Christmas Villages Online

Secret Garden Greenhouse on eBay

This has always been one of my favorite village pieces, and I don’t even collect Snow Village! I used to do quite a bit of gardening however, and I’ve always wanted to have a big greenhouse so that I could enjoy a bit of nice weather during our long and grey and rainy winters here in the Pacific Northwest.

The story of the greenhouse goes back to the origins of Department 56 – back in the days when it really was just a department (#56) of a well-diversified store called Bachman’s. They carried a variety of goods, gifts, and flowers, and in the 1970s began to make little ceramic houses that you could put lights into. That was the Original Snow Village, which today is the largest of most popular of the Department 56 Villages. But Bachman’s had a small greenhouse adjacent to the store, and as a commemorative piece Bachman’s Greenhouse was created for the 1998 Department 56 annual Village Gathering.

It was such a fabulous piece, with the interior view of benches of potted plants sitting under the row of lights down the center of the greenhouse… these lights actually work, and have a special glow that a regular D56 bulb just can’t give.  The Secret Garden Greenhouse is the non-customized version of the Bachman’s Greenhouse.

The Secret Garden Greenhouse was only produced for a couple of years before it was retired in December 2001. Even though it has the shiny ceramic glaze typical of Snow Village pieces, it can fit just about anywhere.  It really looks good in the North Pole Village, and works in the Christmas in the City too.

A dedicated gardener can make room anywhere for more plants, especially when they come packaged in a greenhouse like this one! It’s a beautiful piece to use as a vignette by itself. The Dickens’ Village Master Gardeners accessory set of 2 pieces looks great with it, and you can landscape it so that it looks stunning all by itself. One of the things that’s nice about Department 56 and the other villages is that you can put together ensembles of houses, accessories, and landscaping that give it a whole new look.

Anyway, that’s my bit on a favorite piece. I hope you’ll check it out to add to your own village. And this is a piece that has a strong enough theme that you can give it as a gift to a non-Villager and they will love it!

photo credit: Marion Doss

If you missed the annual “bottoming” of the the Christmas Village market in late May/early June, as observed by the bellwether Christmas village giant Department 56 listings on eBay, you haven’t necessarily missed the boat on the bargains. I took a look at some numbers for D56 listings on eBay over the last 2 years and came up with some surprises. Here are a few fun facts for you.

ALL DEPT 56	Week of June 2	Week of Aug 11	Peak Dec. 2007
Total D56 Listings Sold (#)	2.6k	3.5k	23K
Total $ Volume Sold	$69k	$95k	$608k
Average Price Per Listing	$25	$26	$28

What I find interesting in these numbers is that while the supply of D56 village items (and this includes all villages, buildings and accessories) varies tremendously over the cycle which peaks in December, the dollar value of each listing is as steady as a rock. I looked at the last 2 years’ history of D56 on eBay, and found hardly a jiggle off the $25-$26 average price per listing.

This means a couple of things. First, there’s a pretty firm price-point for most D56 items and it average $25 per listing excluding shipping.  Second, Village Nuts shop year-round – even at the low point, $69,000 per week worth of Christmas houses is nothing  to sneeze at!  The selection is greater as we get closer to the holidays, but buyer demand easily absorbs it. In other words, this is a pretty stable market for a seasonable item.

But what drives the growth as the holidays approach?  The hottest Village series continues to be the venerable Snow Village, followed by Halloween Village which was split off from Snow Village when it became phenomenally successful. Just to see what was going on, I looked at D56 listings of Halloween items to see the impact:

Halloween Village	Week of June 2	Week of Aug 11	Peak Dec. 2007
Total Listings Sold (#)	162	588	107
Total $ Volume Sold	$3k	11k	3K
Average Price Per Listing	$35	$33	$51

While the growth rates in Halloween Village have been strong and average prices are higher, the absolute numbers of listings and sales values are still fairly small. Too small to to be wagging the D56 dog on eBay at any rate.

So I took a quick look at Snow Village to see what was going on there. Over the last 2 years, the data for Snow Village reflects the first chart. Not surprising, since Snow Village is the largest of the D56 village series’.   Average prices are very steady, just like D56 as a whole, averaging about $30 per listing which is higher than the combined average price. Both Buildings and Accessories are strong sellers.  However, a look at individual items in the Snow Village category show that there are still quite a few Halloween pieces listed in this category, and they tend to bring higher prices.

Other popular pieces over the last month have been:

• The simple, charming Adobe House:   $1300 sell price
• A cracked & repaired original Cathedral Church: $787
• Budweiser Brewery: $737
• Mickey’s Diner: $487
• Flamingo Motel: $470

There are many excellent deals on individual pieces, and there are REAL STEALS if you want to buy a lot (one lot had over 60 SV buildings, 100+ accessories, and lots of miscellaneous pieces and sold for about $900). Watch the shipping costs, and use the geographic search tool to find lots in your local area.

I’ll be doing reviews of other villages by Department 56 as well Lemax Carol Towne, Heartland, and other popular series so be sure to bookmark this site and come back often!