In a span of almost a year, my Starbucks city mug collection has rapidly grown in size. I now have 82 mugs and waiting to receive 40 more. Thought I'd share how I grew my mug collection. What worked for me and what didn't.
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| My Flickr set of my collection |
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| My Pinterest board of my collection |
This post is especially dedicated to Jasmine who called me her "mug mentor." Wow! Also dedicated to those who are thinking of starting their own or wants to grow their Starbucks City Mug collection.
Starbucks released several editions of their city mugs. What caught my eye is their current Global Icon Series.
Here are my own tips how I grew my collection:
- Buy whatever city mugs that are available in your current city.
- Ask your immediate family and closest friends especially those who are traveling to get the mugs for you. I have three people who I "obliged" to buy me a mug whenever they are on travel. These three people are my husband, brother and sister.
- Locate people around the globe and plead with them to get you a mug from their own city. (I wasn't comfortable with this so I approached no one.)
- Find people in the airline or travel industry, they would be able to help you a lot as they travel for a living.
- Blog about your intention to collect and post it on Facebook. This worked for me. People are more than happy to help me with my collection.
- Trade with other collectors. Find other collectors at FredOrange.com . Look for me, I am irmaloveslife there.
- Join Starbucks collectors group on Facebook. These groups helped me a lot. But I am telling you, it is a competitive world out there. I am a member of these three groups:
There are more Facebook groups but I noticed that the members are mostly the same people so I am sticking to three groups for now.
- Buy mugs from other collectors. I bought a few mugs from several collectors in the Filipino group.
- And a collector's last resort, buy from eBay. Search for Starbucks City Mug or be more specific, "Starbucks + city name." Buying from eBay is easy, you just pay via PayPal and you just have to wait for the package to arrive at your doorstep. But better watch out for overpriced mugs. The more rare a mug is the higher the asking prize is. Law of economics.
A few more thoughts....
I had a lot of exposure when I blogged about my collection. I have two very dear cousins who went out of their way from their trips and bought as much mugs as they could. I was overwhelmed and very grateful. I also found friends willing to add mugs to my collection.
I also found wonderful people to trade with through this blog who I ended as friends with.
I am blessed to be living here in Bangkok where I could easily find the complete set of Thailand city mugs. All five of them. Come to think of it, if I were living in Manila, I would only have access to Manila and Philippines mugs. Not promising.
Trading with collectors from the Facebook groups is very competitive. Most of the collectors there already have the mugs I have access to. And you also "compete" with fellow collectors from where you are from. So unless your city issues a new mug (a surefire way to get everyone's attention) or you are from a city or country which has non-existent collectors/traders, it entails a lot of work. But somehow, I still get requests to trade because there would always be new collectors. So watch out for those.
The Facebook groups serves as a forum for collectors. You learn about new mugs (Starbucks is issuing way too many new mugs) and collectors to avoid trading with.
Beware about postage costs. They can be darn expensive. Let's put it this way: cost of a mug + postage fee (approximately same cost as the mug) + packaging materials = expensive. I only use registered air mail for my packages. They are the most reasonably priced postage rate and you get a tracking number.
Next Starbucks city mug related post would be on packing and boxing mugs for shipping. Yes, it is important that the mugs get to the recipient in perfect condition, no broken handle whatsoever. Watch out for that one!
Hope I helped out the new collectors or those I somehow influenced to collecting from my precious posts.
If you wish to trade with me or have any questions about the things I discussed in this post, please send me a message at irmaloveslife@gmail.com.
Happy collecting!
