The Compleat Piers AnthonyFranklin Mint Xanth Figure Collection |
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The Compleat Piers Anthony Franklin Mint Xanth Figure Collection |
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The Ultimate Fantasy Collection! Twenty enchanting hand-painted portrait sculptures, accented with ruby, sapphire, crystal, amethyst, and pure 24 karat gold. Kings and Queens, Dragons and Unicorns. Mermaids and Elves. They dwell in a world of excitement and romance. On the Enchanted Mountain, in the mystical world of Xanth, sharing fabulous quests and the most exciting, most intriguing adventures of all. The adventures of the imagination. Created by best-selling author Piers Anthony and award-winning fantasy artist Michael Whelan, these wonderful characters are now brought magically to life by The Franklin Mint. In a spellbinding collection of hand-painted pewter sculptures aglow with accents of ruby, sapphire, amethyst, crystal, and 24 karat gold electroplate. |
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Small page ads. This is a tri-fold ad sheet that is inserted with different mailings. One was included in the February 1999 mailing from the Science Fiction Book Club. This would logically indicate that the set is still available. Since the set came out in 1992, it seems that The Franklin Mint rarely stops making their collectibles, which is why most do not increase in value and many—because of the glut on the market—actually go down in value if you attempt to resell. Investing in Franklin Mint should be to purchase what you like, because you like it, not for any future investment value. |
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| Included with the set is a Certificate of Authenticity with a reproduction of Piers Anthony's autograph. Actually this is one messier examples of Piers' signature I have seen. I am surprised they used this for the set. |
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With each figure you receive a card (small brochure) that has the character's name on front and a small bit of background information printed on the inside. I have not verified all of the information is correct, but it looks pretty good. I have included much of the information with the individual characters listed below. |
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| With the set you receive (at no extra cost) a very nice 20" tall wooden wall plaque with shelves to hold the figures and a nice etched mirror back. The etching is of a castle on the top of a mountain (hence the Enchanted Mountain theme). |
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Here are close-ups of the three figures highlighted in the full-page ads. |
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Here are the individual figures. There are 20 in all. These are presented in (somewhat) alphabetical order.
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Bink had long been searching to understand his magic. The Good Magician Humfrey has assured Bink that his magic was quite powerful, but as of yet he was not able to discover it, and in fact, Humfrey had told him that he could not display it at all. It was one thing, Bink thought, to have no magic at all, but to have great magic and be unaware of it or unable to demonstrate it was certainly a cruel fate. With such an unsuitable answer from the Good Magician, Bink was banished from the Kingdom of Xanth. |
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When Jordan first set eyes on Bluebell, he thought she was lovely. A perfectly proportioned elf in a green dress, she had a favor to ask of Jordan the Barbarian. Bluebell, an ancestor of Rapunzel, belonged to the Flower Tribe, and like the other elves, has prodigious powers that ebbed and grew proportionately to her nearness to an elf elm tree. |
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Chester finally discovered his talent. Suppressed by his brute physicality, his magic talent for creating such exquisite music had long gone unknown. Chester belonged to the race of centaurs that inhabited the world of Xanth. Married to the filly, Cherie, he was thinking of her when he first discovered his musical talent. But Bink, Chester's loyal companion had long suspected that there was magic in his friend. |
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Beauregard was a highly educated demon. Working on his doctoral thesis entitled Fallibilities of Other Intelligent Life in Xanth, he was able to offer many salient observations to Bink about the nature of human, animal, and ogre emotions, while at the same time give guiding advice to Bink in his quest. |
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The Dragon King had promised to assist Dor in his quest to save Xanth, commanding the monsters of the land to feast on the Mundanes and to spare the green-sashed humans. And through-out the ordeal, the Dragon King proved both his honor and value to the history of Xanth. |
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Humfrey was a Good Magician. He was shaped like a gnome, with large feet and enormous spectacles, and he was well over 100 years old. Humfrey's talent was information. he could find out anything ... except the answer to Bink's question. |
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Beautiful to look at, the Griffin has the noble head and wings of an eagle and the proud svelte body of a lion. On Bink's quest to find the source of Xanth's magic, the Good Magician Humfrey changed the soldier Crombie into a griffin, so that he could better keep up with the questing party. Crombie was delighted with his new form. |
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Seated on a silver stool and rummaging through a barrel of diamonds, rubies, opals, and every precious stone imaginable, Jewel captivated Bink. Her hair sparkled. Her large eyes gleamed. Innocent and comely, she was the ideal of feminine beauty. She was a rock nymph, and her responsibility was to place precious stones throughout the earth to be later found by men and other creatures. |
