We realize that most of you are not quite as obsessed with Japanese erasers as we are. Each shipment we receive here at sausalitoferry.com is examined with intense scrutiny.

Last week when we were taking photos of Omokeshi Animals in Forrest Set 19 we saw some colors variations of the teddy bear eraser that we had not seen since we had first started carrying Japanese erasers.

In the foreground are two Iwako teddy bear Japanese erasers that we first saw in early assortments that included Iwako bunny Japanese erasers. In the rear is the current color variation of the teddy bear eraser. The color of the newer bear Japanese eraser is more yellow than the brown color of the older style.

The new older bears in the Omokeshi Animals in Forrest Set 19 are the same size as their contemporary counterparts. The original versions were slightly smaller in size that the bear Japanese erasers that are currently in production.

Recently Iwako has shown more color variation in their Japanese erasers from shipment to shipment, but we are a little puzzled by seeing these older color variations in a new Omokeshi set. We would expect an entirely new shade of colors rather than an older one. Maybe Iwako thought that the current bear Japanese erasers were too yellow in color.

The "K" on the sweater of the bear Japanese erasers  is for "kuma", which is Japanese for bear.

On sausalitoferry.com we show both of the older style bear Japanese erasers as out of stock and we do not know when we will have more stock of the individual older color bear Japanese eraser bears. The larger new old bear Japanese erasers will probably replace the smaller original bear erasers.  If you are one of the hard core Japanese eraser collectors, you can go to any Japanese eraser that is out of stock on sausalitoferry.com, hit the "Notify Me" button and a email will be sent when and if we get inventory. We do not rent, sell, lend, or otherwise any of the emails or addresses of our customers.

Sonny Angel Animal Series 4 is on sausalitoferry.com. Sonny Angel Animal Series 4 has twelve different Kewpie figures plus the one mystery figure. Pictured on the left, the thirteenth mystery figure is a dragon. In our shipment we only received only one mystery figure.

The surprise in the set is the introduction of a new mouse like character named Robby Angel. Of course he has angel wings and splayed out hands characteristic of all Sonny Angel figurines. In our shipment, Robby Angel came in the blind box that contained the Skunk Sonny Angel and we are offering them together as a pair.

At Sausalito Ferry Co. we have a pretty large collection of solar toys. All of these toys are powered by a solar cell which power the moving part. They need no batteries and work quite well with normal interior lighting. The smiley face figure in the video is similar to one made by Tomy in 2002. The slow steady motion of the nodding head provides a calming effect so the Smiley Face Solar Toy is good for a work desk.

Iwako Japan has seemed to change the way that they are going to offer their Japanese erasers. In the past, Iwako Japan would create a new series of Japanese erasers and the first shipments would include three or four styles of the new erasers mixed together in the sixty piece master box. A few months later, we would be able to get six colors of each of the new styles. For example, the monkey Japanese erasers were part of a group called Forrest Fellows which included three colors of monkeys, two colors of unicorns and a single koala Japanese eraser. These were followed by six color versions of each of those three styles.

As we understand it, starting with the Wild Animal Series which was just released, Iwako Japan will no longer make six color versions of the polar bear, rhino and kangaroo Japanese erasers.

We are not going to make Series Sets from these new releases of Japanese erasers. Because of the assortments within the sixty piece master box, making Series Sets leaves an odd assortment of colors available as single Japanese erasers.

We have no idea why Iwako Japan made this decision. It will be interesting to see if this affects the way collectors buy Japanese erasers online at sausalitoferry.com.

Maybe posting Sonny Angel releases for fall of this year now could be seen as a little too soon, but since we received these from Dreams, the maker of Sonny Angels, we posted them anyway. For Halloween 2012, Dream has a Mummy Sonny Angel, Pumpkin Sonny Angel, Witch Sonny Angel and the Vampire Sonny Angel. Halloween has never been cuter.

Coming after the Halloween Sonny Angels, arrives the Christmas Sonny Angel series, with Christmas Cake Sonny Angel, Tree Cape Sonny Angel, Reindeer Sonny Angel and Santa Claus Sonny Angel.

In the next couple of weeks we will also receive Sonny Angel Animal Series 4. More interesting to us, we will have little mini Sonny Angel figures about one inch high, that via a peg, fit into the audio jack a smart phone. The decoppins, as they are known, replace cell phone danglies, as smart phones have no place to loop the cell phone dangly.  In the next couple of months, we will have Totoro and other decoppins in a new section for smart phones on sausalitoferry.com

As usual, we will be selling the Sonny Angels by style, rather than the blind box. If you want to know when these arrive, go to the specific Sonny Angel of interest, click on the "Notify Me" button, enter your email and you will get a reply when we enter inventory. We do not rent, sell, lend, or let anybody see our email list. Just letting you know in case you were worried.

The Hello Kitty figure erasers have become a sort of the search for the holy grail of Japanese erasers for us. Sanrio, the owner and maker of all things Hello Kitty has produced some of these erasers in the past. They were made by Iwako and we have pictures of a couple of them on the blog.

