Penguin summer: Baseball Hall of Fame

After Mystic we drove to Plymouth, Mass and drove through New Hampshire and Vermont on our way to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.  We spent a good part of the day in the museum, but we also had to stop at Christmas Around the Corner to see if they had any penguins. In addition to the tinsel-scarf set posted earlier this month, there was the clown-like sliding penguin at the top of the picture. The other two came about a week later at the end of the trip.

Seasons of Cannon Falls clown-like penguin sliding on red and white striped belly with gift on back

Acquired: July 23, 2009, Christmas Around the Corner, Cooperstown, N.Y.

Number: 0666

Size: 4.25 inches long

Price: $9.99

Seasons of Cannon Falls clown-like penguin with blue and white striped belly with candy cane strapped on back and penguin with pink and white belly with a bucket of snowballs

Acquired: July 29, 2009, Christmas Spirit, Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Number: 0688 0689

Size: 5.5 and 5 inches tall

Price: $8 each

Penguin summer: Mystic Aquarium

After the Bavarian bonanza in the summer of 2009, the penguins kept rolling in thanks to fantastic camper trip I took with my niece Nikki and her two kids, Cory and Hayley. Our first stop was the Mystic Seaport Museum and Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. The aquarium even had a small penguin exhibit. We found this nice ornament in the gift shop.

Mythos Glass and Tagua round glass with penguin on bubbly blue background

Acquired: July 20, 2010, Mystic Aquarium store, Mystic, Conn.

Number: 0662

Size: 2.75 inches tall

Price: $9.99

Christmas Past

There was one more ornament from Regensburg, Germany. By the time my friend and I returned to the little shops, Anne had gathered my selections, including this one that she said is probably 100 years old. What I wouldn’t give to know more about this amazing old penguin. Her husband Leo had come back from the post office. They were still looking for an old clip-on style penguin that Anne said should have been with the penguins or with the other clip=on ornaments. She searched  high and low. We even went back to the first shop, where Leo found some more penguins that weren’t ornaments. And we went around the corner to where Anne had a display window on one of the main streets to see if it was there. “I think someone may have taken it,” she said. “It happens.” She wanted to look some more and she and Leo needed to pack all my ornaments, so Jose and I went to a nearby beer garden for a sausage and beer lunch. When we got back, all the penguins were neatly packed in two cardboard boxes, but there was no clip-on penguin. I gave Anne my address in case it ever turned up, but I haven’t heard from her. I was worried about getting all these ornaments home in one piece, especially this old antique. I even had to go through a complicated second check-in in London, because I accidentally packed a treasured Swiss Army knife in the suitcase with the penguins. But, as you can see, it all worked out and the old blue glass penguin has a prominent spot on my penguin tree, this year the blue tree.

Antique blue glass penguin with tinted feet eyes and beak

Acquired: July 1, 2009, Regensburger-Tändlerei, Regensburg, Germany

Number: 0650

Size: 5.25 inches tall

Price: 45 euros

Merry Christmas to all

This is another one of the handmade ceramic ornaments from Anne and Leo Klosters’ shops in Regensburg, Germany. Frohes Fest is German for Happy Holiday, but no matter how you say it, My Penguin Tree wants everyone to have a Merry Christmas. And here are all my penguins, tree by tree.

The winter fun tree at the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton. All skiing, all skating, all sledding.

The big tree in the living room. It's all glass and class.

The blue tree in the tv room. I <3 this tree!

The little tree and front windows with all the stuffed animal and fabric penguins.

The wood tree in Jenny’s room upstairs.

The fun tree (all the rest of the ornaments) in Becky’s room.

Red clay ceramic Frohes Fest penguin

Acquired: July 1, 2009, Regensburger-Tändlerei, Regensburg, Germany

Number: 0657

Size: 4.5 inches tall

Price: 14.50 euros

Just like old times

Anne Kloster wasn’t able to tell me much about the ornaments except that some were considerably old. I hope some day that I can find out more about the penguins I found at her shop in Regensberg, Germany.  This glittery bulbous penguin is almost certainly from the mid 1980s, because I have two other glass ornaments that are exactly the same shape. 

The only difference is the paint job. I don’t know exactly when I got the first two, but it seems like I’ve always had them. At least one of them was a gift, I think.

