Pope bobblehead in high demand in N.Y.
NEW YORK — It was a simple request. Someone wanted a Pope Francis doll.
You know the ones. The bobblehead dolls that show the smiling pontiff, his right hand waving to adoring crowds and his head bobbing gently.
They’re everywhere, right? Wrong. If Pope Francis’ visit to New York has proved anything, it’s that nobody can resist an item with the words “limited edition” in front of it.
This is the city where you can buy Christmas ornaments year round, where you can get a slice of pizza or a delectable dish of General Tso’s chicken at 3 a.m., and where it’s hard to walk down a busy street without someone thrusting a leaflet at you trying to sell something.
But a bobbleheaded pope? That takes a miracle. My quest began on 5th Avenue near 34th Street, which as always seemed on the verge of sinking beneath the weight of pedestrian traffic. Some of the city’s busiest souvenir shops are here, but it quickly became clear that there were no papal dolls to be found.
“I wish,” said Terrence Dat, who said he’d had a couple of dozen on the shelf Tuesday. “We can’t hold on to them.”
Dat suggested trying other souvenir shops along the street.
All told a similar story. As soon as the little dolls came in, they went right back out, snapped up by shoppers.
There were pope refrigerator magnets, pope keychains, even little girls’ bracelets adorned with charms featuring the pope’s face. But no bobblehead dolls.
“We sold out. Everyone did,” said Mohamed Aqil, who was putting a Pope Francis T-shirt onto a mannequin’s chest at the front entrance to his City Souvenirs shop.
He gave a shopper a tip, though. His other store a few blocks away was expecting a shipment of some dolls shortly. I headed west. One shop had a papal bobblehead in the window, but the store was closed. The doll’s head nodded up and down, jiggling tantalizingly as other doll hunters tried the door over and over, some shaking it as if that would suddenly open the shop for business.
Ahead, a man waved a large sign in the air. “We sell pope dolls. Less than 200 feet away,” it proclaimed.
It seemed too good to be true.
It was. The dolls were cheesy cloth numbers, bearing little resemblance to Francis.
The dolls from Royal Bobbles, on the other hand, a Georgia-based company that specializes in bobbleheads, are impressive likenesses to Pope Francis, down to the silver cross he wore as a cardinal.
Finally, the souvenir shop Aqil had directed me to came into view. Samir Sabir was running the store, and he was awaiting a fresh delivery of dolls to replenish the supply.
Sabir said he had paid extra for an overnight delivery from a distributor upstate. The price, Sabir admitted, was rising as demand soared. A doll that once cost $30 was more than $50 by Thursday.
For a pope admired for his embrace of the poor and his anti-greed message, the rising price of dolls in his own image would seem sure to infuriate Francis.
Warren Royal, the owner of Royal Bobbles, agreed that he did not intend for anyone to get rich off the dolls, which the company began producing in 2013, after Francis was elected. The wholesale price is a little more than $20 per doll, he said in a phone interview.
Royal said demand has outpaced even that for Barack Obama bobbleheads in 2008, making the Pope Francis dolls the most popular among the dozens of world leaders, presidents and historical figures re-created by Royal Bobbles.
“Everybody loves this pope,” Royal said. Aqil agreed. He said he would love to see Francis if he could get close enough. Instead, Aqil will stay home to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Across town, Sabir tore into the boxes filled with pope dolls.
I bought mine for $50 before they sold out again.