For the many of us who will always be disappointed that we never got our owl from Hogwarts, take some comfort in the fact that you don't necessarily have to be on a quidditch pitch to check out a real golden snitch — all thanks to a company that turned a magical concept into an ornamental reality.
The Harry Potter Collectible Quidditch Set, which is available for purchase today, March 22, was created by the Perseus Books imprint Running Press, which publishes titles and book-related paraphernalia. The publisher touts it as the first licensed set — and from what we can tell, it might very well be.
The contents of the quidditch set come in a decorative box made to look like a small wooden chest, emblazoned with different Hogwarts houses on the outside and various coats-of-arms in the interior. Inside, the set includes one quaffle, two bludgers and a nonremovable snitch embedded in the inside center of the lid. While the case itself is cardboard, it comes with a set of keys and actual locks, allowing the owner to secure the display whenever necessary.
As a bonus, the kit also comes with a 16x24-inch collectible poster to hang on your wall, and the portable set itself is small enough to fit on the average desk.
In their review, The Mary Sue was particularly impressed by the "accuracy" regarding the design, citing Running Press' kit as a dead-ringer for the set featured in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which makes a few brief appearances in the scene in which Oliver Wood gives Harry his first lesson in quidditch. (Here's a clip to compare and contrast).
While the quaffle, bludgers and snitch might be remarkably almost identical to their cinematic counterparts, in real life quidditch looks like a very different sport, which uses very different balls for the game — namely volleyballs, kickballs and tennis balls. The International Quidditch Association (IQA) was unofficially founded at Middlebury College in 2005, and now oversees 20 international bodies and "hundreds of club teams," according to the IQA website. So while RP's quidditch set might not necessarily be suitable for gameplay (by our muggle standards, at least), it's still a pretty admirable bit of Harry Potter memorabilia — and hey, there's always the odd RPG here and there.
The Harry Potter Collectible Quidditch Set is priced at $29.95, and you can order it here.
If you're interested in seeing a live-action version of quidditch — at least the closest that us muggles can get to it, in any case — check out a highlight reel from the 2015 U.S. Quidditch World Cup finals in the clip below.
Source: Running Press
