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Wee Forest Folk® History - The Tour Pieces
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About 1994, Annette started to give small tokens away to folks that went on the Factory Tour.
She sculpted a small Raggedy Ann holding a wreath and she has come in two different color
combinations:
Raggedy Ann with Wreath
As far as I know, originally this piece had no name.
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Swedish Girl

Click to enlarge
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The next year Annette made a new piece that looked like a young Swedish girl with blond hair, dressed in
what resembled a Swedish folk costume. As many of you know, historically in European countries
there used to be a tradition to wear special costumes for various occasions.
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Again, it had no name, so in time they just became known as the "Tour Pieces",
or "Touries".
Several years ago, these Tour Pieces began to show up on eBay, the world famous auction.
When this news reached Annette she was upset, as you can well imagine. Here she gives collectors
an exclusive piece as a token of her appreciation, to thank them for coming all the way to visit
her and see the Wee Forest Folk® in production. Then she lears that some visitors decided
to make money by selling these pieces on secondary market.
Needless to say, she stopped giving them away. That's the story of the "Tour Piece".
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