Castle what? Ethan has a castle? Since when? Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes upon this!
You’re squinting. I know you are. What are we looking at? This is the original MGA Storytime Collection Princess Castle Playset and this is the ONLY photo I can find of it. Anywhere. I can find its newer incarnation, the Storytime Princess Collection ICE CASTLE Playset all over the place but you can very quickly spot the differences.
Deep breaaaaath: No dome on the left side, no mirror, no other half of the tower, no stained glass window, no supports under the flip-down bed, no balcony, no handle, no stickers, no rose and filigree decorations, no stairway to the second floor, and it’s blue. They took a lot of stuff off of it to make it cheaper. It shows.
So, how did I get my hands on the original? Well, I got it second hand for 10 euros from a nice lady whose children had outgrown it. It has been very well loved. Very VERY well loved. Personally, I am absolutely fascinated by the ageing process of toys and other frequently-used items. Hopefully you’ll be interested to see what happened to it over time.
Not exactly mint condition. 
Peeling stickers. 
Damaged mirror. 
Scratched window and missing stained glass insert. 
Peeling stickers and scuffed door. 
Peeling stickers. 
Cracked tower wall. 
Missing half the tower’s roof. 
Peeling … well you can see for yourself. 
Gold paint on some areas held up fairly well with only minor wear. 
Cracked wall by the hinges. 
Missing dome roof section. 
Missing part of the balcony railing. 
Missing the handle. 
Peeeeeeeeling. 
Who chewed on this? 
Rose details survived quite well! 
These stickers were a terrible design idea. 
Probably the most intact part of the castle. 
Broken window support. 
The missing balcony railing. 
Random stick-on jewels? 
Someone tried a battering ram on this … 
A little scuffed but not bad. 
Quite scratched up and cracked at the top. 
The only sticker that wasn’t party peeled off. 
Folded-up bed. 
The bed unfolded. 
What looks like princess wet the bed is actually UV damage from the sun coming in that little window! 
Random tonttu? 
Try not to fall out of bed okay? It’s a long way down. 
Somebody doodled here … 
Missing the stairs to get up to the second floor.
So you can see what colour the sun bleached the plastic. In the most protected areas, you can still see the original purple. The most UV-damaged area, the rounded side of the tower, has had all the blue leeched out of the purple dye leaving only a peachy-pink behind. The outside of the castle has turned mostly brown for the same reason while the inside is still struggling to hold onto its purple.
The window frames and the top of the tower which used to be a periwinkle blue are now beige where the blue dye has been totally destroyed. By this damage we can determine that the blue dye they used in their plastic was not very durable and did not stand the test of time.
So what is Ethan going to do with this poor abused structure? Well … when I’m done with it, it’s going to look a lot different than what the original designers had in mind. You’ll just have to wait and find out!
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