Sanrio erasers are so very collectable, and vintage ones in particular are much sought after.

The three I have for sale right now are fine examples, and considering their age and condition, are very reasonably priced. I’ve seen the same erasers in poorer condition sell for more on eBay, but I like to give my customers a bargain through my website.

All three erasers are 1976 Sanrio. I have a cute Little Twin Stars eraser that’s still sealed, an embossed Hello Kitty in a charming little plastic house, and a ‘high above the sky’ Hello Kitty eraser in a case that’s in such good condition it could have been made yesterday.

If you don’t already have these erasers in your collection, or if the ones you own have seen better days, then please take a look. If you’re interested in buying more than one then please contact me for a reduced price :)

Jules

I’ve been lucky enough to have patient customers who trust me and allow time, but even so it can be frustrating for both parties. How long is too long? When do you admit defeat and send a refund?

I had a customer whose erasers were posted to America in the middle of November, but didn’t arrive until the beginning of January, so I did some investigation and discovered this international incident bulletin on the Royal Mail website.

For the USA it states the  following:

Start date: 18th November
End date: Ongoing

Since November 2010, the United States Department of Homeland Security has increased security measures for items carried on passenger airlines. As a result, mail entering the US from around the world, and including the UK, that would normally be sent via passenger aircraft must now travel by other means, including ships and cargo planes.

This is resulting in an extension to transit times for some items, mainly heavier items, but also Destination Sort bags posted under contract by business customers. We’re really sorry for these unavoidable delays and are doing everything we can to keep mail moving out of and into the UK.

We have implemented a number of contingency plans to ensure as much of our customers’ mail reaches the US as quickly as possible and are continuing to work to minimise disruption to our customers, whilst ensuring we comply fully with the US directives and regulations.

It does state it mainly affects heavy items, but I’ve no idea what ‘heavy’ means. My delayed parcels have been quite large and chunky, but not particulary heavy.

If you’re a seller

• Keep in touch with your customers who have delayed parcels to reassure them that you’re genuine and have indeed posted their goods.
• I’ve started taking photos of packages to America so I can email them to my customers if they report a delay. This just helps them know their package really is on the way.
• If your customer is upset offer a refund, and ask them to kindly re-send payment when the parcel finally arrives. People are generally honest, and if you do your best for your customers they’ll usually be honest enough to do their best for you.
• Keep an eye on the bulletins so you can warn customers in advance that they might face delays.
• Remember your customer is always right, even when they’re wrong, so sometimes you just have to suck it up and move on! ;)

If you’re a buyer

• Be patient as far as possible but fully *expect* your seller to keep in touch with you and provide full postage details.
• If your package is delayed, remember to let your seller know once it does arrive.
• If you’ve accepted a refund, remember to re-send payment when your goods arrive.
• The majority of sellers are honest people who want the best for their customers. Trust them, unless they do something to break that trust or ignore your communications.

I hope the link I’ve provided can help ease relations between UK sellers and international buyers who are suffering at the hands of poor mail services!

Some of them are rare purely because there aren’t many around, and some because it’s hard to find them in such good condition.

The best are the Refreshers one which still smells delightfully and very strongly of refreshers, and the Victoria Plum one because it’s so very classically 80s. That too is in mint condition and had a lovely scent (I’m sure you’ll remember it once you have a sniff!

Please do leave or comment or email me if you have any questions. Don’t forget if you’re in the UK and only buying one eraser, you’ll get a partial refund for your postage costs. See my previous post for details.

All the best with your collections and I hope you love these rare lipsticks as much as I do.

Jules

As some of you will know my poor website was a bit broken, but over the last week it’s been mended. My dear friend Wedge has spent a great deal of his time fixing it for me and making it beautiful for you. Just look at all those new category pics :)

I’m afraid I haven’t been so efficient in restocking it, so you’ll find it rather sparse right now, but I thought it best to just re-open it anyway.

Rest assured that it will be filled with thousands of rubbery delights over the coming hours, days and weeks (perhaps months!) In the meantime, please do let me know if there’s something specific you’re looking for.

So keep your eyes peeled, and I’ll be sure to update you with all the new additions via Twitter.

I’ve made the postage system simpler, so I now charge a flat rate of £1.50 for postage no matter where you are or how many erasers you buy. I realise £1.50 is expensive if you’re in the UK and only buying one eraser, so please do contact me if that is the case and I’ll refund the difference for you.

