Sometimes things come into my collection in groups. Lately I have found many items from the opening days of EPCOT Center in 1982.

I almost missed this little EPCOT Center Figment Ceramic Thimble amongst a collection of non-Disney offerings. But how thankful I am to have caught a glimpse of purple which made me take a second look! And this is what I found:

It was mine after forking over a whopping $3.00 CAN.

The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival is an annual garden festival at Epcot in Walt Disney World Resort that happens in the spring, typically from early February through late May. It always has some awesome merchandise released that is exclusive to the event. Although this thimble is reminiscent of such merchandise it predates the first Festival held in 1994 by 12 years.

You can see why I feel it mimics Festival merchandise as Figment seems to be painting flowers all over the outer surface of the thimble.

It can be hard to date such items. That’s why I’m always delighted to see a date stamped on something I’m buying. In this case, we have 1982 listed along with Walt Disney Productions. This makes this thimble opening day, or at least opening year, merchandise. This piece was also manufactured in Japan, making it a desirable item due to the better quality compared to later Theme Park offerings.

The above picture is included to give you a sense of the size of the thimble. I’ve included a Canadian quarter (25 cent piece) for scale.

You can currently buy examples of this thimble on-line for between $10.00 and $20.00 US.

I wonder if Dreamfinder knows that Figment is running amok with a paint brush?