In the past couple of months we have seen glimmers of hope for these erasers. This past winter, we were able to order from Ty these Hello Kitty Japanese erasers pictured on the left. This photo was taken at the Ty booth at the New York Toy Fair in February. As of this writing, we have yet to see these Hello Kitty erasers from Ty. That sort of delayed delivery is not unusual for Ty, however.

In our rummaging at Toyfair, we also found another supplier that had similar Hello Kitty Japanese erasers. The company that makes them sells mostly to other toy companies and big box stores, not to itsy bitsy toy retailers like us.  They were not all that helpful to us at Toyfair when we asked if we could buy from them directly, and if not, who in the toy industry we could buy from. Subsequent emails and phone calls have gone unanswered. So much for customer service.

One of our good customers, Priscilla, asked us about the Hello Kitty erasers and sent us a photo of the ones that she has acquired, which led to this blog posting explaining the status, or lack thereof the Hello Kitty erasers. When we receive the Hello Kitty erasers, from Ty or anywhere else, we will post here in the blog and on the Facebook page.

The Easter Sonny Angels have arrived. We must point out that the three of the Bunny Sonny Angels, White Chocolate Sonny Angel, Bitter Chocolate Sonny Angel and Extra Bitter Chocolate Sonny Angel have fuzzy bunny tails attached to their posteriors. We also can not help wondering what is the story behind the goopy chocolate mess that covers the White Chocolate Sonny Angel.

Each of the Easter Sonny Angels come packaged in a plastic gold egg, wrapped in a clear acetate bag, tied off with a brown ribbon. As with all the Sonny Angels on sausalitoferry.com, you can get the Easter Sonny Angel that you want. Sonny Angels are blind boxed. When we receive them, they come in identical packages. Most other retailers sell them blind boxed, so you the customer do not know which one you will receive but we carefully open them and sell them by style.

Iwako Japan, from time to time, will do a limited edition minor color variation of a existing eraser. The front row of penquin Japanese erasers are current stock. The back row is a set of penquin Japanese erasers are slightly different shades than their close cousins in the front row.

As a retailer and collector of Japanese erasers, we would like to see Iwako do something different for colors when they do limited edition Japanese erasers. Changing the color of Japanese erasers by a couple shades is just, well, meh.

The design of the Iwako erasers are the best of Japanese cute. Why can't they show the same imagination in colors for the limited edition erasers?

From Kikkerland, comes a pair of rock erasers, each containing a fossil dinosaur skull eraser. As you use the rock eraser over time, the dinosaur skull eraser will slowly be revealed.

We never thought of erasers taking on meaning other that the practical or aesthetic meanings. Kikkerland has created a conceptual eraser. They write on the back of the package that the erasers come in:

"Become a desktop archeologist with this set of Fossil Erasers. The Fossil Erasers were inspired by the idea of erosion and how it affects our current landscape while revealing traces of the past. Fossil erasers were designed by Giberto Gonzales as part of the Mexico Design Challenge "Desarrollando Talento Mexicano". (Developing Mexican Talent). A program organizes by Kikkerland , in collaboration with Ariel Rojo, Gava Design, and the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Automona de Mexico). Kikkerland is very proud to be part of this program".

From Kikkerland, the maker of the Neanderthal eraser and other large animal erasers, comes a decidedly aggressive looking bull eraser.

Erasers from Kikkerland, such as the grenade eraser in the below blog post, do not fit in the Japanese eraser theme of cute. They are large and hefty and are more suitable atop a desk. We just can not imagine how we would erase anything with the bulk of the bull eraser. We have many other erasers much more suited for actual erasing..

We try not to overuse the word "cute" in our posts about erasers, Japanese and otherwise. Iwako and Dream Zensinsyoji, the two makers of Japanese erasers, have some 800 plus different styles of the Japanese erasers, and of all those, the only Japanese erasers that they make that might not be considered "cute", is the gun Japanese erasers that Iwako makes in two colors. Perhaps the motorcycle erasers are not all that cute, but they do come in pastel colors. How can you not go aww over a pastel pink motorcycle. Even with the boy Japanese erasers, Iwako can not resist splashing pastel colors all over them. When was the last time you saw a lavender 747 on the runway.

The cuteness of the design of the Japanese erasers tends to skew to feminine collector. Other than the gun and maybe the motorcycle Japanese erasers, we have a few more masculine erasers. We just posted a muscular looking black 4 1/2 inch long bull eraser in the 1 to 40 section of sausalitoferry.com. If you like a purple tyrannosaurus rex eraser, we have on about the same size there too. And of course, a green grenade eraser.

For April release, Iwako has three new Japanese animal erasers from three continents. Kangaroo, polar bear and rhinoceros Japanese erasers. As always, the cutness quotient is over the top. Iwako has managed to even make the rhino Japanese erasers cuddly.

The April release will have the Iwako animal erasers in the colors below. Perhaps later this year we will see the kangaroo, polar bear and rhino erasers each come in six colors.

These skateboard figures from Toy Boarders come in eight poses. From the top row in the left, the guys are doing the following stances: Pushing, Cruising 1, Smith and Manual. Front row, from the left: Ollie, Cruising 2, Nose Grab and Tail Grab.

