TRAUN, Austria--(BUSINESS WIRE)--For the forthcoming wedding-of-the-year in the British royal family, the world-famous Austrian sweet manufacturer PEZ has created a pair of PEZ dispensers representing the happy couple Prince William and Catherine Middleton. This unique item will be auctioned on ebay.co.uk to raise money for charity. For collectors of the much-loved PEZ sweet-dispensers, as well as for fans of William and Kate, this is a unique opportunity to own a wholly original collector’s item.
Offers can be made for the royal PEZ couple on the ‘eBay for Charity’ auction platform from 7 to 17 April 2011. The proceeds will all go to a charity supported by Prince William and Kate Middleton.
“The excitement worldwide about William and Kate’s forthcoming wedding was the perfect opportunity for us to create this uniquely designed PEZ sweet-dispenser. This wholly original item will symbolise appreciation for our extensive community of collectors as well as serving a charitable purpose. The ‘eBay for Charity’ auction enables us to achieve both these aims”, comments head of marketing Gabriele Hofinger on the background to the initiative.
All royal fans and PEZ collectors can find more information about the auction as well as images of the “William & Catherine” PEZ dispenser via PEZ’s Web 2.0 sites: on the PEZ-Blog www.pez.at/blog, on the Facebook site www.facebook.com/PEZofficial and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PEZofficial.
“The social media platforms enable us to do what was unthinkable only a few years ago: to be really close to our clients and fans all over the world. This is a thrilling prospect, and the feedback we’re receiving from around the world is fantastic”, points out an enraptured Gabriele Hofinger. “It was through our social media channels that we got the idea to sponsor this charity auction.”
PEZ was founded in 1927 and has since become active worldwide. Around 80 million sweet-dispensers and 4.6 billion sweets are produced annually. Besides Europe and the USA, Japan and Australia are among the most important markets.
The much-loved PEZ sweet-dispensers have not only enchanted generations of children, but are also regarded worldwide as valuable collector’s items. It is rumoured that the eBay idea originated from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar for his girlfriend: she is a keen PEZ collector, and wanted to set up an online platform for exchanging the PEZ figurines. The highest price paid for a PEZ sweet-dispenser was USD 32,000 for the ‘Astronaut B’ model in 2006.
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