Thank you very much for your patience during the downtime, and a huge thank you to Wedge for his expert help.

Jules@OriginalErasers.co.uk

I’m not even sure how I managed to collect as many as 304, as I certainly don’t remember being in a position to buy them that often! One I do remember is my swiss roll – you know the one I mean – the cute little swiss roll in a cardboard sleeve. Most of us had it and it was scented too. I specifically remember standing in front of a display of various rubbers and picking out that one to buy. I remember it was quite expensive.

The picture shows some of my original erasers from that collection of 304. There seems to be a bit of a purple and pink theme going on there – and most of them are food! But then, so many of the 80s erasers were based around food items that I won’t read *too* much into that! :)

I remember when I had about 20 and kept them in an old ice-cream container under my bed. I’d get them out to look and smell every single day. I also collected notebooks – and I really really wish I still had them. They were awesome 80s ones including Bobby & Kate, Victoria Plum, Sarah Kay and Pierrot. I also remember a wonderful Sarah Kay set of tiny tiny coloured pencils and a teeny rubber. Sadly I removed the rubber to put in my collection and I’ve no idea what happened to the pencils.

As my eraser collection grew it expanded into a biscuit tin, then another biscuit tin. The final collection of 304 was stored in the ice-cream container and two biscuit tins. Layered, with a piece of kitchen towel between each layer, and banished to the loft for several years.

Eventually I plan to retrieve all 304 original erasers from my collection and keep them separately.  I’m pretty good at recognising the originals, but it will be a challenge to find all of them!

I’ll let you know how I get on, and I’d love to hear about your original collections.

I know certain chains do sell *some* novelty erasers today, but it’s nothing like it used to be. They tend to focus on commercial trends, mostly based around popular films or TV shows. Anything else tends to be, well, rather boring in comparison to the variety offered to us 80s kids.

It could be argued that children just don’t collect erasers in the same way we used to, and I suppose we do live in a different world now. Perhaps erasers just aren’t interesting or fun enough for today’s kids, but it could be that there just isn’t an exciting variety available. If the kids of today could experience the same plethora of erasers we used to be offered, I’m sure many would start collecting.

It’s easy enough to buy variety online, but you can never replace the joy and excitement of going into your favouite eraser shop and browsing the many shelves and boxes to choose which one you’ll spend your pocket money on this week.

I love my new logo – and I hope all you wonderful creative people can see how clever the design is, and how perfect it is for Original Erasers!

I now have it in my head that I’d like to have an eraser produced, of my logo, that I can give away to all my customers, but so far I haven’t been able to find a company able to to do so to my requirements (and without me buying thousands of them!) So if you’ve got any ideas where  I might go, or indeed how I could perhaps produce them myself, then please do contact me.

You will also see that at the bottom of my site I’ve added one of those new 2D barcodes. It contains my web address so if your mobile has a barcode reader, you can take a pic with the camera and it will launch the site :)

Thank you to Wedge for his hard work and for an awesome logo!

Jules

Of course the best ones are Soundy – much sought after especially when they’re in great condition with no melting. The other ones pictured are pretty similar but slightly smaller. There are more of them around, and in general they seem to have been less well looked after than the Soundy ones, a sure sign they were cheaper at the time!

Anyway, I’ve listed all the ones pictured and I look forward to sorting through the rest of this category and uploading lots more interested lipsticks and plastic cases :)

Then I got to thinking about some of the eraser collector people I’ve met over the years, and how they’ve all been creative people with a passion for things such as art, crafts, writing, design etc. I wonder if there’s a connection? I can’t imagine that creative types are generally drawn to collecting erasers! But I do wonder if the type of people who enjoy eraser collecting tend to be creative.

I’m just rambling really and using this blog to unwind some of my thoughts, but I would like to know what you think. Are you a creative person? How do you unleash your creativity? Do you have a creative business I should link to? Do you follow several different paths in life?

I’d love to hear from you.

However, as I gradually upload more and more erasers, I’ve realised they were just cluttering the site and a possible cause of disappointment to my customers, so I’ve removed them.

From now on, if you do see something you like in my shop, then it will be available to buy.

It’s gonna be a long job getting all my stock online – there’s literally thousands of erasers to photograph and upload, but I’m working on it every day and my little shop will get bigger and bigger as time goes by.

