Retailers Reveal This Year’s Tortoises and Hares in Christmas Gift Items : Consumers: Nancy Reagan’s book and big diamonds flee the shelves; ski clothes and candelabras languish.

With two weekends remaining before Dec. 25, it’s still relatively early in the Christmas shopping season. But it’s not too early for San Diego retailers to discern which items in their inventories are selling better than expected and which ones are languishing on the shelves.

Asked to single out the hot and not-so-hot products this season, several retailers contacted last week said that shopping volume this year generally has been good but not spectacular compared to past years. Expensive novelty gifts seem to be selling better than in previous years.

“The number of shoppers are below last year’s activity, but people seem to be spending more money,” said Jan Mutschelknaus, manager of the Play Co. toy and hobby store on Rosecrans Street. “It looks like everyone is coming in on the last day, or at least I hope they will.”

The following is a cross-section of bright lights and disappointments for merchants this holiday shopping season:

Doubleday Book Shop, Horton Plaza

Hot sellers so far are two cartoon books, the new Calvin and Hobbes “Lazy Sunday Book,” priced at $9.95, and “Prehistory of the Far Side” by Gary Larson, said store manager Susan O’Neill.

Larson’s book is “selling like gang busters at $12.95,” she said.

Also selling well are Nancy Reagan’s memoirs, titled “My Turn,” listed at $21.95. “I guess it’s because this is Republican territory down here,” O’Neill said.

Disappointments include “What They Still Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School,” by Mark McCormack, which lists for $18.95, a sequel to a similar business book by McCormack.

“Our buyers ordered heavily, based on the success of the first one. It just really moved. This one’s pretty much hanging out,” O’Neill said.

Also slow is “Hot Siberian,” by Gerald Browne, a $4.95 paperback that “got great reviews and (which) the New York Times called one of the best books of the year, but is just not selling. So I don’t know if there aren’t enough people who read the book reviews or what the deal is.”

Trader Joe’s, discount food, spirits, Garnet Ave.

Champagne and quarter-pound boxes of Belgian chocolate “really stand out” among the store’s hot sellers, manager Kim Guentert said. All cheeses are selling quickly as well, he said.

Asked for the disappointments, Guentert said: “Nothing basically. I’m trying desperately to fill the store up. We’re developing space everywhere.”

Jessop’s jewelers, Horton Plaza

Jessop’s President Ken Laughlin said his store in recent weeks has sold “more than a dozen” large diamonds of more than two carats, at $13,000 and up.

“Why? I wish I knew. Then I could predict the future a little better.”

Estate jewelry, including antiques, Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles, is selling very well, he said. “We have a hard time acquiring enough to supply the store. There is a limited supply available. There are people reproducing it, but we don’t sell reproductions,” Laughlin said.

Laughlin said disappointments include sterling silver such as trays and candelabras.

“People seem to be doing less formal entertaining. It’s a trend over the last three years or so. Each year we sell a little less of it,” he said.

Clocks in the $400 to $1,500 category are not moving as well as Jessop’s had hoped, either. Clocks “haven’t taken off yet, although that can happen in the last five days of the shopping season,” Laughlin said.

Stuard’s Store for Men, clothing, Fashion Valley

Manager Bob Van Stelle said patterned sweaters, especially pullovers in cotton and acrylics, are “hot items” at his men’s clothing store. The current season is the second successive good year for patterns, after a period during which virtually all the sweaters Stuard’s sold were in solid colors, he said.

Customers seem to be favoring “bright, geometric patterns that can be worn with pleated slacks,” Van Stelle said.

Slow sellers so far this year include “the larger-ticket items like suits or sport coats.” He blamed the disappointing sport coat sales on sweaters, which can “take the place of sport coats.”

Cal Stores, sporting goods, Sports Arena Blvd.

The Nike Air line of sports shoes, particularly Air Jordan and Air Trainer, the shoe endorsed by sports star Bo Jackson, are selling extremely well, said manager Bill Tayrien. The shoes are expensive, starting at $89.

“They’re good shoes and their promotion is good,” Tayrien said. “Night and day, we’ve got 12- and 13-year-old kids coming in spending $100 on those shoes. It doesn’t surprise me anymore, although it did at first.”

Levi denims are also selling well, possibly because Cal Stores is in the midst of a Levi’s price war with Mervyn’s, Miller’s Outpost and Sears, Tayrien said.

Perhaps the most disappointing line of goods is ski clothing. “It’s very difficult to sell $300 ski parkas when it’s 80 degrees outside,” Tayrien said.

Tower Records, Sports Arena Blvd.

Assistant manager Danny Birch said the album “Cosmic Thing” by rock band the B-52s has “sold extremely well for the last four or five months. Jazz has done really well, as have our blues boxed sets by Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon.”

Storewide sales at Tower were slow over the summer but have picked up in recent weeks, Birch said. “People are depressed and they need their music and their entertainment to take them away from realities,” he said.

Disappointments thus far in the Christmas season have been boxed commemorative sets by the Rolling Stones and the Allman Brothers. A new record called Crossroads by folk singer Tracy Chapman “should be doing better than it is,” Birch said.

Nordstrom department store, Horton Plaza

Marie Joyce, Nordstrom’s special-events and media coordinator, said shoppers seem to be interested in “exclusive, new or personal things” this year. Personal monogramming and engraving of shirts, sweaters and jewelry is popular, she said. Nordstrom is also selling lots of monogrammed denim jackets for kids, she added.

Men’s leather and cashmere jackets are selling well, and women’s “novelty sweaters with some kind of decorative interest” are in big demand. Children’s clothes with trendy labels, including Esprit, Gotcha and Quicksilver, are big sellers

Joyce said it is too early in the season to single out disappointments.

Sportmart, sporting goods, Balboa Ave.

In-line skates selling for $90 to $130 are hot items this year, said store manager Glen Carr. The skates, which feature a single row of rollers, were introduced about 18 months ago and have been strong sellers with men and women, he said.

Beach wear has been moving well because of the good local weather, and fitness and exercise equipment is also doing well, Carr added. Treadmills selling from $500 to $1,200 are “real hot,” as are $400 exercise bicycles.

Disappointments include tennis and golf equipment. Ski wear is a major flop so far, Carr said. “As soon as we get snow down here locally, meaning Big Bear, things will pick up. In Southern California, the skiers tend to reflect what weather is outside their door instead of what’s out in the mountains,” he said.

Play Co., toy and hobby store, Rosecrans St.

Nintendo video games and cartridges are “as hot this year as last year,” manager Jan Mutschelknaus said. Also selling well is Game Boy, a hand-held Nintendo set. In fact, all Nintendo games have sold out at her Play Co. location, she said.

Other big sellers include Oopsie Daisy dolls, which are “really popular and hard to get,” at $39 each. A remote-control model Hovercraft-type boat called Typhoon selling for $95 is popular, as are Barbie dolls.

Hot games this year are Take Off, a “geography game for young and old,” and Trump, a Monopoly-style game about real estate tycoon Donald Trump. The Trump game sold slowly when it was first shipped a month ago but has taken off since, she said.

Disappointing sellers this year include tiny matchbox-style cars called Micro Machines that sold well last year.