Toy Collector & Marcel Van Cleemput Serve Up Charity Treat for Corgi Fans

London, United Kingdom, November 30, 2011 --(PR.com)-- The popular collectors’ site, which has just launched its new trading platform for vintage and collectable toys, has teamed up with Marcel for a charity auction which will allow collectors to bid on four seats at a dinner with Marcel, to take place at Fawsley Hall in Northampton on the 10th of March next year. All proceeds going to the Helen & Douglas House which provides hospice care to children and young adults with life-shortening conditions.

Marcel served as Chief Designer at Mettoy and prepared the very first designs for the Corgi cars in 1956, going on to have involvement in every single model that followed until the demise of Mettoy in 1983. He is also the Author of The Great Book of Corgi, which was revised and re-issued last year to great acclaim.

Interested collectors will be able to participate by emailing their bid amount to Toy Collector boss LaToya on latoya@toycollector.com (Friends and relatives can also bid to purchase as a gift, of course). Bidding will end on January 31st, 2012. Details of the four highest bidders will be shown on the Toy Collector site, along with current high bids. The winners will be announced on the same page.

Helen & Douglas House has the time and expertise to care for children and young adults with life-shortening conditions and support their families. The two hospice houses offer specialist symptom and pain management, medically-supported short breaks and end-of-life care, as well as counselling and practical support for the whole family. Helen House opened in 1982 as the world's first children's hospice. Douglas House opened in 2004 as the world's first hospice specifically for young adults aged 16-35.

Toy Collector was launched in 2008, Toy Collector is a web portal for collectable toy and model enthusiasts designed to allow collectors to share their passions via blogging, discussion forums, picture and video galleries. The site currently hosts over 25,000 toy-related articles and over 170,000 images. It offers resources like want ads and a yellow pages supplier directory and boasts the largest toy-and model-related event calendar on the internet. It also hosts ToyPedia® and the TC Market.

For selling on the market or more information on the site please go to www.ToyCollector.com or contact Laurent on laurent@toycollector.com or +44 (1494) 727 947.

For more information on this or other fundraising events contact Mary Boullin, Community Fundraising Manager on mboullin@helenanddouglas.org.uk or +44 (1865) 799 155.

ToyPedia®

In addition to all this, the site features ToyPedia® – a Wikipedia-style online encyclopaedia of collectable toys which currently covers over 160,000 items and is growing constantly.

Currently, the project is supported by;

• 27 communities including www.DiecastAviationForum.com, www.HobbyTalk.com, www.ModelRailForum, www.SlotForum.com and www.Wings900.com
• 670 volunteers
• 12 authors who have permitted the organisers to use text and images from 26 books as part of a ToyPedia Book Documentation Project
• 355 toy brands who have agreed to open their archives
• 15 leading auction houses including Bonham’s and Christie’s have allowed use of their images
• 3 Museums (Brussels Toy Museum, Singapore’s MINT Museum and the Los Angeles Slot Car Museum)
• 32 members of the ToyPedia Advisory Board who advise on organisation and taxonomy

For more information please go to www.ToyCollector.com/ToyPedia or contact Kiran Sohota, the ToyPedia Coordinator on kiran@toycollector.com or +44 (1494) 727 947.

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