Mr. Butcher was the Michelangelo of Missouri, and his adorable snub-nosed Precious Moments characters were “the Beanie Babies of porcelain,” as The Wall Street Journal once put it.
Their zealous collectors, who numbered in the hundreds of thousands, built rooms for their Precious Moments figurines, convened in regional clubs and made pilgrimages to Carthage, where they slept in the Precious Moments motel or the R.V.
park, marveled at the Precious Moments Fountain of the Angels, dined in the Precious Moments food courts and wandered the 30-acre grounds.
(Carthage also hosted Precious Moments weddings.)
There were hundreds and hundreds of Precious Moments licensees, which made hats, keychains, watches, greeting cards, books and a children’s Bible.
Persons:
Sam Butcher, Jon, Mr, Butcher, Michelangelo, Missouri, marveled, Van —, —, . Butcher
Organizations:
Wall Street, Angels
Locations:
Carthage, Mo