A Dream Come True.
drwhofans.
We live in Cheshire UK. Terry has been a fan of Dr Who since the 70's and he remembers Jon Pertwee as the first Doctor he watched. Paul has been a fan a bit longer, since the 60's, he remembers watching the first William Hartnell Dalek adventure. We are very new to collecting Dr who items, (6 years) our primary interest is on merchandise. We have found most of our items on ebay and we show them in a dedicated display room.
We 1st started collecting Who merchandise, when we visited, the Doctor Who Exhibition, at Dapol, in Llangollen, about 4 years ago, it was due to close that very year, and they were selling things off very cheap, so this tempted us to start collecting, from then on, our collection, just kept growing. We started using the BBC Doctor Who Connector, to talk to other Who fan’s, the 1st Who fan we met on there, we got very friendly with, and he kindly sent us a 13 ft long, knitted Tom Baker scarf, that he knitted himself, we were so made up with this gift, he also introduced us to ebay, to buy Who merchandise, this then really set us going, we were buying stuff all the time from ebay, the postman got so use to delivering big boxes of stuff to us.
We have now collected so much stuff, we have completely
filled a dedicated room, which we have as an exhibition, we have special lighting, to give it all a great effect, and have also started on a 2nd room.In our collection, we have rare stuff, dating from the 60’s, up until present day. The most rarest piece in our collection, is a one only made Dapol Dalek, which has 5 differences to the original release, the Dalek is holding an umbrella. This Dalek was made by a Who fan, at the Dapol factory, and is signed by David Boyle, from Dapol, and dated on the back of the card. We also have a Tom Baker day green and gold Dapol Dalek, which is rare, and a 35th anniversary limited edition, of 350, Dapol Tardis, which was done in the year 1998.
The favourite item in our collection though is, The Clockwork Droid, which was done by Millennium FX, for the episode, Girl In The Fireplace, which they have used the original mold, and materials, that were used in the show, which is made out of fibreglass, and is finished in a delicate cracked porcelain, and hand painted, it came with a certificate signed by Neill Gorton, and came with a collectors card as well.
Other rare stuff includes a 1965, Rolykin Dalek, which has it’s original box, and a Cherilea Dalek, which was sold in Woolworth‘s, for a shilling, ours has a rare black middle bit.
We are also, very fortunate to own an original shooting schedule, of episodes 2 & 4, from Series 2, (Tooth & Claw, and Girl In The Fireplace), which was owned by Peter Bennett - Assistant Director, which consist of 16 pages. We managed to purchase this from ebay.
We were also lucky to acquire a lot in our collection, before the new series started, which meant, we managed to get a lot of merchandise, before the very high prices that prevails on a lot of stuff today. One example of this, was that we were able to get hold of 11 k9 pendants, in mint condition, on their original shop card. We got these off ebay, and to this day, we have never seen them for sale on their original shop card, they are usually sold separate, which we see go for around Ł20 each now.
We have also collected, many of the new series stuff, as we now have a large amount of the Character Options figures, some of these have now become rare, and are fetching very high prices on ebay.
Over the years that we have collected, one of the other things that we have enjoyed collecting, are jigsaws, these we enjoy doing, we have quite a few of them now, but our favourites are, the set of 4 we have, which are in mint condition, of Peter Davision, these were done in the year 1982, by Waddingtons. We have also collected many board games, which we play, one example is the Denys Fisher, War Of The Daleks, which was done in 1975, and we have also collected many Doctor Who books, from the 60’s, to present day.
We have also collected, the 2 Doctor Who, View master reels, which is, Tom Baker, (Full Circle) and Peter Davision (Castrovalva), these we find are very nice to have in our collection.
Another couple of rare examples that we have, are the Tardis gloves, and the Dalek pencil case. The Tardis gloves were done in the year 1984, by Peshawear, and the pencil case was done in the same year by, Interwainer Handbag Co. Uk.
We can remember those humble day’s when we 1st started collecting, and how few items we had in those day’s, where now, even though we have a vast collection, we are always adding to it, because we have always loved the show, as we can remember visiting the Doctor Who exhibition, in Blackpool, in the 70’s, when Tom Baker was the Doctor, (we were very young then) and because we enjoyed the exhibition so much, we have always wanted to have one of our own, and now we have made this dream come true.
During our years of collecting, we have made a lot of new Who friends through the Internet, as we now run 4 of our own web sites, showing some of our collection, and we have our own discussion forum. So as well as the collecting bug giving us great joy, meeting new friends has, as well. We hope that anyone that is interested in collecting any sort of merchandise, gets as much joy, as we have done.