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if you still own these figurines from
the 70s they could now be worth a vast
amount of money before we continue with
the rest of the video we could use your
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future videos if you have a Precious
Moments figurine and a box in the Attic
you might want to get it out and dust it
off indeed it turns out that some of
these cute figures are worth a bit more
today than you might think
but what is precious moments and why of
the figures become so valuable the tale
begins on New Year's Day 1939 when
precious moments creator Samuel John
butcher entered the world born in
Jackson a city in Michigan renowned as
the place in which the Republican Party
first met he was the middle child of
five and it seems his family didn't have
two cents to rub together in his youth
not too long after his birth butcher's
family settled in Redding in rural
California there he spent a lot of time
on art hiding under the table in the
dining room sketching and drawing
however he couldn't hide his ability as
it soon became apparent to everyone
around him but times were tough so it
was difficult for his folks to find the
money for drawing pants that didn't
deter butcher though as he put his
thinking cap on to find a way to equip
himself consequently he discovered found
paper that a local factory had discarded
in a tip besides the art belief in God
proved to be important to butcher and as
a consequence he became convinced that
he should dedicate his drawing ability
solely to the Lord and those skills were
real leading him to a place at art
college after he graduated high school
indeed butcher won himself a scholarship
to study at the College of Arts and
Crafts
but that meant moving away from home to
Berkeley while there though he was to
meet the future mrs. butcher and after
college he set out in his vocation
sharing gospel stories through pictures
and he made ends meet working as a
janitor eventually butcher took up a
position at the child evangelism
fellowship in Grand Rapids Michigan
in what became the start of a ten year
commitment elsewhere he began working in
shipping but he would finally achieve
his break as an artist when the
fellowship gave him a place in its art
department at some point butcher started
to draw distinctive pictures of cute
kids with teardrop eyes he named these
precious moments and gave them to
friends and family as presents and those
same drawings found another use as he
revisited the use of art to spread
Christianity this time on a popular kids
TV show at the fellowship butcher
encountered bill Beall who would become
both a friend and business partner and
they set up Jonathan and David which
featured his Precious Moments creations
on posters and cards and in 1975 an
invitation to a Christian booksellers
convention in Anaheim California would
change their lives indeed at the event
the pair would have their own booth to
show off what they could do indeed
butcher and Beals where is it caught the
eye and retailers flocked to their booth
trying to get their names down to carry
the friends products and eventually
other vendors had to help them take
orders as they became swamped by eager
booksellers that great start didn't mean
they had it made though and they still
had to take on other work to keep food
on the family table it's probably fair
to say that butcher and Beall weren't
the most accomplished businessmen and
when bill had the idea of embodying the
precious moment idea in porcelain bisque
they both realized that they had neither
the Neuse nor the money that they would
need to make the concept real
however in 1978 they would meet the
people who had both an ESCO corporation
offered to turn a piece of butchers art
into a figurine he'd drawn the piece
loved one another upon glimpsing his
daughter Tammy having a chat with an
uncle and it's fair to say that the
outcome delighted butcher because
apparently he wept with joy after seeing
the sample and he was not alone in
loving it the piece is still being
produced meanwhile another daughter
Debbie provided the inspiration for a
further piece God loveth a cheerful
Giver which has proved incredibly
popular
indeed she used every cent she could get
to adopt pets from the local vets and
then rehome them when she was younger
and perhaps the enduring popularity of
the figurine pays testament to butchers
ability to capture Debbie's spirit
meanwhile the figures captured people's
imagination and by the end of 1978 21
had been produced later to be known as
the original 21 and they met a welcome
that floored butcher people wrote
emotional letters to let him know that
these pieces it resonated with them
before long their popularity had soared
and a glance at precious woman's
figurines explains their appeal the
trademark teardrop eyes are the center
of faces that look like angels and each
tableau portrays its own tale making
them interesting ornaments it's been
suggested that they'd be ideal for a
nursery something that perhaps a newborn
might keep when it grows from those
beginnings the Precious Moments
collection grew into more than 2,500
figurines and people all around the
world started to collect them forming
clubs with others who pursued the Hobby
the official club had a half-million
members at its peak and even today tens
of thousands of people are still part of
it butcher did not just stick to
drawings and figurines though that's
because in 1989 he opened an attraction
in Carthage Missouri called Precious
Moments Park since then about 400,000
people have visited the park each year
drawn by its centerpiece a stunning
chapel that took the Vatican city's
Sistine Chapel as an inspiration
yes butcher aimed big for his creation
which he designed himself the chapel
features thousands of feet of murals
showing Bible stories from both
Testaments and a celebration of
inspiring children whose lives were cut
short meanwhile visitors enjoy beautiful
windows of stained glass fashioned in
hundreds of colors unsurprisingly the
chapel provides the setting for hundreds
of marriages a year and this connection
with weddings is not at all new an ESCO
boss Eugene Friedman told the Chicago
Tribune in 1998 that Precious Moments
the Lord bless and keep you figurines
which represent a newlywed couple had
crowned more than two million wedding
cakes indeed at its height Precious
Moments was doing huge business bringing
in hundreds of millions of dollars in
revenue but there were to be bumps in
the road the figurine started to sell a
little less well and an ESCO stopped
making them and quite suddenly
butchers own company Precious Moments