As always, if there’s something you’re after that you can’t see, or maybe you see something but want it in a different colour, then drop me an email and I’ll do my best to help :)

Jules

Block erasers, unsurprisingly perhaps, are just that -  ‘block’ of lovely eraser. Most block erasers are rectangular in shape, and sometimes (particularly in the case of collectable ones) have a cardboard sleeve and / or cellophane wrapping.

These kind of erasers aren’t always very popular for the collector – they’re often considered to be too boring, too much like an eraser that you would actually conside using to rub out! But these little erasers can have a lot to offer, so don’t be too quick to dismiss them.

There *are* benefits to collecting block erasers:

They tend to be cheaper, so you can buy more;

They store easily and take up less room;

They are less likely to become damaged over time;

There are *more* of them – even simple stationery stores sell quite interesting ones with some great designs on the sleeves.

Also, because they are less likely to be purchased and collected lovingly, and are more likely to be used, they are often more rare (and therefore more sought after). Some people in fact specifically collect them – especially 80s ones by makes such as Staedtler, and I’ll be listing some of those in the next few weeks.

But most recently I’ve uploaded some Sanrio Hello Kitty block erasers to my shop, so why not take a look and see what your collection is missing! :)

I’ll be adding even more Hello Kitty erasers today, but this time it’s mostly back to the more unusual shapes.

Jules

I’ll be back soon I’m sure, with an update on how my plans are going, and I hope to have a few more erasers uploaded by the end of the day too.

I’ve got lots of exciting things to share with you over the coming weeks and months (plus, my friend gave me Mac for Xmas so I hope to create some PDFs for you to download!) so I hope you will keep an eye on my little blog :)

Oh, I wanted to mention that I realise my blog posts state the author as being Wedge. Wedge is my friend who he has helped me a great deal with my website – in fact he built it for me and hosts my domain! He actually set this blog up for me too and I haven’t worked out how to change the author yet, but I can assure you that all these posts are by me :)

See you soon; happy collecting.

Jules

Sanrio is a popular and very collectable brand of kawaii from Japan, and Sanrio erasers are collected not only by eraser collectors, but also by Sanrio and kawaii collectors.

Scented putty erasers are released most years, and they’re usually available to buy in America around June time. They sell quickly so you have to be quick. It’s more difficult to but them in the UK unless you import them, so they’re even rarer here, especially the older ones.

The most sought after putty erasers are the more unusal ones, either because they’re less familiar Sanrio creatures (such as Hoshikuma or Chibimaru, or because of their unusual scents (such as ‘toast’ and ‘sausage’)

Once you start collecting these putty erasers in their cute little plastic containers, you want them all. So if you’re missing some from your collection please take a look at the ones I have for sale and see if you can fill in some of those gaps.

I’ll be listing more Sanrio erasers over the next few days, but please do contact me if there’s something particular you’re after and I’ll do my best to help you.

With many thanks to Chris Dodd for his photographic skills :)

Jules

Well, it’s 31st October, and some people will be celebrating Halloween. I have to say, I’m more of a Samhain person myself, but ‘Halloween’ is much wider known, so that’s what I’ll stick with here.

I guess my little collection of Halloween themed erasers isn’t too exciting. There aren’t that many, and they’re mostly flat. They’re also mostly modern.  I don’t remember Halloween being such a big thing in the UK when I was a kid, so that might be an explanation. I wonder if there were more 80′s halloweeny erasers over in America?

Anyway, this is my little collection for Halloween.

If you have any others, I’d love to hear about them!

Happy Halloween / Blessed Samhain

It’s been too long since my last post, and we seem to have moved from Spring into Summer already. I don’t want to find myself in Autumn without having taken the opportunity to post a couple of summer themed pictures!

Most of the erasers shown are from my ‘Seaside’ category. It’s sometimes difficult to know where to put them – I mean the lifeboats could have gone into ‘transport – sea’, and the ice-creams / lollies into ‘food’. But I think it’s nice to have a few more fun categories, and it certainly made it easier for me to find the erasers for this post.

I think practically all these erasers are from the 80s and my favourites are the deckchair, buckets and spades, and most of all the sticks of rock – they’re so realistic and a great size too. I did have a purple deckchair too, and I loved it of course, but someone made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I’m happpy enough with my pink one.

Anyway, that’s my little update for you. The eraser business usually slows down over the summer but I’m finding the opposite at the moment. Maybe the credit crunch means less people are taking holidays and making themselves happy buying summer themed erasers instead!

I’ll be back soon; I won’t leave it this long again :)