We end this year as always with our gratitude.
To the longstanding, loyal customers, we thank you. To those who have discovered us this year, we welcome you. York Ghosts have acted as conduits for so many good deeds over the past twelve months, acts of kindness, friendship & humanity. This is a community driven consequence of our business that we didn’t fully expect but are perhaps most proud of.
As founders of the business, we also take this opportunity to pay our respect and give thanks to our marvellous team of Merchants who make, sell, pack, meet, greet, entertain & organise ( and so much more besides … ). Without these wonderful, talented people there would be no Ghosts, no York Ghost Merchants.
Thank you to all those who purchased honesty box tickets for our screening of A Christmas Carol. 1524 tickets were sold and yesterday the draw was made for the lucky winners of the Pewter Marley Ghosts. All winners have been contacted - the winning ticket numbers were; 119670, 119717, 120088, 120104, 120190, 120441, 120467 & 120516. York Community Bees were thrilled with the charity donation which was made yesterday.
The shops close today at 2pm and the Merchants take a well-deserved seasonal break, we will not reopen until 10am on January 2nd. The offices & workshop will not be fully staffed over the next week and emails will not be responded to until the new year. 2025 will begin with an online release of 5,000 Ghosts on January 8th.
It seems appropriate to end the year again with this quote from Dickens.
“ a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys”
Warm wishes to one and all this Christmas Eve, we bid you all a joyful festive holiday and a happy and health
We proudly present a rendition of the Charles Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol” performed by James Swanton. This year you will be able to view it as a short film on our YouTube channel at any time from 5pm on Friday 20th December until 11pm on Sunday 22nd December instead of on Instagram Live. The performance was pre-recorded in The Guild Room at St Saviourgate on December 7th and lasts approximately 1hr 20mins..
Christmas Carol was written in 1843 at a time when there was a strong tradition of ghost story readings at Christmas; this will be the fifth Christmas that Mr Swanton has performed it with us, it has become part of our own traditions.
Tickets now on sale from the SHOP on our website only using an honesty box donation system. We kindly ask that anyone who watches donates in advance or immediately following the event. The ticket donation price is £3 with £1 from every ticket sold being donated to York Community Bees, a small, York based Community Interest Charity, providing activities and support for some of York’s most marginalised people. Each ticket purchased individually will also go into the lucky dip draw for the new Pewter Marley Ghosts ( one Original and eight Small ). There will be nine ticket invoice numbers generated at random, the draw will be at 11am on 23rd December, winners will be notified on the day, and the Ghosts will be dispatched on 2nd January.
In his previous performances of “A Christmas Carol” critic Charles Hutchinson wrote: “Dropping into character should really read dropping in and out of myriad characters, as the storytelling Swanton plays narrator and every role from Dickens’s story: men, women, children...ghosts et al. His face is as elastic as his voice in this tour-de-force solo show, where physicality, keen intelligence in editing, dark humour and chameleon acting skills all come into play.” If you haven’t seen him perform it before then we recommend that you find the time, fill your glasses with good
We proudly present a rendition of the Charles Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol” performed by James Swanton. This year you will be able to view it as a short film on our YouTube channel at any time from 5pm on Friday 20th December until 11pm on Sunday 22nd December instead of on Instagram Live. The performance was pre-recorded in The Guild Room at St Saviourgate on December 7th and lasts approximately 1hr 20mins..
Christmas Carol was written in 1843 at a time when there was a strong tradition of ghost story readings at Christmas; this will be the fifth Christmas that Mr Swanton has performed it with us, it has become part of our own traditions.
Tickets now on sale from the SHOP on our website only using an honesty box donation system. We kindly ask that anyone who watches donates in advance or immediately following the event. The ticket donation price is £3 with £1 from every ticket sold being donated to York Community Bees, a small, York based Community Interest Charity, providing activities and support for some of York’s most marginalised people. Each ticket purchased individually will also go into the lucky dip draw for the new Pewter Marley Ghosts ( one Original and eight Small ). There will be nine ticket invoice numbers generated at random, the draw will be at 11am on 23rd December, winners will be notified on the day, and the Ghosts will be dispatched on 2nd January.
In his previous performances of “A Christmas Carol” critic Charles Hutchinson wrote: “Dropping into character should really read dropping in and out of myriad characters, as the storytelling Swanton plays narrator and every role from Dickens’s story: men, women, children...ghosts et al. His face is as elastic as his voice in this tour-de-force solo show, where physicality, keen intelligence in editing, dark humour and chameleon acting skills all come into play.” If you haven’t seen him perform it before then we recommend that you find the time, fill your glasses with good
The Trading Hall - Bedern Hall 11am-3pm today (Sunday 27th). Trade Ghosts, chat, drink tea, eat cake & try your hand at “Ringing the Ghost” . The top score at 3pm wins a unique Lucky Six Ghost.
With our gratitude to you all on this Christmas Eve.
Warmest wishes for the festive season and the new year ahead. The shop re-opens on January 4th and we have our first online release of the year in early January, until then look after each other. TYGM
Another year comes to its end. We close our shop door at 2pm tomorrow. It remains closed until 10am on January 3rd when we reopen and welcome customers back in the new year.
Each year surprises us; we try to stay consistent, we uphold the same standards & values but everything swells & shifts around us. We are humbled by your responses to our Ghosts and are thankful & grateful for the commitment and loyalty that we witness from our customers on a daily basis. We believe it is a rarity that a small business engenders such a strong and passionate emotive response from a community of customers and followers and for that we will always be humbled. We vow not to take it for granted, it is a shared privilege.
