A NEW RECORD: 2020 US$ FOR A STARBUCKS CITY MUG!

a new milestone for Starbucks city mug collectors has been set yesterday: a Minneapolis/St.Paul mug (1994 edition) has been sold through eBay for 2020US$ after intense bidding over several days!

there are certainly other mugs out there that could easily top this price: Iwo Jima for example. We've got 155 dedicated collectors at FredOrange and not one of them owns this mug!!

If you come across one of those mugs and don't know what to do - just drop me a line, I'll come and pick it up personally! ;-)

Happy collecting to all of you out there!

Fred

1000$ for a City Mug?

Paying 1000$ or more for a Starbucks City Mug? Well, with the quickly growing community and interest, we will see this more frequently. Which are these rare mugs?! Some examples, including the links to the individual mugs on www.fredorange.com :

Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv: All Starbucks City Mugs from Israel are extremely rare due to the fact that Starbucks has closed (or never opened) all their stores in this country. Especially the Jerusalem mug is particularly beautiful and has a price potential of well above 500$.


Iwo Jima: Even some of the very experienced collectors have never seen this Starbucks City Mug displaying the famed Iwo Jima motive. But there are photos in the internet, so there must be some pieces out there. Not a single mug has been sold through eBay in well over a year. Price potential: above 1000$

Illinois (State of Bean), Long Island, Firenze (Red Edition), Washington State of Bean: These Starbucks City Mugs have only been created as a prototype. Not seen in eBay for a long time, except for Firenze, which sold in May 2008 for over 500$. Price potential: 1000$

Minneapolis '94: this Starbucks City Mug had to be withdrawn from sales due to a copyright issue regarding the displayed motive. Very few mugs have been sold and 1000$ have been paid already years ago.

New Orleans '94 , Pittsburgh '94: Very rare and well liked. Price potential: 500$ and more

Aachen , Osnabruck, Braunschweig: Are some of the few European Starbucks City Mugs that are out of stock for quite a while already. Though there is still a chance that it might be reissued, prices are going up already. Price potential: 75$ to 100$

Check also the Editions Guide on the different types of City Mugs:

We are live and people like it!!

Several hundred visits every day, FredOrange is more popular than we dared to dream! And though several people already started trading mugs with each other through FredOrange, we are going to create a TRADING PAGE soon. Anyone interested in Starbucks City Mugs will find the perfect marketplace with all the information needed - right here!!!

Starbucks City Mug Editions

Check out the different editions of Starbucks City Mugs on FredOrange:

http://fredorange.com/editions_guide.html

Starbucks on eBay...

Amazing to find out, that according to statistics there have been 4,395 Starbucks mugs listed on eBay in January '08, generating a total of $40,291 in sales.

Average sale price was about $15, and there was a 54% sell through rates.

Hail the Mug!

For over 2 years now, I am travelling every day!! Every morning that I spend in my own house, to be precise! The travelling is a pure mental kind of travelling of course, and it happens when I take one piece of my collection of 60-odd Starbucks City Mugs out of a custom-made cupboard for my morning coffee.

The great trip to Playa del Carmen, Mexico, for my friend Dennis’ wedding, from which I managed to bring back 4 new mugs – Playa, Cancun, Mexico City and the Twin Cities (Greg, who is a common friend of mine and Dennis', lives in St. Paul, Minnesota). Sunshine, luxury, palmtrees, scuba-diving – and the last trip to the Midwest a year ago.

The “lots-of-fun-lots-of-drinking-lots-of-beeds” Mardi-Gras trip to pre-Katrina-New Orleans several years ago.

Madrid, Spain, the city that became so dear to my heart when I used to live there for 6 months and is still an essential part of my life.

Stuttgart, Germany, where I met the love of my life.

Barcelona, Bucharest, Bangkok, Shanghai and many, many more. I’ve even got mugs from cities that I haven’t been to yet. Yet I am certain that I will be there soon and a phantastic scenery of skyscrapers in the desert appears in my imagination when I take the mug with the picture of proud, noble camels and the letters “United Arab Emirates” below them.

Sure enough, I am a regular at Starbucks. Even though there is not even a single Starbucks store in the beautiful and lively city I live in: Salzburg, Austria! Having a coffee at a Starbucks in, let’s say, Shanghai, is a positive, familiar experience in an otherwise (fascinatingly) strange city. I would never go to a McDonalds in Shanghai, but I am craving for my first “Grande Almond (or, if I am lucky Valencia) Cappuccino” when I visit such places.

Just like most other people who became addicted to collecting Starbucks city mugs, I travel much. And I like to do that, even though travelling somewhere for business typically means that I don’t get to see much of it. Let alone feel the vibes and the real atmosphere that is so unique, defining the character of a place.