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LINKS TO MY OTHER SITES
(Last Updated: 23 September 2009)
This is not my first Web site. In fact, it’s my fourth! Below you will find links to two of my other Web sites (the the other two are closed; explanations further down).
NZ Kinder Surprise Collectors’ Site
My second Web site, this went online on 28 March 1999. It has a lot of good information, plus a handful of pictures in the “Personal Kinder Surprise Collection“ section. The biggest sections are those listing my personal KS collection and what I have to sell or trade. But the Links section is also comprehensive, listing a wide range of Kinder Surprise sites organised by country. It is one of only two Kinder Surprise sites in New Zealand (although there used to be two or three others), and if I may say so, the biggest and most informative. It had had more than 9,000 hits when it turned two (at the end of March 2001; the page counter broke down soon thereafter), so I‘d say it has surpassed the 20,000 or even 30,000 mark by now.
My fifth and newest Web site was launched quite recently—on 15 August 2007, to be precise. It’s all about Enid Blyton books that Enid Blyton herself never actually wrote, and some she did write originally, but which have been extensively rewritten and regrouped into different series. It covers continuation novels, spinoff series and “manufactured” series like the Fabulous Four and the Young Adventurers (which comprise updated versions of older one-off novels). While there is plenty of information available about Enid Blyton’s own writings, there is nothing about the continuation novels, spinoff series and so forth, so my new site aims to fill that void and make some sense of what can sometimes be a confusing picture. Another major element of this new site deals with literary translation, and in particular, my attempts to translate one of Claude Voilier’s Famous Five continuation novels (which has not previously been translated into English). I have also recently translated continuation novels by Sarah Bosse and Evelyne Lallemand, and these translations are featured also. This is less of a collecting site and more of a reference site, although I do plan to put up some information that will be of interest to collectors (such as cover formats). It also has a global focus rather than a New Zealand one.
NZ Yowie Collectors’ Site (RIP)
This was the granddaddy of all my Web sites, and the most sophisticated, with pictures, a comprehensive variation list and many other features besides. It first "went to air" on 12 December 1998 and lasted for over a decade. My Yowie site had many of the same features this one has, but an additional attraction was the Yowie Zoo, which divided the Yowie animals into the six main groups: Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Invertebrates, Mammals and Reptiles. There was scientific information about the real animals, statistics of how many animals of each type appear in each series, and, most importantly for the collector, variation lists. These were divided between mould, paint and paper variations. I has hoped to close that section of the site and put up a comprehensive Yowie Variation Encyclopaedia in its place, but that was never completed. Another very useful feature on this site was a section providing basic lists of each series and offering some points of note. For instance, you could find out which was the only series never to have had special characters released with it, which series had the most variations, and so forth.
It's hard to evaluate one's own site, but I'd say the best thing about the NZ Yowie Collectors' Site was the extensive information it provided. Over time, I think it may have become the best reference source for Yowies anywhere on the World Wide Web. However, my heart hadn't been in it for a while, and it had not been updated since Christmas Eve 2007. Click here to read the site’s final farewell message.
I did have a fourth site, the NZ Whitman’s Looney Tunes Collectors’ Site, but that has been closed down owing to the fact that no one visited it (its failure reflected the failure of the product) and that I have lost interest in Whitman’s Looney Tunes now. That’s All Folks!
At some stage in the future, I hope to do a site about my favourite PVC figurines, Smurfs and Kiwi Folk. There are no NZ sites for Smurfs, and no sites whatsoever for Kiwi Folk. If and when such a site eventuates, you’ll see a link to it right here!
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