Bad Taste Bears – The Time To Say Goodbye?

I still remember the day that I saw my first Bad Taste Bear. I was round at a friend’s house and he just bought his dad Duncan for his birthday. I just thought it was really amusing, especially taken into account that his dad had lost a hand in an accident.

As soon as I got home, I went to have a look at the website and ended up joining the club and buying a couple of bears for myself. That was over 8 years ago, and now the collection exceeds 300 bears. I even had a tattoo done to commemorate my dedication to the range.

Last year after decorating the front room, I packed up the bears and thought about stopping collecting all together; in the end I decided to just buy the ones that I liked instead of every one. However the bears remained in their boxes in the spare room. Until I created a shelf display (with my own fair hands may I add) for the acetate packaged bears and Chris helped put some back into the front room.

With the majority of the bears still boxed up, as I need to make another shelving unit and need another glass cabinet with shelves for them. However, enthusiasm has never really fully come back, and to be honest it just appears to be dwindling more.

There have been a number of recent decisions that Odd Co Ltd has made which I have found frustrating, but mainly their pure arrogance to accept constructive feedback that is being received from other members because ‘they know best’.

So I’ve thought long and hard what to do next. In the end, I have decided that maybe the best thing to do is walk away from the Bad Taste Bears community, as a number of the frustrations I hold start from there; whether I even joined in with the topic.

There are a number of close friends that I will keep in touch with as that is what they are. Friends!!! Just because we started off as collectors doesn’t mean our friendship needs to stop as I start to walk away.

Finally, I will always support Pete Underhill, the creator of the little critters. Apart from giving me a slight addiction, he is a great artist with loads of other ideas floating around in his noggin, not just BTBs. Plus, I see him and his wife Dawn, as friends.

Who knows, maybe the break away from the Bad Taste Bears community may re-light the flame again.