Piranha have unveiled yet another new strategy to keep their products sailing on the peak of the product life cycle with the launch of King.

King is available in three colours, but unlike previous colour variations such as Rington and Terry, you don't get to choose. Instead Piranha have randomly placed 100 Limited Edition Black Painted Kings, and what they imaginatively title the Graceland of all bears - 1 unique Gold King figurine amongst the thousands of White Kings that will be on general release throughout the world.

That's easy I hear you cry, just open the box and check before you buy....... Oh no, not this time! Piranha have really thought this through and are going to shrink wrap every King that leaves the factory. So, the only way you'll know what colour you have is when you've handed over your money, and broken the shrink wrap seal.

As an idea, its not really that original. Ty has done this on numerous occasions with the Spangle Beanie Babies being released in different colours and ratios, as well as more recently with the 4 different button Clubby 4 bears. Each of the Clubby 4's were sealed in a clear canister with a label covering the button so you couldn't tell whether you'd get a rainbow colour, a silver or a gold. The 4th variation was a prestigious
Clubby signed by Ty himself.

An interesting twist to the idea though is Piranha's offer to buy back any of the Black Kings for £250, and the Gold King for a cool £1000. It means that already there is a minimum resale value attached to these limited editions, and any that might turn up on eBay should easily fetch more than what Piranha are offering. In effect, this creates a win win situation for Piranha because if anyone finds one and wants to sell it, eBay will almost certainly be a more lucrative option for the seller giving Piranha even more publicity and £26,000 remaining safely in their bank account.

Like all promotional activity, there will be those that love it, and those that hate it. The completist collector will find this particularly frustrating as their chances of owning one Black King has to be minuscule, let alone owning a Gold King as well. Other less fanatical collectors will happily accept that colours are variations, and won't care at all whether they get the rare ones or not.

However the mere fact that we are writing this article shows that Piranha have succeeded in raising our interest, and that they still know how to keep collectors on their toes; not just with the quality of what we collect, but also the way we collect it!