Dollar store Christmas village scale

Last Updated on September 16, 2023 by Dave Farquhar

Dollar Tree stores sell a Christmas village they call Windham Heights by Cobblestone Corners. This village is very inexpensive and its low cost made it popular. If you’re a Cobblestone Corners fan and wonder about scale so you can accessorize it, here’s what you need to know about dollar store Christmas village scale.

Dollar store Christmas village scale: It varies

As you can see, the figures are about 25% oversize, so dollar store Christmas village scale varies even among the items that are supposed to go together.

Like most other, Dollar Tree’s Christmas village scale varies. The figures are oversized for the buildings. For many people, this is part of the charm. If it bothers you, I have a solution. If it doesn’t bother you, just roll with it and enjoy.

The figures in Christmas villages are larger than life, I think, to call greater attention to the people than the surroundings. Building memorable vignettes with the figures is one key to creating a nice Christmas village setup.

I’ll walk you through the scale of the buildings, figures, and accessories, but here’s my trick to determine scale when you don’t know. That way you have it if you need it.

Scale of dollar store Christmas village figures

Cobblestone Corners-brand figures from Dollar Tree are around 1:64 or 1:48 scale, depending on the year.

The figures in Cobblestone Corners packages are about 1:64 scale. This is the same scale as the most popular size of diecast vehicles, and the scale of American Flyer trains of the 1950s and 1960s. A 1:64-scale figure stands somewhere between 25 and 30 millimeters tall.

If you want some vintage cars for your Cobblestone Corners village, M2 makes a nice selection of vintage diecast vehicles that aren’t too hotrodded out. The figures and buildings are relatively time neutral, so using cars is a good way to try to set a time period. No cars at all makes it look like the 1800s. By placing a handful of cars from any particular decade, you can set the time anytime from the turn of the previous century to today.

You can use cars to set place as well, by using European cars as opposed to American cars. Cars do a nice job of setting the time and place. You don’t have to be much of a car enthusiast to recognize European vs American cars, and 1940s cars vs 1960s cars.

Scale of dollar store Christmas village buildings

Cobblestone Corners buildings are smaller, around 1:87 scale. This is the same scale as the most popular size of model trains, HO scale. You can pick up an inexpensive HO scale starter set in order to have a train to run through your village.

HO scale is convenient. Any hobby shop that deals in model trains will have a large selection of size-appropriate vehicles, figures, and scenic details to fill in any gaps that your local dollar store inventory may have.

Scale of dollar store Christmas village accessories

The lamp posts, trees, and other scenic details you can pick up at Dollar Tree are appropriate in size. Remember, trees vary widely in size depending on how old they are, and street lights vary in size too. The accessories work fine with Dollar Tree’s own Christmas village, and also with larger, costlier villages.

What to do if the scale bothers you

If you don’t like having mismatched scales in your village, there’s an easy solution. Decide whether you want a 1:87 scale or 1:64 scale village. If you want a 1:87 scale village, buy your buildings and accessories at Dollar Tree and buy HO scale figures and vehicles at your hobby shop or Ebay. You can buy inexpensive HO scale figures on Ebay in large quantities. The cheap figures are rather generic looking. But you can populate your village with a crowd and buy a small number of very nice, costlier HO scale figures to build your vignettes that deserve attention.

If you want a 1:64 scale village, do this. Buy your figures and accessories at Dollar Tree. Buy vehicles from anywhere that sells toys. Finally, buy the slightly larger buildings every other retail store sells that tend to be relabeled or cloned Lemax. The buildings are much costlier than Dollar Tree, but the prices can be fairly reasonable, especially if you watch for sales. They also tend to be plentiful at estate sales, because nobody throws them out.

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