1960s » Vintage Doll Collector

Dolls by Dee an Cee (Canada)

Oct 152012

Dee an Cee’s 17″ Cindy was sold in the late 1950s in a variety of outfits, including a bridal gown.

Dee an Cee was a Canadian doll manufacturer from 1938 to 1964. The name was derived from the first letters of the last names of the two founders, Max Diamond and Morris Cone. The company motto was “Quality above all”.

Through the 1940s, the company made composition dolls, mostly babies, including Snuggles, Sweetums and Little Darling. They briefly experimented with rubber dolls before switching over to vinyl beginning in 1949.

Many of the their products were licensed from U.S. companies and made from the original molds. They held the Canadian licenses to produce Mattel’s Chatty Cathy and Alexander’s Marybel. Sometimes the dolls names were changed; American Character’s Baby Dear was sold by Dee an Cee as Dream Baby, while Mattel’s Scooba-Doo became Kookie in Canada.
The company produced their own original dolls too. Mandy and Dusty, designed by Morris Cone, were black brother and sister dolls with realistic features and molded hair, first produced in 1956.

Dee an Cee was the first Canadian doll company to advertise on television. After the firm was sold to Mattel in 1962, manufacturing in Canada was gradually discontinued. The name was no longer used after 1964.

Dee an Cee dolls show a variety of markings, including D&C, Dee an Cee, Dee and Cee, and DEE & CEE.

More Dee an Cee dolls:

Learn More:

Dolls of Canada
by Evelyn Robson Strahlendorf
More info from Amazon
or
Find it on eBay.

Uneeda Pink Haired Ballerina doll

Uneeda, Vinyl No Responses »

Aug 132012

Going through my files today I found these pictures – I had this doll a long time ago but for some reason never did anything with the pictures. If I recall correctly, she has the same head as Uneeda’s 19″ Dollikin, marked 2S, but she does not have the extra joints that Dollikin has, and her body is lighter weight than their other 2S glamour dolls. She has striking blue eyes and pale pink hair in a cute bubble cut. I believe her pink vinyl shoes are like the flats that Mommy Dollikin and the Dollikin Ballerinas wear. Does anyone have one of these pink haired dolls?

Vintage Uneeda ballerina doll with pink hair

Uneeda Vintage ballerina doll with pink hair

Minty Monday: Talking Terri Lee

Terri Lee, Vinyl 2 Responses »

Jun 112012

This rare and wonderful doll is Talking Terri Lee, made by Mar-Fan, Inc. between 1960 and 1962. This was during the period after the Terri Lee Company had gone out of business, when they leased their molds to other companies to produce.

Talking Terri Lee is 16″ tall and made of vinyl. She looks very similar to other vintage Terri Lees, but she has an important difference. She has a speaker in her head, into which a record player was plugged through a jack on the back of her head. The dolls, records, and especially the record player are very hard to find today. If you have a Talking Terri Lee doll, you can input any device into the jack with the right size audio plug.

Photos courtesy of Ed Hudson.

Sasha Dolls

Fashion, Sasha, Vinyl No Responses »

Apr 182012

Studio doll by Sasha Morgenthaler.
Photo courtesy of Withington Auction, Inc.

Sasha dolls are unique in the doll world. They started out as the vision of Swiss artist Sasha Morgenthaler, to create a play doll representing the universal child. The original doll’s skin tone was deliberately of a medium color depicting no particular ethnic group. She began in the 1940s creating them in her studio, but the high production costs meant that very few families could afford them. In 1965 she licensed production to Götz-Puppenfabrik GmbH of Rödental, Germany, where they were made until 1970. Beginning in 1966, the dolls were also made in England by Frido/Trendon/Sasha Dolls Ltd of Stockport. Production continued there until 1986. From 1995-2001 they were again produced by Götz.

The original Studio dolls were made of gypsum, a composition like material. Some dolls, like the one pictured above, had cloth bodies. Other were entirely of gypsum. The mass-produced dolls are of rigid vinyl with rooted synthetic hair. They are 16″ tall, jointed at the neck and shoulders and strung with elastic cord. They are well made dolls that offer lots of play value.

Although the dolls are collectively known as Sasha, the boy dolls were called Gregor; when black dolls were introduced in the early 70s, the girls were named Cora and the boys Caleb. The most recent series of Sasha dolls were given individual names. Babies were also produced starting in the 1970s, and are 12″ tall with bent legs.

One reason that Sasha dolls are so popular with collectors is their wonderful wardrobe. The clothes are very well made in simple, classic styles. The size of the dolls makes them easy to sew for and easy to dress.

Minty Monday: TinyTeen Store Display

Uneeda, Vinyl No Responses »

Mar 052012

Uneeda’s TinyTeen dolls from the late 1960s aren’t widely collected, but they are really cute dolls which were sold in a variety of outfits, as you can see from this store display recently sold on eBay.

TinyTeens are 5″ tall, all vinyl and jointed at the neck, shoulders and hips. They have rooted hair and eyelashes. They are marked “U. D. Co. 1967 Hong Kong”. The original series of 12 dolls came packaged on a pink oval bubble card. They have names like Party Time, Fun Time and Prom Time. Each doll holds an accessory, such as a camera, purse or phone. TinyTeen’s shoes are very small and easily lost.

Uneeda also issued another series of 12 dolls, in rectangular blue packages, with different outfits and no accessory. This series is of lesser quality than the original set, and is harder to find.

TinyTeens are similar to Hasbro’s Dolly Darlings and Mattel’s Liddle Kiddles, and are often found together. A collection of ’60s and ’70s pocket size dolls, which might also include Remco’s Heidi and Topper’s Dawn, would be great fun to put together.

Photos courtesy of SpartanToys Vintage Toy Store.

Please note – Uneeda originally used the “TinyTeen” name in the late 1950s, for a 10.5″ high heeled fashion doll similar to Ideal’s Little Miss Revlon. The company recycled the name again in the mid-seventies for an 8″ doll.

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