Figures are about 2 inches tall and are packed 24 pieces in a poly bag.

Come March, we will see from Iwako, Series Two Duck Japanese erasers. In this second series of duck Japanese erasers, green and orange are the two new colors that were not in the series One Duck Japanese erasers.

The blue, yellow, purple and pink are different shades of their cousins in the Series One Ducks.

We do not know how Iwako picks the colors of their Japanese erasers other than that they are pleasing to the eye. But we have to wonder why, with an infinite array of colors, why they would pick colors that are only couple of shades removed from the previous series.

From Sanrio, comes die cut scented Hello Kitty face erasers in a clam shell case. On the cuteness scale, this rates about level 99. We could use superlatives like adorable and sweet and we would not be exaggerating. This is one of the better eraser sets we have seen from Sanrio in quite a while.

We were trying to figure out what each Hello Kitty eraser smelled like and we were not have much success. We did smell rose, grape and maybe lemon or orange, but we got no further than that.

We have on sausalitoferry.com, a larger size die cut scented Hello Kitty face erasers that are labeled to what scent each eraser is, but this set is not labeled for scent.

Erasers are 3/4 inch across.

This March, we will see some new colors of the bird Japanese erasers mixed in with some current colors.

The bird Japanese eraser that will continue appear to be the pink, yellow and lavender. Discontinued colors are fuschia and turquoise. The new colors are green and orange.

The photo we are showing is from Iwako Japan. The shades of the pink, yellow and lavender bird Japanese erasers may be different than their current versions, but we will need to get actual samples to determine that. We should have our samples in about two weeks and we will have the photos posted shortly after that.

So for a while we will have two Iwako Bird Japanese eraser sets, with the difference that Series One will contain the discontinued bird Japanese eraser colors and Series Two will have the two new colors.

For Easter, Sonny Angel is doing a Chocolate series. Bitter Chocolate, Extra Bitter Chocolate and White Chocolate Sonny Rabbits. One the bottom row, Elephant Milk Chocolate Sonny Angel, Cock White Chocolate Sonny Angel and Koala Strawberry Chocolate Sonny Angel.
Each of the figures come a golden egg in a package tied off with a brown ribbon.
Hopefully, we will see them before April 8, but with Japanese product, ship dates are never certain. We do not need to tell you about the Christmas Domos that arrived in June of the next year.

It turns out that the new Kawaii animal erasers could have 168 different color versions.

The math works like this.  Four different Kawaii animal erasers. The pig eraser, rabbit eraser, squirrel eraser and the cat eraser.

Seven different Kawaii animal eraser colors. Red, brown, yellow, white, pink, green and grey.

Six different Kawaii animal belly eraser colors. Red, pink, white, green, yellow and brown.

Multiply all these together and you come up with 168 color possibilities.

As of this writing, we have 79 of the 168 Kawaii eraser versions up on sausalitoferry.com. We will be adding more as we get more inventory.

Perhaps a little late to arrive, or maybe not, we finally have John Hersey's follow up to his Dia De Los Gigantes t shirt, the Dia De Los 49ers t shirt.

One would think that making a Hello Kitty pencil with a eraser on the top would be pretty straight forward. Looks can be deceiving.

Let's start at the beginning. Sanrio is the owner of Hello Kitty. Of all the quadzillion things Hello Kitty, Sanrio only makes a handful Hello Kitty items themselves. Other companies make the rest. They are given permission by Sanrio to make these Hello Kitty goodies and then sell them to us retailers.

Sanrio has it's own specialty line of what is pretty much the classic Hello Kitty line of merchandise. It sells this line all over the world, but for the most part it is only found in the Sanrio stores and speciality stores. It is not found in the big box or mass market stores, but those store have their own version of Hello Kitty, but it is pretty generic. (Generic means boring).

At our sister store, Games People Play, we carry the classic Sanrio. We first picked it up in 1973, and Games People Play may be the oldest continuing retailer of Sanrio and Hello Kitty in the United States.

Back to the Hello Kitty Pencils on the left.  Sanrio decides that it wants, as part of it's speciality line, some Hello Kitty pencils with erasers. Being very familiar with most of the quality pencil manufacturers, they decide on BeGoody.

You may know BeGoody from the pencils with erasers from sausalitoferry.com. Sanrio says to BeGoody we want this sort of artwork on the body of the pencil and we want on some of the pencils Hello Kitty erasers and on the other pencils, let's use the apple eraser which is part of the Hello Kitty KT line. (KT stands for "kitty terrestrial". Don't ask).

BeGoody then goes to Dream Zensinsyoji, the other maker of Japanese erasers which you also may be familiar with from sausalitoferry.com. Dream Zensinsyoji makes the erasers, sends them to BeGoody which then assembles the complete Hello Kitty pencil and sends them to Sanrio, We, Games People Play, buy them not from Sanrio, but from a company known as Nakajima, the US distributor of Sanrio in the US.

Nakajima also makes most of the Hello Kitty plush for Sanrio.

If you are still reading this by now, we are sure you have a headache. Go cuddle your stuffed Hello Kitty.