My daughter lost a tiny radish from her Sylvanian Families Gardening Set. (We later found it in the hollow of a tree in her treehouse.) I decided that I would try the off-brand, which is available from several storefronts on Aliexpress for roughly US$3.24 before tax.
The box of the Stomle Hacienda Set came crushed enough that I could pull the bagged contents out of the very large holes without removing any tape.
Issues I noticed are:
- The use of less plastic to save on costs make the pieces lighter and more prone to being knocked over.
- The cauliflower heads would be described as green rather than white.
- There is a lot of color-bleed. It happens on the strawberries, the corn,
- The radishes are depicted as unripe and green.
- The lack of detail and colour.
Compared to the Sylvanian Families Gardening Set, the colours are less appealing. These are somewhat compatible with the on-brand Sylvanian Families / Calico Critters in terms of the carrots being the same sizes.
Since I do now have the official and the off-brand, I tell Small Sophie that those strangely green cauliflower/corn/other are the unripe vegetables and the on-brand are the ripe vegetables. I would have been pretty disappointed as a child to only have unripe ones, though.
Although I think Sylvanian Families are overpriced, the Stomle has enough bad points that I will probably just shell out for the Sylvanian Families version as I have been.
