USA Today: 73 days remain until the royal wedding of Prince William of Wales and Catherine "Kate" Middleton on April 29, and shiploads of souvenirs are starting to pour into online marketplaces.
Diverse offerings: The Royal Worcester group of royal wedding commemorative items made of fine-bone china. The items range in price from about $20 to $525.
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www.martinewesterlondon. co.ukThe palace banned the use of the couple's faces on the official Royal Collection memorabilia (royalcollection.org.uk), but luxury purveyors and knockoff artists alike are slapping pictures of the couple on everything from a brass commemorative coin (about $12) to a limited-edition Royal Wedding Lion Head Vase of fine china by Royal Worcester (about $525).
"There were mugs in supermarkets the day after the engagement," says Stephen Church, managing director of Church's China, a china-and-glass shop north of London. "Hundreds of thousands of products are going to be available online. The goods are only starting to come out of the factories. Loads and loads (of cheaper items) will be coming from China."
In the USA, you can go to leading collectibles maker The Franklin Mint's website (franklinmint.com) to reserve a Kate Middleton Portrait of a Princess Doll ($195) and a Kate Middleton Royal Wedding Doll ($295), to be produced after the wedding when her dress is finally revealed.
On Church's site (
www.TheUKGiftCompany.co. uk ), Aynsley China's line of four fine-bone china pieces, adorned with the couple's picture and ranging in price from $13 to $53, has been selling briskly since late last year. Halcyon Days produced one of its signature enamel boxes for the engagement (about $232) and it sold out, so a second one ($152) is now on sale.
And that's not all. This first royal wedding of the Internet age is expected to bring forth an avalanche of items spanning the silly to the sublime. To wit: royal wedding condoms. A British company already has sold about 1,000 packs of souvenir Crown Jewels condoms at about $6.50 for three, available in a royal-purple box decorated with a picture of the couple and the date of the wedding.In March, a British cosmetic company will be selling a blue-gray nail polish named after Middleton's former tabloid nickname, "No More Waity Katie" (about $22). And a British alcohol distributor plans to release a limited-edition Prince William Champagne to commemorate the wedding (about $33).
Americans are among the most enthusiastic consumers of royal collectibles, Church says. He says 50% of the firm's total online sales of Royal Collection items so far have come from the USA, and he expects his U.S. sales will be in seven figures by the wedding.
"We believe (Americans buy) because it enables them to feel they are part of the celebration," Church says. "Americans see them as a spectacle, and they buy into the fairy story.
They're more excited than the British are."Gwynne Gorr, marketing director for The Franklin Mint, says she expects the 5,000 Middleton engagement dolls to sell out before the wedding.
"It's not a stretch to think that people watching will go online and very easily place an order for a product without getting out of their easy chairs," Gorr says. "In the week surrounding the wedding, you will see a huge jump in sales because of press coverage and the emotion tied to the event."
They've put the price of the condoms up from £5 to $6.50 already !
xL
funny isn't it, that Diana was a virgin when she was marched into marriage with Charles. And she never bothered with condoms, got pregnant by 3 different men (if you believe the rumours and theories...
whereas Kate and Wills will be gagging to do away with the condoms, they've been so very careful for so very long. So I reckon she'll be expecting like immediately and due perhaps 9 months after her wedding, like around next Christmas...