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[phantomabilia]

Released just this month, it's a brand new item of Phantomabilia this time---or, to be more accurate, FOURTEEN new items! Just in time for Halloween, a company called FOCO, which appears to specialize in a combination of sports memorabilia and toys, has released a collection of various sporting mascots dressed up as our own dear Phantom. (Let's be honest, though: the best option is clearly Gritty.) Each bobblehead is a limited edition of 222 hand-painted and numbered pieces, and they retail for $65.

Official blurb:

This guy puts the "spirit" in "team spirit." You know him for his ability to get the crowd to cheer, but during #SpookySZN, this [Mascot Name] Halloween Mascot Bobblehead is all about the "Booooooooo!"

It's a smörgåsbord of unauthorized PotO content and it's enough to make even an avowed sports-hater like myself kind-of-sort-of want one.

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Souvenir keychains from the revised US tour, 2014-present. Other than the poster image used, the rectangular version is of an identical design to the current, ‘25th anniversary edition’ Broadway keychains; the oval, horseshoe version, however, appears to be unique to the tour.

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Sure, you’ve got a ton of Phantom t-shirts in your closet—but do you have any PotO SHORTS? Brought to you by Canadian apparel company Millenitex, better known for their PotO hoodies (with little mask-shapes buttons!), this bold fashion statement was most likely produced in the early 1990s. Notable also for being one of very few RUG-licensed items to divert so strongly from the usual, poster-inspired aesthetic. (And, if I had to guess, I’d say there’s a decent chance that those masks glow in the dark. 🌠)

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Phantom of the Opera player piano rolls, produced by QRS Records, most likely in the early 90s. Two rolls were produced: roll A featuring Angel of Music, MotN, and AIAOY, and roll B featuring the PotO title song, WYWSHA, and Masquerade. All songs as recorded as played by Rudy Martin, an arranger and pianist with QRS who worked on countless piano rolls during the course of his 30+ years with the company. Founded in 1920, QRS is still in business today, and is the world's only remaining producer of piano rolls!

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Telco plastic ”Phantom Place” ‘street sign’ decoration, produced in 1988. 18 x 5 inches. Intended to accompany Telco’s Phantom motionette Halloween figures—though it would also make a great year-round accessory for any phan’s home (or maybe just mine…).

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Telco ‘Red Death’ motionette light-up Halloween figure, with moving arms and head. 24 inches tall, first issued in 1990, and featuring the same style of glowing head as the ‘ordinary’ Phantom reissue from the same year. This seems to be the rarest of the three PotO-inspired Telco figures (and arguably the coolest).

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Telco ‘Phantom’ motionette light-up Halloween figure. 24 inches tall. This 1990 figure, which features an illuminated face in addition to his lantern, plus the customary motorized head and arm movements, is an updated edition of the 1988 version. (I’m not sure what the story is behind the change in make-up.)

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Telco ‘motionette’ light-up Phantom Halloween figure, with “ghoul like motion”: including “menacing double arm movement” and “sinister moving head”. A later reissue would feature not only a lantern, but also an illuminated face. 24 inches tall. First produced in 1988, in its initial year of release this guy was a K-Mart exclusive. By all appearances unlicensed—but I guess they figured that bland mask design would help ward off the Chaney Estate’s copyright lawyers. A Red Death-inspired motionette was also produced.

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Japanese Lon Chaney-inspired molded eraser figure, from Bandai’s ‘Horror World’ series, from 1986. 1 ¼ inches tall. A cute, tiny Erik-friend, here to fix mistakes. These erasers, molded after a variety of famous monsters, were available in a number of different colors, and distributed as prizes in gachapon machines (and not, disappointingly, in U.S. elementary school stores).

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Blown glass Christmas tree ornament from the The Polonaise Collection, by Komozja. Released in 1999 as the first in a short-lived series of ornaments inspired by Phantom. In the U.S., these pieces were imported and sold under the umbrella of famous holiday-decoration wholesaler Kurt S. Adler. Six inches tall, and incredibly fragile.

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Enameled metal Christmas tree ornament by Carlton Cards, early 2000s. This 2 x 1 1/4 inch ornament, #104 in the ‘Little Heirloom Treasures’ collection, is the only one of Carlton’s PotO offerings which does not contain a music chip. (The other ten, musical, ornaments are documented on @musicboxesoftheopera.) According to the text on the back of the box, “this logo ornament includes the tragic mask and single rose that play such integral parts in this Andrew Lloyd Webber masterpiece”; easy mistake. 🤷‍♀️

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Hand-crafted wooden ornament by Steinbach, the world famous nutcracker manufacturer. This 3 1/2 inch tall figure is just one of a number of Phantoms created by Steinbach over the years. While this particular little guy is intended to be hung on a Christmas tree, a very similar piece was also produced with a music box base that played ‘Music of the Night’. 

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ALW Phantom logo Christmas bauble ornament, probably glass, probably 3 inches. The reverse side features the ‘shattered mirror’ text logo. Any information about this piece has been extremely elusive, but it is possible that it was distributed by Kurt S. Adler in the 1990s. (Send us a message if you know anything more!)

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Artisan blown-glass and felt Christmas tree ornament produced by De Carlini in 1992. Each piece is individually crafted, and painted by hand (with varying results). 6 inches tall, and clearly up to no good. Who needs an Elf on the Shelf with one of these guys hanging out in your tree?

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’Song of the Phantom’ toy, distributed with kid’s meals at Jack in the Box in 1999, part of the first of the restaurant’s two Universal Monsters series. The seated Phantom figure shares the same masked, not-quite-Chaney design as the well-known CVS ‘Stuffins’ plushies also released that year. 3 by 3 by 4 ½ inches. And if you’re wondering how much fun a kid could have with a tiny, immovable statuette, take note of the holes along the base: this thing also doubles as a functional harmonica!

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Winslow Leach VCD (Vinyl Collectible Doll) by Japanese toy-maker MediCom. Not the first of its kind, but certainly the cutest, this 9 1/2 inch figure was produced in 2018, the latest in a (relatively) long line of Phantom of the Paradise releases by the company. He may be horrifically disfigured, but this little guy’s only true flaws are the exorbitant prices he commands on eBay and the fact that he does not come with a tiny plunger.

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Porcelain plate produced in the Netherlands by MOSA. This plate measures 10 1/4 inches in diameter, but any further information about it has been elusive. It is safe to assume, however, like many similar RUG items, that it was sold in the late 80′s or early 90′s.