The month of September has been a busy one for Pez! The major new pez releases for the year were all scheduled to begin shipping in September, PEZ Candy has a booth at the Big E fair and the opening of the pez.com store all hit at the same time. Unfortunately, it seems that PEZ Candy, Inc. has been a bit overwhelmed by the number of orders to be processed and shipped with all the new releases, so some of the new pez still have not been shipped to the retailers from PEZ Candy, Inc.
The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs gift set was released and is available in the Pez Collectors Store now. The seven Dwarfs come on midi size stems - something new for USA releases. The Japanese mini pez and a few European pez such as the Santa and Easter Bunny pez have been on midi size stems, but the Dwarfs are the first midi stems released in the USA. The detail on the Dwarfs is fabulous and each comes with his name printed on the stem. The set is a limited edition release of 250,000 individually numbered sets. For those who prefer to display their pez loose, we also offer the set loose so you can save on shipping!
Thomas and Friends Gift set was released with two new dispensers. Thomas, the blue engine number 1 and James, the red engine number 5, are included in the lunch box gift tin but Percy the small green engine number 6 was not included in this set. Added to the Lunch Box gift tin are Gordon, the blue express engine number 4 and Henry, the green engine number 3! We have been told that Gordon and Henry will only be available in the gift tin lunch boxes. These are available for immediate delivery from the Pez Collectors Store, both in the Lunch Box gift tin and loose for those who prefer to display loose and want to save on shipping costs!
Four new European Truck pez have made it to us and they are different than any released in the USA. The Eurobully is a yellow truck pez with two different cab styles – the large smoke stack cab and the big scoop, wide wraparound windshield cab. The Eurobully is pulling a yellow trailer with a PEZ logo sticker on the sides of the trailer. There are also two different Eurotransporter rig pez. The Eurotransporter is a tanker truck in red, pulled by a grey colored cab with either large smoke stacks or with the big scoop on the top of the cab with the wide wraparound windshield. These four trucks join the previously released European Power truck that says Power on its white trailer and the blue cab, black trailer rigs.
On the International PEZ scene, the salesman catalog for European releases should be available sometime in October so we look forward to seeing the lineup of 2011 European pez! Just as a tidbit of information - PEZ has just opened a new factory to produce PEZ candy in Janossomorja, Hungary. Production of PEZ candy for distribution to 90 countries in Europe has been moved from Austria to the new plant in Hungary according to Robert Kulcsar, managing director of PEZ Production Europe, so we will guess that perhaps there will be some new European candy packs!
Back on the PEZ USA side, the NASCAR Daytona 500 50th Anniversary Hauler was previously available only through retail stores authorized to carry the Daytona 500 merchandise, meaning mostly KMart and Kroger Grocery stores. The Helmet was available separately, but the hauler was only available in the gift set package. Now that Hauler is available, mint in bag, through the Pez Collectors Store!
Tiana has been extremely scarce in shipments of Disney Princesses. Tiana is from the Disney Princess and the Frog movie and while she has been in the works for a couple of years now, she is still very hard to come by as there are only a few in each case of Disney Princesses. We were fortunate enough to get a small supply of the Princess Tiana pez but we have only a few left so hurry before they are gone! We will have more in stock just as soon as possible when these run out!
We have added some older, retired promotional pez to the web store! The Crystal Tweety pez were released for the opening of the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes Back in Action movie in European countries in 2004. We also have added a few of the Golden Baloo pez which were a promotional pez for the opening of the Disney Jungle Book II movie in 2003. We also added some ET pez from the 2002 Universal Studios movie release.
We have just a few of the Zielpunkt Smiley pez from 1999 which were produced for an Austrian grocery store chain with their smiley mascot. We have just a few of the 2009 Sparefroh pez produced for banks in Europe for World Savings Day and given to bank customers.
The Pez Collectors Store acquired a few of the 1950’s US Zone Germany tin litho pez clickers. These look like a Peppermint PEZ candy pack and are cute little noise makers! These were a great promotion for PEZ candy!
The San Francisco Giants pez with the new logo have now arrived and are available in the Pez Collectors Store in either the loose, save on shipping version or mint on card with the older Giants logo.
The Syracuse and University of Connecticut Basketball pez should arrive by October 7 and just as soon as we have the pez in our hands, we will have them available in the Pez Collectors Store. The same goes for the University of North Carolina 2009 Championship pez, although these may be shipping to us mixed with UNC basketballs which do not have the Championship printed on the stem, so we won't know what we are getting until the basketballs arrive next week.
The University of Kentucky and Ohio State Basketball pez have not started shipping yet – we are being told they will be released in November and if PEZ Candy gets caught up with the shipment of orders for the September releases, these should be available by mid November.
Food Lion is a new exclusive promotional truck pez dispenser that has just been released. Food Lion grocery stores are located primarily on the east coast, so we have made arrangements to get these exclusive promotional pez dispensers for our customers who don’t have any of these stores in their area. These should arrive in the Pez Collectors Store in a few weeks!
The Bottom Dollar Foods promotional truck caught us by complete surprise! It is scheduled to be in the Bottom Dollar Food stores in the middle of November. Bottom Dollar Food stores are located only in a couple of states on the East coast. We made arrangements to get these dispensers as well, so the Bottom Dollar Foods pez should be arriving sometime in mid to late November.
The next expected release of promotional truck pez should be WaWa and the remake of the Wegman’s promotional hauler with tomatoes on the sides. The stores have not been able to tell us when they will arrive, but we are working to get them in to the Pez Collectors Store just as soon as they become available.
Winter plush pez should be shipping to us now and arriving by Oct. 7 along with the basketball pez. We won't list them as available until they are actually in our hands, but that's ok, since the frost is just beginning to settle on the pumpkins, so Christmas is a ways away!
Meanwhile, the Holiday Hauler is now available mint in bag from the Pez Collectors Store!
October is the month for Halloween and the Vampire joined the Halloween pez set this year. The vampire has been very popular and the full set for 2010 releases include the Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin, the Black Bat and the Witch with bats on the stem. These all have glow in the dark features and look awesome!
Here is one last little treat - it's not really Pez, but brought to you by Shawn Jordan, the youngest grandson of the owner of the Pez Collectors Store! Click here or on his picture below to order your Trail's End Popcorn and help support the Cub Scouts of America!
Happy Halloween from the Pez Collectors Store!
Happy Pezzing!
All the best,
Chris Jordan
www.pezcollectors.com