of adults and children mill about her den, some singing Christmas carols and listening to street musicians, while others wait for the streetcar that runs along the tracks. Skaters trace figure-eights on the frozen pond by Campbell's front window, and shoppers lug their packages home from Hollydale's department store.
The people though, are about 2 inches tall, and the stores and offices stop short of a foot. Like hundreds of others in Hampton Roads and thousands of others nationally, Campbell is an enthusiast of Department 56 villages - miniature, largely porcelain, lighted collectibles manufactured by a company in Eden Prairie, Minn.
She displays her collection 365 days a year amid a beautifully constructed landscape that includes a natural-running waterfall spouting an aqua-blue liquid and artificial, snow-capped mountains made from Styrofoam. In the middle of the 14-by-4-foot tiered, snow-covered plywood base is a tiny, bustling city.
``I used to take it all down at Easter,'' says Campbell, who has smaller displays in her kitchen and bathroom. ``But I keep it up now year-round. . . . Every year I rearrange it.''
What is now a company called Department 56 was once the wholesale giftware division of Bachman's, a garden center in Minneapolis. Village mania began with the introduction of six ceramic houses known as the Snow Village, and shortly thereafter, Department 56 became its own entity.
Although the company manufactures an assortment of merchandise, the village collection falls into two categories: the original Snow Village and the Heritage Village collection. Snow Village, made entirely from ceramic with a glazed finish, consists of 171 pieces, and of them, 136 are ``retired.'' When pieces are retired, the molds are broken and they are no longer made.
The Heritage collection - entirely porcelain - consists of the Dickens Village (73 pieces), the New England Village (35 pieces), the Alpine Village (35 pieces), Christmas in the City (29 pieces), the North Pole (14 pieces), the Little Town of Bethlehem (three pieces) and new for 1995, the Disney Parks Village series (five pieces). The lighted houses range in price from $40 to $140, and accessories - miniature people, carriages, trees, cars, etc. - are priced from $10 to $65.
Each year select pieces are retired, thereby increasing their value. The retirement announcement is made the first Friday in December with a full page ad in USA Today newspaper, and on that day, before the stores open, serious collectors are waiting outside to either add to their collections or stockpile a number of retirement pieces.
In Hampton Roads, Department 56 is sold year-round at Ingle's Nook, several Hallmark outlets, England's Dolls and Toys, McDonald Garden Center and several specialty shops. Leggett and Hecht's sell Department 56 during the holidays.
``We have people who are novice collectors and people who are professional collectors,'' says Jane Turner, a buyer for Ingle's Nook in Newport News. ``And the professional collectors notice every little detail - if the box is in good shape, if any paint is missing. They're pretty particular.''
Campbell started collecting four years ago after she spotted Christmas in the City in an upstate New York shop.
``I went bonkers that day,'' she says as husband Ray agrees. ``I must have bought five pieces that day.''
The Christmas in the City collection, which some think is reminiscent of New York City in the '40s, is among the most colorful. The village - which includes a series of shops - a music emporium, a haberdashery, The Ritz hotel, a school of dance, a physician's office - reminded Campbell of the small towns she had visited years before in western Pennsylvania.
Judy and Ray Campbell bought every piece of Christmas in the City they could find at list price and met their only roadblock when they tried to find St. Mark's Church.
``I was so proud; we had every piece except that one,'' says Judy, who says she remembers weeping when it looked as if her collection would be minus the church. ``Then Ray found it and surprised me on my birthday.''
Ray Campbell turned to the secondary market, collectors selling retired wares through the classified ads in a handful of Department 56 newsletters and magazines.
The publications put the Campbells in touch with other collectors nationally, but they wanted to meet more locals.
``We thought that in our area we were the only nuts in town,'' Ray Campbell says.
Two years ago, during a collectors show in New Jersey, they picked up a flier on starting a club. A few weeks later, they met with a handful of locals at a Norfolk Shoney's, drafted fliers to pass out at stores where Department 56 was sold and set up a meeting at the Campbells' house for a few weeks later.
After that, ``to coin a phrase, it snowballed,'' Judy Campbell says with a laugh. ``On the hottest day of July, we had 39 people at my house, sitting on the stairs, lined up outside the door.'' That day, they elected a president - Judy - and drafted bylaws stating the club would be for friendship, not profit.
Today ``The Department 56 Villagers of Southeastern Virginia'' - now nearly 200 members - meets the first Wednesday of each month. The club offers display workshops, information on insuring your collection, open houses and the latest information on upcoming collectibles. Members are easy to recognize thanks to gray T-shirts that display the club's logo, which is a few snow-covered houses between trees.
The Villagers are sponsoring a Mid-Atlantic Village gathering March 31 through April 2 in Williamsburg that is expected to draw 5,000 collectors.
