The Best Dolly Day in a Long Time!

 Oh my...it's been a little bit since I last posted, huh?  Time flies when you're having fun buying up all the dollies you can find on the internet because a certain pandemic which shall not be named has brought all the doll shows to a screeching halt!  Thankfully, doll shows finally started up again recently in my area, and this last weekend was the best one yet!  The picture above shows all the little cuties I brought home on Saturday!  Some were from a doll show, a couple were given to me by a dear friend, and one was delivered by mail!

23" Vinyl Gotz Anna Maria from 2002

She was designed by Hildegard Gunzel to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Steiff bear.  She is a limited edition of 1500 and comes with her own little Steiff teddy.  Her original price was nearly $500!  I have seen her go even higher on ebay.  For this reason, I didn't hold out any hope of ever finding her for a decent price.  And then I walked into this awesome little doll show that always has wonderful treasures at awesome prices.  I spotted her within minutes of arriving, and when I saw her $40 price tag, I didn't even think twice.  I just picked her up and told the nice lady behind the table that she was going home with me!

This baby was a recent purchase on Goodwill's online auction site.  The package was waiting for me when I arrived home from the doll show!  It is a 21" composition Horsman Dimples with tin eyes.  She first came out in 1928.  She is in near perfect condition for a doll almost a century old!  Of course, she'll need a pretty dress and a frilly bonnet, but I think I can take care of that.  

Here she is, next to my much smaller Dimples, who I think is about 16" in height.  That smaller baby is wearing an original, tagged dress and bonnet for Dimples, however, it was meant for a slightly bigger doll so it is a bit roomy on her.  My guess is it was probably meant for an 18" doll.  However, when I found the 21" Dimples on shopgoodwill and nobody was bidding on her at first, I put in a top bid of $25 and won her!  So now I have two Dimples babies the wrong size for the original outfit.  Oh, well!  I'll either have to get another Dimples doll the correct size for the dress, or find another original outfit in a larger size!

1960, 23" Ideal Betsy Wetsy.  I have always loved her sweet face.

She's in relatively good condition, but will need a good bath.  Some little mama trimmed her hair, but it's still thick and shiny with no missing plugs.  I've got lots of vintage doll patterns for clothing to fit her, so I'll probably sew her a darling dress and bonnet.  Unless, of course, I have something vintage stashed away that will fit her.

11" Reproduction Bleuette by Susan Dunham

I have a couple of repro Bleuettes in my collection, but I don't do much with them so this one will be up for sale soon.  I bought her for the express purpose to resell, so hopefully what I make from her sale will pay for everything else I purchased this day!

12" Ideal Bonnie Baby--1960

I think this was my most exciting purchase!  Bonnie Baby is an extremely rare and hard to find doll.  She was only made for a year (I think), and I have never seen another one in person.  I first spotted one in a Facebook group, and when I saw that sweet, little face that looked so much like my large Ideal Bye Bye Baby, I knew I had to have her!  And so started a quest to find one.  However, like I said, they are rare, and the couple I found online had sold long ago for VERY high prices.  So I figured it was probably not meant to be.  But here I am, browsing the doll show, and a seller has a bunch of large boxes in front of their table, just piled full of dolls.  Like at least 50 dolls in each box.  I start digging through and pulling out dolls, because, well...how could I not?!?  You just never know what you might find.  And there, at the very bottom of the box, I saw some little baby legs and pulled her out.  I about gasped when I saw who she was!  She had no price and the seller told me to make an offer.  This seller also had the repro Bleuette, so I offered him $20 for both dolls.  He accepted!  Woohoo! I think she's even wearing her original outfit.

Adorable composition Effanbee Patsys.  These were given to me by a dear friend that went to the doll show with me.  She had me stop by her house on the way home from the show so she could give them to me because she no longer collects this type of doll.  Aren't they precious?  They even came with extra clothing.  The little one has roller skates!  How cute is that?

14" Patsy

9" Patsyette

I also purchased more vintage hankies and old rayon trim for my sewing projects.  Also, a pair of knit baby booties.  I'm sure I have a doll with bare feet that can wear them.

Oh, back to the same vendor with the boxes of dolls...he had these tinies as well!  On the left is a 4" painted bisque Hertwig.  On the right is a newer (yet still vintage!) Caco dollhouse brother.  And I honestly only purchased the little modern doll in the middle because of her adorable, crocheted dress.  I thought I could remove that dress and give it to another doll.  However, now that I look at her, she's really sweet.  So I may just make her a cute little wig and let her keep the dress.  All three dolls cost a total of $5.

