Ginger’s Mystery Closet

 Cosmopolitan, Fashion, Hard Plastic  1 Response »
Sep 142011
 
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I picked this item up at an auction last night. This cardboard wardrobe measures 18.5″ tall, 12″ wide and 6″ deep. It has double doors on the front, a wooden bar to hang the clothes from, and another wooden bar holding up the shelf above. The colors and the logo on the top indicate that it was made for Cosmopolitan’s Ginger doll, a hard plastic toddler introduced in 1954, who was a competitor to Vogue’s Ginny doll.  I call it Ginger’s Mystery Closet because it is a mystery why an 8″ doll would have a wardrobe so huge. She has a wardrobe trunk that is in scale for her, about 9″ tall. Why would she need this behemoth? If you hung her little dresses on the rod, there would be several inches of empty space underneath. Any thoughts?

Withington Auction April 7-8

 Composition, Effanbee, Fashion, Hard Plastic, Vogue  No Responses »
Mar 202011
 
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The first Withington doll auction of the year is coming up in just a few weeks. It’s scheduled for Thursday and Friday, April 7 & 8 at the Holiday Inn in Nashua, NH. There will also be dealers selling out of their hotel rooms on Wednesday afternoon for a little pre-auction shopping fun.

While the auction will be weighted toward antique dolls as usual, there are a number of nice items on both days for the vintage collector, including Vogue Ginnys, Alexander hard plastic dolls, a lovely Effanbee historical replica, some Lencis and more. The boxlots at the end of the day always have some interesting finds. Here are a few of the dolls in the catalog: (Photos courtesy of Withington Auction, Inc.)

Doll club program on Toni

 Advertising, American Character, Fashion, Hard Plastic, Ideal, Vinyl  No Responses »
Mar 192011
 
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At the San-D-over Doll Club meeting today, we had a program on Toni dolls. We watched the DVD “Which Doll is the Toni?” from UFDC and members brought in a variety of Tonis to share, including the original Ideal hard plastic dolls, the 10″ vinyl version from American Character and her larger sisters, and newer reproductions. I normally don’t care much for newer dolls, but was very impressed with the repros of the Ideal Toni by Tonner/Effanbee. They look just like the vintage dolls, with beautiful hair and lovely dresses. I wasn’t too taken by their repros of the American Character 13″ Toni though – she doesn’t have the charm of the original, in my opinion.

This type of program, with a DVD and show-and-tell, works well for a small doll club. What has your club been doing lately?

Over 200 new photos added to VDC site

 Hard Plastic, Mary Hoyer  No Responses »
Mar 182011
 
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Finally! I have finished uploading over 200 new photos onto a special four page section about the Competitive Exhibit at last summer’s UFDC convention in Chicago. Some absolutely wonderful dolls in pristine condition and lots of rarities – bisque, wood, vinyl, hard plastic, compo, advertising dolls, celebrity dolls, paper dolls.

Here is a sample for you: blue ribbon winners in the Mary Hoyer classification. Aren’t they lovely?

Kenner page updated

 Fashion, Hard Plastic, Kenner  3 Responses »
Feb 252010
 
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I just uploaded some new photos and descriptions to the Kenner page on the website, including Blythe, Darci and Dusty.  In reading over it again, I see that I have described Blythe as having a hard plastic head. But from some closeup photos I have, it looks like her hair is rooted into her head. Now, it’s been awhile since I’ve actually seen a Blythe doll in person. But if her hair is in fact rooted, she’s probably a rigid vinyl rather than hard plastic. As far as I know, the only hard plastic doll with rooted hair is the very rare HP version of the Monica doll.  Anybody out there have a Blythe and want to comment?

Photos courtesy of Lisa Hanson

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