``You meet so many people who do this,'' says current club president Linda Bunch, an industrial engineer and technician at Naval Aviation Depot-Norfolk. ``You go to a convention and there's 2,000 people there. You just stand and look at something, and someone comes up and says, `What do you collect?' It's the neatest thing.''
Bunch displays her Christmas in the City collection in her living room on mirrored bookshelves and has the Dickens Village, a Victorian-looking collection depicting the mid-1800s, set up in a room above her garage. She has the Alpine Village, with its German names, up on the fireplace, and she's hunting for a spot to display the North Pole.
``When I bought this house,'' she says, ``I walked in and saw the fireplace had no outlet. I immediately called the electrician and had him wire the bookcase, too.''
At club meetings, first-time attendees introduce themselves and state what they collect. Most, says Bunch, collect Dickens.
Club treasurer Bill Polley is a Dickens fanatic. Polley, a principal at the Madison Career Center in Norfolk, has the entire Dickens Village - including the Village Mill valued at $5,500 - displayed in homemade bookshelves with a mirrored backing in his Virginia Beach den.
``I got started on this because of my mother; she always had villages under the tree, the little cellophane ones,'' Polley says. ``And one year she said to me, `You are the hardest person to buy for.' And I said, `You know, the other day, I was walking through Leggetts, and I saw this porcelain village, and it reminded me of when I was a little kid. You can buy me some of that village.' ''
Polley soon became a fanatic. He bought pieces through the secondary market, swapped for some at regional shows and found one piece at a garage sale. Although he says he's no whiz at display, his arrangement is breathtaking. He has the house lights on an automatic timer, which allows him to illuminate each house brightly or dim them ``when the village sleeps.'' He's mixed in a few pieces from other collections - the Salvation Army band from Christmas in the City is next to the Dickens train station - and he's scattered dozens of horse-drawn carriages throughout.
``The people are larger than the doorways, so I wanted to raise up the houses or give that variation, so it didn't look like the person was taller than the house,'' he says. ``I built little bookshelves within the bookcase and covered them with cotton.''
No one can buy Polley any more pieces since he has them all, but he's always in need of more trees, extra snow, fence or road. Department 56 has an entire line of accessories, including mini icicles, street lights and even an audio tape with the sounds of a village - carolers singing, a blacksmith working, a steam engine tooting.
Although many collectors become obsessed with owning every piece, club president Bunch says others just collect what they like. Some people mix and match pieces from different villages; others collect only churches.
Whatever you collect, Bunch says, you learn a little more with time. For instance, it's always best to inspect a piece carefully for chips, gouges, missing signs, etc. before buying it. Because each piece is hand-painted - the best painters complete no more than 10 a day - there are no ``perfect'' pieces.
``Make sure there are not smudges of paint of the wrong color,'' Bunch suggests.
Also: Keep your boxes. Each piece comes wrapped in a plastic bag with an electrical cord and bulb, and is tucked in a Styrofoam carton and packed inside a white, illustrated sleeve. Polley has boxes several rows deep and piled to the ceiling in his den closet. If collectors ever want to sell their treasures, the value increases substantially if the pieces are in their original boxes.
``If I was starting today, I think I'd keep it to (collecting) one village,'' Bunch says. ``More power to the people that do that because I just can't.'' ILLUSTRATION: GARY C. KNAPP COLOR PHOTOS
Judy and Ray Campbell's display includes the 29-piece Christmas in
the City village, part of the Heritage collection manufactured by
Department 56.
The Campbells' Department 56 collection is displayed amid a snowy
landscape in the den of their Virginia Beach home.
Graphics
JOIN THE CLUB
If you collect anything made by Department 56 and want to join
the Department 56 Villagers of Southeastern Virginia, call Linda
Bunch at 436-1944.
The club meets on the first Wednesday of every month, alternating
between the Bow Creek Recreation Center in Virginia Beach and the
community room at Newmarket Fair in Newport News. Dues are $15 per
person or $25 per family.
CHECKING OUT DEPARTMENT 56
For more information on Department 56 products:
Department 56 pieces are sold in Christmas shops and many
specialty and department stores.
Department 56 has a toll-free number (800-LIT-TOWN) and an
expert, Judith Price, known as Ms. Lit Town, to answer questions and
give you local retailers.
The company publishes Department 56 Quarterly. Yearly
subscriptions are $12 through: Department 56 Quarterly, P.O. Box
44056, Eden Prairie, Minn. 55344-1056.
Peter George's magazine carries a yearly subscription of $21 and
can be ordered through: The Village Chronicle, 200 Post Road, Box
311, Warwick, R.I. 02888.
Greenbook, a series of guides to collectibles, has a Department
56 edition for $17.50 in stores. It lists current market value of
all the Department 56 items since 1977.
Source: The Hartford Courant
by CNB