Other Hummel Collectibles
Precious Moments is widely known as a series of collectible porcelain bisque figurines. The original artwork was created by the American illustrator Sam Butcher in the 1970s. more...
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The figurines depict young children with distinctive teardrop-shaped eyes, and are often accompanied by inspirational messages which are also found on the products.
Alongside Spain's Lladro and Germany's M.I. Hummel, Precious Moments is one of the few porcelain figurine brands still alive in the 21st century. It is also the brand name for a series of giftware and collectibles licensed by Precious Moments, Inc (a.k.a. PMI) based on the same artworks by Sam Butcher.
Some have observed similarities in design with Margaret Keane's paintings of waifs or with Japanese Anime with their large sorrowful eyes.
General
Precious Moments is a lifestyle brand created by artist Sam Butcher. His simple illustrations of children with teardrop shaped eyes include messages of heartfelt endurance and inspiration. Products derived from these illustrations (by license) are called "Precious Moments". Christian themes appear throughout his work, as Butcher is a born-again Christian.
The flagship product of the brand is the "Precious MomentsTM Porcelain Bisque Figurines" that has been sold since 1977. At its peak, this world-famous product line has seen forty times the sales of the next-best selling Precious Moments product line (Enesco). In the 21st century, Precious Moments is known as one of the few brands that mainly deal in porcelain figurines besides Lladro and Hummel.
It (Precious Moments, Inc. a.k.a. PMI) is also the name of the company that maintains and licenses copyrighted material pertaining to the designs by Sam Butcher. The company was incorporated in 1989 to answer to the increased demands of the Precious Moments characters and themes - yet 80% of the royalties collected was from its licensee Enesco Corp. for their porcelain products.
Also, the same year, Sam Butcher used his profits from PMI to build his longtime dream - a chapel in Carthage, Missouri. Honored as the father of Precious Moments, he appears at some events in Carthage and occasionally at large scale collector club events, like those which took place in May of 2005 in Hawaii for the club's 25th anniversary. Sam Butcher currently resides in the Philippines and spends little time in the US.
Figurines
The story of how Precious Moments became porcelain figurines is familiar to many collectors, yet vague on detail and there exists many inaccuracies. What is known to be the status quo story is that Gene Freedman, founding chairman of Enesco, Corp., found Sam Butcher and then convinced Sam to have Yasuhei Fujioka, a Japanese sculptor, bring life to the children as three dimensional figurines.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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