Arts & Entertainment

What Took So Long? The Phoenixville Firebird Gets a Bobblehead

A borough resident has manufactured 500 limited edition Phoenixville Firebird figurines.

Clint Weiler, a Phoenixville-based PR man, started making bobblehead dolls a few years ago.

“They’re music related dolls, not really well known people,” he said, explaining, when prodded, that the collection is comprised primarily of obscure (to this writer, at least) punk rockers like GG Allin and rocker Johnny Winter.

“It’s underground stuff,” Weiler added.

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And this year the Washington Avenue resident has rolled out a bobblehead of a figure who’s inspired a similarly narrow but passionate following: the Phoenixville Firebird.

To celebrate the ninth annual festival, Weiler has manufactured 500 collectible dolls, each a miniaturized replica of the bird the borough will burn on December 8. Weiler is selling the dolls online at firebirdbobblehead.com and in Ellie’s Choice, Steel Eagle, and Generations. They each retail at $30.

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“It’s definitely a cool looking thing and people love to collect figurines,” their creator said. He added the bobblehead would not have been possible without the cooperation of the festival’s organizers or the help of the team he employed to design and manufacture the dolls.

Weiler said he expects the Firebird to sell out—“We already have 100 preorders,” he boasted this week—and said a percentage of the proceeds will go back into the festival he’s been attending since its inception.

“The previous site was within spitting distance of my house,” he reminisced. “We’d have parties and just walk down as a group.”

He said he hopes the firebird bobblehead can become a tradition with just as much staying power as the festival itself.

“I hope it becomes [an annual thing]. I hope it goes well enough that I can keep doing it because it is a cool collector’s item. And it can be a collector’s item year after year.”


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