There?s a lot of misunderstanding about these mugs. While the history is available elsewhere (see the sites on our ?Collectors? page), there?s a lot of confusion about what mugs were released. ....... In 1968, the first GOP (elephant) mug was released and there has been one mug each year since then. Every year, there?s a new color mug which is released early in the year. The first DEM (donkey) mug was released in 1975 and released every year with the same color as the GOP mug. Therefore, as of 2009, there have been 42 regular GOP mugs and 35 regular DEM mugs). These mugs have the year on them, usually in HDI on modern mugs. ....... From the beginning, the President and VP?s names have been included on their party?s mug, but only in the inaugural year. That is, the 1969 mug had Nixon/Agnew and so on. The losing party did not have their candidates? names on the mugs. ....... Beginning in 2001, a special ?Pre-election? mug was released for both parties. As soon as the parties? candidates were chosen, Frankoma released a mug for each party with the President and VP candidates? names on them. The date was the following year (post election). For example, after the inauguration in 2001, there was a Gore/Lieberman DEM mug and a Bush/Cheney GOP mug. These were sold in limited editions (typically around 500 pieces) and no orders were taken after the election. As soon as the election was over, the loser?s names were dropped (that is, the DEM mug for 2001 lost Gore/Lieberman after the election). ....... The flaw with this system is that there?s no way to tell if a 2001 Bush/Cheney mug was produced before the election or after, so there is no particular value to it. That is, it is no more valuable than one purchased after the election. Clearly, this penalizes those who purchased their mug in advance. The Gore/Lieberman 2001 mug, on the other hand, was produced only before the election, so they are fairly valuable. The same thing holds true for the 2005 election. ....... To get around this problem, Frankoma made a change in 2008/09 so that ALL the pre-election mugs are readily identifiable by adding ?confetti? to the mugs. The election mugs, as usual, had the 2009 date on them, even the ones sold in 2008. For example, the 2009 Pre-election DEM mug had Obama/Biden on it and blue confetti. The McCain/Palin mug also had the names, but the GOP mugs had red confetti. These mugs were sold in limited edition only until the election. After the election, we reverted to the old practice of dropping the losing party?s names. This time, we also dropped the confetti - so that it?s obvious whether a given Obama/Biden mug was purchased before or after the election. ....... Finally, there have been two examples of ?special? mugs produced outside of the normal time frames. In 1974, there was a limited edition Nixon/Ford mug (reports vary, but there were probably around 300-500 of these mugs). Because of the scarcity, these mugs are very expensive - and are typically not included in ?complete? collections. ....... So, the complete set is: / 42 regular GOP / 35 regular DEM / Pre-election DEM 2001 and 2005 / Pre-election DEM and GOP, 2009 / 1974 Nixon/Ford / Total: 82 mugs ....... A list of all the mugs produced and their colors can be found at http://www.frankoma.com/images/Politicalmugs.pdf which also displays the mugs in my collection on display at Frankoma?s Factory Stor. My collection is not yet complete, but I?m working on it......