The following incidents took place a couple of years ago. Had I been more careful to announce my interest in snowdomes to everyone of my acquaintance, I could have prevented the whole thing from happening.
Sadly the story came to my knowledge just a few months too late. Read it and weep:
A friend of mine was helping some of his friends clear out a house, from which they were about to move out. During the years several people besides the present residents had lived there, and the ceiling was piled up with abandoned belongings. Among those were - you guessed it! - some snowdomes.
A whole box of them, actually, and not just any snowdomes! The supposed owner had been a collecter of Soviet items, among which was this box of pre-89 snowdomes with communist, Russian and Eastern European themes. The story doesn't include details on the origins of the domes, but I was told that one of them had the hammer-and-sicle symbol inside.
Unfortunately, nobody knew what to do with the domes. The collector was long gone, and since none of the removers realised what treasure was in their hands, they simply decided to throw out the domes...
You can imagine my feelings, when later I heard the story.
I actually went down to the local socialist bookstore and asked, if anyone there had ever heard about a snowdome with the hammer and sicle inside. Though quite thrilled about the idea, the store salesmen had to give up - none of them had ever seen or heard of such a thing...
And nor have I. Neither sooner nor later.