As founders we pay tribute not only to our incredible supporters but also to the team of less than 20 outstanding individuals who make the whole operation possible. The six ghost-makers who between them have created every single unique ghost that you have ever seen or held. The ten shop Merchants who, meet, greet and serve every customer on the Shambles in high summer heatwave and Yorkshire downpours each day and to the team of three who see to all the enquiries & orders sent out to homes near and far, far away. Without the Ghost Merchant team we are nothing, without our customers we are nothing.
We have plans afoot for 2023 and look forward to sharing these with you as and when the opportunities arise. There will be no general / scheduled online releases until January, the first one of the new year will be a one hour open release. From tomorrow all emails & correspondence will not be monitored or answered until we return from our break in January.
A Christmas approaches we are reminded once again of the words of Charles Dickens;
“ a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below the
News on the Masked October Ghost release( mistakenly labelled the Black October Phantom on the website yesterday )…
We were overwhelmed by the response to our 12 hour open order window. This Ghost became our biggest selling online release of all time and we are very grateful to everyone who placed an order. Thank you for your incredible support.
Although we prepared some Ghosts in advance we now have a lot of making, packing and dispatching to do to fulfil all the orders. As we specified previously all Ghosts will be sent out in invoice order ( starting with order No. 42894 ) and sent in order of invoice number. Our schedule shows that by the end of October we will have sent out up to order 45430 with the rest of the orders following on throughout November with final orders from the batch being dispatched by Monday 28th November. We apologise for this longer lead time and will do our best to keep to or exceed these targets if possible - unfortunately we are unable to help those who request the delivery by a certain date but would be happy to offer a full refund to anyone who is not prepared to wait for their delivery.
We would also like to take this opportunity to kindly ask all those with customer accounts on our website or who use Applepay to check that their delivery addresses are correct including postcodes and phone numbers are included ahead of future orders.
There will be some news later next week of Ghost Week and further details of the Little Black Box limited edition which will be on sale from the Medical Society from October 24th.
We also want to confirm that we will be open each day throughout Ghost Week including Wednesday. Ghost Week is getting closer and we look forward to seeing many of you in the city of a thousand ghosts very soon.
The Masked October Ghost.
Preview shortly.
Available to purchase tomorrow as a 12 hour open order release.
We are now closed for our Christmas holiday and will reopen on Thursday 6th January at 10am
Emails and messages will not be monitored or answered until or return. There will be no scheduled or clandestine internet releases until a little later in the new year. We send our festive best wishes to you all, look after one another.
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There will be a just single Ghost for sale while we are absent. As last year you will need a paper copy of our Ghost Week map ( A digital copy will not suffice unfortunately ) and a local guide to assist you. Should people decide to share information be warned there is only one Ghost available. This is not a physical Ghost Hunt, no Ghosts are being hidden on the streets of York. This is a scheduled post, there will be no further assistance given nor will correspondence be responded to as we are now closed for Christmas and New Year.
TYGM
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers for their support throughout the year.
As this year started in a lockdown we really didn’t know what lay ahead, nor do we now ( in truth we can we ever be certain about anything ? ). However, the year has developed into one like no other, we have been completely overwhelmed by your support, loyalty, patience, kindness and friendship. A true community of customers & collectors has grown around our Ghosts through two dark years and we are humbled and grateful in equal measure. Thank you once again to each and every one of you who has purchased remotely through our website and in person at the shop.
This coming week we will be open each day including Wednesday and will close at 3pm on Christmas Eve. We will then be taking a extended Christmas and New Year holiday to allow all at TYGM to rest and spend some good quality time with family and friends. We shall reopen for business on Thursday 6th January. There will be no scheduled or clandestine releases from the website and email correspondence will be answered upon our return in the New Year.
We remind everyone that we have a very special Instagram Live performance of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and read by Mr James Swanton on Tuesday 21st December at 8pm. Honesty box tickets cost £3 each and every invoice generated will be in with a chance of winning one of four 2021 Hanging Christmas Tree Ghosts. Please note that this now applies to all tickets purchased not just from UK customers. Invoice numbers will be used in a lucky dip draw so if you are buying more than one ticket then separate transactions would be sensible.
We hope that you are able to join us on Tuesday for this Christmas time tradition which Dickens described as "a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other peop
DECEMBER PHANTOM UPDATE
In response to what was our quickest ever sell out last night we are pleased to be able to announce a second release of December Phantoms online.
We will offer an open order book for one hour only on Friday 10th December between 7pm and 8pm GMT.
Please note that it will be one order per customer and we ask that those who have already ordered not to make a second order. The December Phantoms ordered on the second release will not be made & dispatched until the new year with an intention to have them all sent by the end of January if we are able. The reason for us doing this is to allow those who have collected monthly Ghosts all year to complete their collection and to give new customers the chance to acquire a first and rather splendid Phantom.
As there are only 600 available from the shop this month the demand here is also very high, we expect to sell all 600 over the weekend. The second release gives the opportunity to buy this Ghost from home rather than making the journey to York at this busy time of year. After the second release there will not be another chance to purchase the December Phantom.
For those of you who have already sent messages of frustration and disappointment we hope that this eases those feelings. The one hour open order window will mean that anyone should be able to place an order and all orders will be honoured and posted in the new year. Priority is rightly given to the 1,000 orders placed last night. Please do not buy your Phantom at over inflated prices on Ebay from those with dubious morals, this is a chance to buy at the fairest price possible.
Do try and remember that each Phantom is hand made and that we have done our best to meet the growing demands this year. It is also worth saying that our Ghosts will never be mass -produced and therefore demand might always exceed our ability to supply. This is our preferred model of business; we do things the old fashioned way, we make in small batches using hand, eye
