You Are Here Seoul – an opportunity to own one of the rarest Starbucks mugs ever released

As many collectors already know, Starbucks never officially released a You Are Here Seoul mug. South Korea received the Korea Real City series instead, making a Seoul YAH mug something that simply wasn’t supposed to exist.

Well… one does.

This is not a production mug that somehow slipped through retail. It is believed to be a prototype/sample created during the development of the You Are Here collection before the series was discontinued. To date, this may be the only known example to have surfaced publicly, although its exact production history remains unknown.… Read more

You Are Here – Belgrade

You probably remember my review of the You Are Here – Београд mug, the only mug in the series to use a Cyrillic city name. I assumed this was because both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are officially recognized and widely used in Serbia. That is why I was excited to discover the pictures of this You Are Here Belgrade mug. It means that Starbucks may also have considered releasing a version featuring the city’s Latin spelling. It is entirely possible that this variation was produced in very limited quantities, as I have never encountered another example apart from this eBay listing.… Read more

You Are Here – Leipzig (Prototype)

You may remember the post I shared earlier this month about an ultra-rare, never-released mug from Korea. At the time, I mentioned that the private collection being offered for sale included several mugs that appear to be pre-production samples created before the final designs went into manufacturing. One piece that particularly caught my attention is this You Are Here Leipzig (prototype) mug, which was recently sold on eBay.

What makes this mug fascinating is that it appears to be an early production sample featuring a different colour palette and a few subtle design variations compared to the version that was ultimately released in stores.… Read more

You Are Here – Seoul

Here is the You Are Here Seoul mug. Wait, what? How is this possible?

If you’ve been following the You Are Here series, you probably know that Starbucks never officially released any mugs for South Korea as part of the YAH collection. Instead, South Korea received its own beautiful series called the Korea Real City collection, featuring both full-size mugs and mini demis.

Well, that is still true because the mug you are seeing here was never officially sold in stores.… Read more

You Are Here – Schiphol

Starbucks You Are Here – Schiphol seems to be another mug that was never released. It was brought to my attention by a kind reader with an eagle eye. The picture is coming from a promo video that was posted 2 years ago, this is why I believe that YAH – Schiphol is a prototype, and very few of them if not just one were produced. I did spend some time trying to find any mention of this mug anywhere else, but no luck.… Read more

You Are Here – Tokyo

Starbucks never ceases to amaze me with its releases; that’s maybe why I keep collecting. This weekend brings us pictures of the brand new mug from Japan. We are used to multiple versions of Japan country mugs, representing different seasons, but this time it’s a city mug – Starbucks You Are Here – Tokyo!
This new design features the city skyline with Mount Fuji in the background. And while it’s about 50 miles between the city and the mountain, you can still see the latter from certain spots in Tokyo, especially if you find yourself on the roof of a tall building.… Read more