Another ornament I hope I can identify is this Christopher Radko penguin. I’ll have to see if I can dig up some old Radko catalogs in order to find out what year it was made. It can’t be more than 25 years and it’s probably made more like 10 or 12 years ago. Just a guess.

Glittery bulbous glass ornament with red eyes and beak

Acquired: July 1, 2009, Regensburger-Tändlerei, Regensburg, Germany

Number: 0655

Size: 4.75 inches tall

Price: about 19.80 €

Two bulbous glass ornaments

Acquired: mid 1980s, probably at least one a gift

Number: 0159 0160

Size: about 4.75 inches tall

Well-dressed glass Christopher Radko genteleman

Acquired: July 1, 2009, Regensburger-Tändlerei, Regensburg, Germany

Number: 0653

Size:

Price: 49 euros

The mother lode

When Anne opened the door to her other store across the street, I could tell I was in someplace special. While the souvenir store was filled with trinkets, this store was filled with antiques. Dolls, dishes, lamps, toys. Everywhere you looked was another treasure. She led me down a narrow hallway, narrow because the walls were lined with overburdened shelves, and into a small dark room. When Anne switched on the light all I could see were stacks of glass cabinets all around us from the floor to the ceiling. The middle of the room had a block of stacked cabinets too, leaving a narrow path to walk around it. Some of the cabinets had doors, others pulled out like drawers, and all of them were full of Christmas tree ornaments. Here are some of the penguins we found.

There are some more that I’ll be posting over the next couple of days, and there were some that I knew I already owned. I think some of the handmade ceramic ornaments in yesterday’s post came from the second store. It’s where Anne told me about not being able to compete with the Chinese manufacturers. “Where did you get them all,” I asked. “I was going to open a museum, but the economy hurt the tourist business,” she said. The Klosters had been collecting ornaments for about as long as I have been collecting penguins and I was surrounded by the results. I don’t know how much time had passed, but it was longer than a walk around the block would take. I told Anne I had to go find my friend at the café and that I wanted to look some more. When I got to the end of the street, José was standing in the plaza, hands on hips, waiting and wondering when I would show up. “It’s bad,” I told him. “I think I found the mother lode.” And we headed back to the shop.

Acquired: July 1, 2009, Regensburger-Tändlerei, Regensburg, Germany

Smoky glass parent and chick

Number: 0646

Size: 5 inches tall

Price: 19.50 euros

Tall glass pair

Number: 0647 0648

Size: 4.5 to 5 inches tall

Price: 25 and 29 euros

Glass pair huddled on ice with Santa hats

Number: 0649

Size: 4 inches tall

Price: 29 euros

Glass family on plastic or glass ice floe

Number: 0651

Size: 4.75 inches tall

Price: 59 euros

Small penguin with white glitter belly and blue scarf

Number: 0652

Size: 2 inches tall

Price: 6.50 euros

Glittery silver blue penguin with bulbous nose

Number: 0654

Size: 3.75 inches tall

Price: 14.80 euros

Homemade penguins

After spotting one penguin ornament and thinking that I was finished shopping, Anne Klosters, the shop owner, began to show me others, including some of these hand-painted ceramic ornaments that she and Leo, her husband, made themselves.

“We stopped making them when we could no longer compete with the cost of Chinese-made ornaments,” she told me. I don’t remember exactly which of the ornaments she found first, and it’s possible she showed me a couple that I already owned, but after I had five or so penguins selected, Anne said, “We have more in our other shop.” First we had to “close up” this store, because Leo had just stepped away to the post office. Closing up meant turning out the lights and attaching a chain across the open door. Then we went to the other shop a couple of doors down on the other side of the street.

Acquired: July 1, 2009, Regensburger-Tändlerei, Regensburg, Germany

Small red clay penguin looking back with yellow feet and beak

Number: 0656

Size: 2.5 inches tall

Price: 4.90 euros

Thick white ceramic cutout with green scarf and orange feet and beak

Number: 0659

Size: 2.5 inches tall

Price: 5.50 euros

White ceramic penguin with orange feet and beak

Number: 0660

Size: 2.5 inches tall

Price: 4.90 euros

Red clay cutout penguin with red scarf and orange feet and beak

Number: 0661

Size 3.75 inches tall

Price: 4.90 euros