incorporated PMI which had focused on
licensing had to switch tracks within
three months PMI had to grow the
capacity to replace an ESCO that meant
very quickly becoming a manufacturer and
shipper of products and on top of that
creating the infrastructure to support
the design and production of Precious
Moments figurines and this was not to be
the only hurdle for PMI because in 2008
at face legal action from country singer
Shannon Clements she claimed that the
company had taken her idea for a line of
Christian characters and provided no
credit for it however it all turned out
for the good for PMI as Clements lawsuit
proved unsuccessful
however these issues it seems were only
minor distractions indeed the company
still delivers up to 40 new statuettes
four times a year according to its
official website
this means the Precious Moments
collection does grow and as we noted
there are thousands of them but on the
other hand its growth is slowed because
some figurines are no longer made and
when PMI ceases to make a figurine it
sometimes literally breaks the mold
other times the company might suspend a
particular model stopping its production
for an unknown amount of time but both
these processes have the interesting
outcome of providing some figurines with
scarcity increasing their value to
precious moments collectors so it's
probably not too surprising that a busy
marketplace exists on the Internet where
people snap up Precious Moments pieces
and the prices can easily run in the
hundreds of dollars in one case a
figurine that you could buy back in the
day for 15 bucks might be worth four
figures now yes that statuette is one
that we noted was one of the original 21
the figure called God loveth a cheerful
Giver and released in 1979 is no longer
made today so it can only be bought
secondhand and although it usually sells
in the low hundreds you might just hit
the jackpot with one indeed Paul Burton
speaking for Wolvie fine antiques and
collectibles told today in 2017 that
he'd seen valuations placed on it in
excess of $2,000 Burton was however
slightly skeptical that one would fetch
that he said I don't believe I've seen
one actually sell for more than half
that although they are still
occasionally listed for sale in that
price range however to get the big bucks
your figurine will need to be in tip-top
condition the statuettes fabrication
from porcelain bisque leaves them prone
to chipping or cracking and even a tiny
chip might cost you three-quarters of
the value of the piece meanwhile
anything bigger and nearly all the gains
will be lost
luckily a dirty figurine is easier to
fix than a clipped one Burton told today
that a thorough cleaning would be a
necessary improvement you can dust with
a makeup brush and give it a wash with
mild soap so long as you don't get water
into the statuette it's a tricky job if
the pieces delicate but well worth while
the rewards for well-preserved intricate
pieces could well be greater also it may
help to have the original packaging and
will V suggest that up to a fifth of the
value of a well-kept statuette might
reside in its box indeed one figurine
still in the packet was shipped for 409
dollars online and was part of a
limited-edition of 1500 copies of make a
joyful noise
meanwhile precious moments limited
editions generally come in short runs
usually no more than 3000 and collectors
club editions also float around the
market these were only available for a
year in the first place so if you were
once a member of the club check the
model number of your figurines though
starting with p.m. or see are special
and might be a bit more valuable than
most and if you will remember the
collectors club perhaps you had a
figurine signed well that may also boost
its value to an online collector the
most in demand scroll is that of Sam
butcher but you can also lure a
collector with the scribbles of Eugene
Friedman former boss of an ESCO or a
sushi Fujioka san who made sculptures
from butchers aren't indeed it turns out
that the small additions can result in
very valuable sculptures one Disney
special issue which only saw 1500 pieces
made went for $1,500 on eBay in February
20 19 kilometers you might imagine they
can prove attractive to collectors
however that's not the only joint effort
Precious Moments has been involved in in
2012 it helped create a memorial
to a teen from Shelby Missouri who had
passed in 2010 Kristie malbok had lost
her life in a car crash but she'd not
been forgotten by her friends and
community the precious moments team
didn't need to be asked twice as sales
director Patsy Larson pointed out to the
herald wig in 2012 she said each figure
has a title almost a story behind it and
this fell right into that in this case
the title was I believe which appeared
in the create of the south Shelby FFA an
organization malbok and loved
consequently the figurine caught the eye
of collectors made in both boy and girl
versions it was only available through
one store in shelby 'no amazingly owner
joke camp Schmitt found herself in
undated with orders from across the u.s.
and Canada
indeed in 30 years of selling precious
moments she'd never needed more than a
hundred at a time but this time she'd
had to order more than a thousand of
each type of the memorial figure and
this is not the only Precious Moments
figurines to have been involved in
remembering someone's life after they've
passed in 2013 Missouri man John
Stouffer gave mom Shirley's collection
to the Breast Cancer Foundation of the
Ozarks she'd received a breast cancer
diagnosis in 1992 and died of heart
problems in 2007 indeed it was a
particularly generous donation Shirley's
25 years of collecting had seen her
amass a gathering of at least 2,000
figurines and amazingly the lot could be
worth at least $100,000 Jen I'm told the
Joplin globe in 2013 they're going to a
good cause she'd be pleased that they're
going to help somebody in fact
collections of Precious Moments
figurines can be quite valuable in 2007
a big batch went on eBay for $5,000 so
it may well be worth digging around in
those boxes to find those old nearly
forgotten sculptures indeed it may be a
profitable exercise even if you don't
own a thousand dollar statuette and if
you do sell a dusty Precious Moments
figure for a cool grand and you're
wondering what to do with the proceeds
we may have a solution for you yes you
could spend the whole thousand bucks on
a new sculpture only a thousand copies
of the power of your love astounds me
we'll be available and while one would
cost you now
hundred $49.99 who knows what it might
be worth in a couple decades
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