Why Does America Love The Pink Flamingo?

By: Rick London

You love 'em or hate 'em. The pink flamingo that is. To you its art or junk. It's a matter of taste. But pink flamingo fanatics have kept this collectible phenomena alive even after laws were passed to try to prevent them in yard. Today the pink flamingo is more popular than ever. It all started at a little factory called Union Products back in the 1940's in Lemnister, Ma.

The big sellers in Union's early days were their two dimensional dogs, ducks and other plastic animals that were placed in the front yard of homes. The pink flamingo would come later.

Union's products were were nice, but not really known to be exciting or have "life" to them. Sales were not great. So Union recruited a serious art student who worked at Union named Don Featherstone. Even though Featherstone was a serious sculptor and classical art student, his first project was to redesign their popular duck and this time make it 3-dimensional The company figured it would be a bigger seller. The company was wrong and the 3d duck ended up in the local park. He had used a live duck as a model but still no real success. He then figured people wanted color and something exotic. Pink Flamingos came to mind but he could not find a live one for a model so he contacted National Geographic Magazine to see if there were any in their archives. There were.

Don built the first model out of clay. Then he made a plaster cast. The plaster cast, in turn, was used to form the molds for the plastic. The original design called for detailed wooden legs, but they proved to be too costly and were replaced by the metal ones still seen today. While the exact date was never recorded, the first pink flamingo was created several years before 1960. Sometimes in 1957 the first one was made. This was excellent "trend timing" for the flamingo. The American population was moving out of the city and behind white picket fence lawns, a perfect resting place for the big pink bird. The late 1950's fashion trends were bright, bold colors. Grays and blacks were the "colors of the bland 1950's and people were ready for a change.

"Plastics young man", Dustin Hoffman was told at the backyard pool scene in "The Graduate" And the late 1950's was a booming time for that industry. The new trendy colors were bright green, vivid ruby, and, of course, hot flamingo pink. Pink refrigerators, washing machines, and of course who didn't want a pink Caddie? The love of the pink flamingo was short-lived due to timing. The 1960's was a time of rebellion, especially against anything man-made, and the plastic flamingo was certainly not heaven-sent (though many serious collectors still consider it so). All the major department stores, (Sears being the biggest back then as this was way pre-Walmart) removed the items from lack of sales.

Collectors went underground to flea markets and niche gift shops as they still do. Many collectors are still very serious about the pink flamingo and go so far as to travel with them. We all know that what is art to one person is garbage to the next. Bans have been placed on pink flamingos all over the country. As a result, Union Plastics was forced to introduce a blue flamingo to work inside the laws of city ordinances. But the angry anti-flamingo-for-yard-art communies changed the laws to ban all plastic flamingos. Many residents refused to obey the obey this law which has rarely been enforced in most towns that have it.

A half century later Pink Flamingo collectibles are hotter when they were first sold. Collectors are very serious and visit trade shows and flea markets regularly in search of the mighty pink flamingo. They are some of the most desirable items for hobbyists around the country. The Internet has become a welcome tool for collectors where the majority of the shopping activity happens, which also saves them travel money. Collectors are no longer just interested in the lawn scultors. They want tshirts, beer steins, coffee mugs, caps, hoodies, and any other type of collectible item available as long as it has the glorious pink flamingo on it.

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Cartoonist and e-store owner runs several stores that sales a large variety of rare brand new pink flamingo gifts America's Favorite Collectible: The Pink Flamingo, and

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