Elephant price increase

Has anyone else noticed the price of the adult African elephants has gone up from a brown tag (£8.49) to £12.99? My local shop has even cut off the brown tags from the labels of the old ones!

The material is also different on the latest ones, similar to what Schleich use for a lot of their recent figures.

I also noticed the price increase, here in Germany/Austria.

Sadly everything get's more and more expensive.

When I got them new from the stores in 2016, when they came out the big ones cost me € 7,99.

Nowadays you have to pay in stores here in Germany/Austria € 12,99.
Sadly that's how economy is today.

I don't know if the material really changed so much already, I think the change of Material is going to happen more and more over the next few years.

My big elephants, the ones from 2016 were all made in Tunisia,recently this year I had a look under their bellys from some in a store here and they where all made in Tunisia.

Maybe all off their production sits for african elephants are made in Tunisia, would be super if someone can confirm my guess.

I looked up the catalog from 2016 ( 2 half year), there the price was confirmed UVP € 7,99. In this years catalog (1 half year), there the price was confirmed UVP € 12,99. I think it really depends also on the store where you buy them, some make them even more expensive to make more profit. (Sadly it's most of the time the small stores, who have to fight for survival against big ones.)

The African Elefant`s now with white tagpoint and Made in China

Thank you [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] for the clarification.

I remember the time, where only the sea animals from Series 1:32 had this white tagpoint.
This is quite interesting and fascinating, after all these years, to know how more and more tagpoint colours got introduced and changend.

Since when do the elephants have the white tag point?

The new price for elefants is Sinne 2023, the first with white tagpoint I saw in 2024.
I wonder why they no making a New color point for high Prices Items f.e. the sea animals too.
I wonder too that the Giraffes always grey .They are big like the brown point horses.

Good to know :)

I remember seeing the grey tagpoint for the first time back in 2005, when they had their new elphants sold, sadly I don't know anymore how much you had to pay then. (I presume, it was already for the price of € 6,00)

What I know for sure is that in 2004 their big giraffe (14320) had a yellow tagpoint (at the time you had pay around 5 €) . The small one (14321) had an red tagpoint (in 2004 around 4 €).

A tip, you can also look it up in the 2004 year catalog (there the animals are tagpoint colour coded for the first time), sadly there no answer how much the price was these days.

There was even a time you only had to pay € 2,00 for animal with a green tagpoint (I think this was in the early 2000s). How time flies by, now you have to pay for the green tagpoint items € 4,99

If anyone knows the price increase/ difference over the years in other contries like US, UK or for example Japan, China or any other country feel free to comment, you'r answer is very appreciate.

What are you'r thoughts about it, because sometime the quality increased or even decreased over the years when it comes to certain items, when they have a long production history like the elephants.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
It's not complete but I've used this website in the past to look at product ranges and retail prices from previous years

Thank you @milolennox for sharing this website.

The main factor driving up the cost of elephants has been the soaring price of petroleum-based products like plastic. Operational costs have also risen considerably, but these impact all models, regardless of size. While the quantity of plastic used wasn't a major factor in price increases before, it is now. Elephants require significantly more plastic than giraffes. Furthermore, the materials used today are generally of poorer quality, and the use of denser PVC is being phased out for larger figures.