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Four hundred years earlier, Jordan was a young barbarian. Tall, broad-shouldered and innocently naive, he hungered for adventure and heroism. Pook, his ghost horse is kept solid by the chains wrapped around his body. On a glorious mission, Jordan was killed—betrayed by two magicians and a beautiful woman—and for four hundred years, Jordan himself would be a ghost, wandering around Castle Roogna until the Princess Ivy helped to re-animate him. |
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Once he was the Evil Magician with powers of Transformation. Exiled from Xanth, he spent twenty years in the drear land of Mundania. While in exile, the true nobility of his character emerged and when he became King of Xanth, King Trent ushered in the Silver Age of Xanth. |
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the Night Mare Imbri was a night mare, a dream horse whose job it was to deliver bad dreams to sleeping creatures. Yet, every dream was deserved, and the night mare's job is a necessary one. A night mare's hoof prints, which they leave behind as a signature mark, contain maps of the moon and each print emphasizes a particular lunar feature for which each individual night mare is known. |
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The nine-year-old Prince Dolph had begun his quest to find the missing Good Magician Humfrey and discover the magic coin–the Heaven Cent. Yet before he travelled long, Dolph was kidnapped by Mela Merwoman. She needed a husband and wanted a family and she would pamper Dolph in her underwater lair until he was old enough to suit her purposes. Mela was beautiful and the life she offered Dolph was attractive—especially to a young boy. |
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Princess Irene was the daughter of King Trent and Queen Iris. Already she was an extremely pretty girl, and with every passing day was growing into what would be a beautiful young woman. Her brilliant green eyes perfectly complimented her green hair, and she was quickly learning the power that her beauty held over men. |
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In her desire to be Queen of Xanth, the Illusionist Iris worked hard at tempting Bink, offering his the Kingship of Xanth, and all the pleasure that her illusions could provide. Finally at the side of Trent, they ushered in the Silver Age of Xanth as King and Queen. |
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The wisest of all birds, the Simurgh had witnessed the destruction and regeneration of the universe on three different occasions. A s large as a Roc, the Simurgh was covered in feathers that were veils of light and shadow that enveloped her in a dazzling mist and her crested head was like fire. |
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Smash the Ogre certainly was a living paradox. Although in reality he was a human/ogre crossbreed, he seemed to embody pure ogre traits. Certainly he was huge and horrible and ugly, And he was certainly stupid. But ogres were supposed to spend their time fighting and destroying young girls, and now Smash found himself the leader of seven assorted females who looked to him for guidance. |
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Stanley Steamer is the lethal Gap Dragon. Bearing down on the Good Magician Humfrey and his son Hugo (who had gone to get water from the Fountain of Youth), he was rather surprised when Hugo flung the water on him and he regressed, growing younger right before their eyes. Later Princess Ivy found the little dragon and named him Stanley Steamer as he hissed hot steam from his mouth. |
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The unicorn is just one of the many magical and wonderful characters in Xanth. As rare as regular horses, their favorite snack is popcorn. The Good Magician often used unicorns for his challenges. The unicorn is also the special companion of innocent young girls. |
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The witch Xanthippe is a crusty old hag with a mean-spirited disposition. She was hunched and ugly, a dirty old hag with a wart on her nose. And her talent was hypnotism—a talent she was quick to use on any unsuspecting passers-by. |
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Magician Yin, a man of average age and height dresses all in white. He was the creator of good Spells. He could start a spell but could not turn it off. His twin brother the Magician Yang had the evil power to turn it off. Yin and Yang involved Jordan in their contest—a struggle between good and evil, positive and negative, and Truth and Untruth. |
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For information about acquiring a set of the Xanth fantasy figures, contact The Franklin Mint, Franklin Center, PA 19092-2700. Cost for each figure is $39.50 plus your local sales tax and shipping of $3.95 per figure. So you can expect to spend about $869.00 plus your sales tax. A large chunk of change, but this is a set you will treasure for many years.
The figures are shipped one per month, so it takes 20 months to complete the collection. The wooden display shelve unit comes after the first few shipments (I guess they want to make sure you don't cancel right away). I have had mine since they debuted in 1992, hanging on the wall, collecting lots of dust. :-) Secondary markets, reselling, online auctions, etc., do not bode well for this collection. The whole set usually only goes for $200 to $400 on eBay. |
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Books, photos, images, and other content are copyrighted by Piers Anthony Jacob and his various publishers. No copyright infringement is implied. All images scanned by the web author may not be copied without written permission. All reviews, text, and other written information by the web author may not be copied without written permission. This site is one fan's dedication to the literary works of author Piers Anthony and is designed for education and review purposes and to highlight the web author's collection. The Compleat Piers Anthony website content © 1999 - 2005 by Daniel J. Reitz, Sr., All Rights Reserved. If you have any questions, please email me at Thank you. Privacy Statement/COPPA |