This doll was NOT purchased at the show.  I found her back in May, again on Goodwill's online auction site.  (I am their best customer, I think!)  She is a 12", 1948 Madame Alexander "Precious".  All hard plastic and strung.  She is also a very hard doll to find.  I had never heard about her before seeing her in the auction, so a little research led me to find out that she was made for only one year and has a unique face mold.  One recently sold on Ruby Lane in the same, original dress mine is wearing for $645!  I was able to get mine for $60.  Crazy!  Anyway, the reason I am showing her to you (aside from the fact that she is just too adorable) is because I have wanted to make her a bonnet to match her original dress.  So I pick up vintage, yellow hankies whenever I can find them in the hopes of making a match to the dress.  About 10  hankies later, I finally found a yellow one that matches!  Who knew there were so many different shades of vintage yellow?

Here's the hankie winner!  And it's even edged with beautiful lace.  This will become a bonnet, just like the one she is wearing.  I made her the white one when I was figuring out how to make bonnets out of hankies.  It's a simple, rectangle design.

Side view.  The front edge of the hankie is turned back, and then another row of lace is sewn to the very front before I run some gathering stitches along the edge to draw it up to fit her face.

The back has a simple casing that is drawn up with a ribbon.  I used a piece of scrap lace here, only because I had run out of vintage rayon.  I think I will show how to make one of these bonnets in my next post.  They are so cute and easy to make...I made 5 of them the other day for all my little bare-headed babies.  Because babies always look 100 times sweeter with their faces framed by pretty bonnets!

So that's the end of my great purchases on this wonderful, dolly day.  It was also the last doll show in our area until probably spring.  There is an antique show coming up next month which might have a few dolls, so we'll see.  Now that the weather is turning cooler and there are no more doll shows to attend, I will turn my focus to fixing up all these little darlings.  Stay tuned!

Doll Show Goodies and a Chase Hospital Doll

Yesterday I was able to attend one of my favorite doll shows.  It is held twice a year, at a county fairgrounds in an out-of-the-way country town.  I always find something to bring home, and the prices are usually good!  This is my little haul up above.  Here are closer looks:

Buttons.  I am always needing small, white, vintage buttons.  These were $1 per card.  They are tiny.  Just perfect for all the mending I do on vintage doll garments.  You know they are older because they were all made in the USA!  Oh, and there's a lone pack of vintage, white rick rack.  I use that a lot, too.  I love that it's cotton.  All the new stuff is polyester and just doesn't feel as nice.

Vintage doll patterns.  The prices on the envelopes are not what I paid.  They only cost 50 cents each.  These are perfect to have on hand for dressing all the vintage baby dolls I bring home from Goodwill.  I can draft my own patterns, but it sure is nice not to have to!

More recent patterns, but out of print.  I already have these in my collection.  They are so nice.  I wish Vogue still put out nice doll patterns like this.  I may sell these, or replace my old ratty patterns with these fresh ones.  

And oh my goodness...just look at this!  It's a complete doll pattern, but the envelope is only 4" wide by 5" tall!  I've never seen such a miniature pattern before!  It's so adorable.  It is just like a full size pattern with instructions and tissue pattern to make a dress for a 22" doll.  I'm wondering if these were made for children?  In any case, I am going to be on the hunt for more!  It only cost me 25 cents.

Doll magazines!  These were free.  I tried not to be too greedy.  They were on the front table when you entered the show.  I took a couple.  A hour or so later, I saw there were still a lot, so I took a couple more.  By the time we left, they were almost all gone, so I took the last couple of stragglers that nobody seemed to want.  These are fun to read (even though I've read them all before) and browse through the articles that I've completely forgotten.  Also, my taste in dolls has drastically changed over the years, so the articles I may have skipped over before are now of great interest to me!  When I am through with them, I will pass them on to somebody else in my doll club to enjoy.  

Sweet, vintage doll dress and newer tights.  The dress is a very pale blue. I think the tights will fit an 18" doll.--$2.50

The cutest little jointed dog.  This was part of a Betsy Mccall set.  It also came with tights and underwear for the doll, but I gave those to my friend who had a doll they would fit.  I just wanted the dog!  He's only about 2" tall.--$2

4 1/2" Celluloid boy doll, all jointed.  These are the dolls I played with as a child, since my mother gave me all the little German celluloid dolls from her childhood.  I'm not sure what kind of costume he's dressed in, but I will most likely remove his clothes at some point and dress him like a little boy. --$1

Vintage, bendy rubber dollhouse dolls.  These are tiny!  Just 2 1/4" tall.  I bought them as dolls for some of my bigger dolls to hold.  Even dolls need dolls!  $5 for the pair.

Another little set of dollhouse dolls.  The "mother" is 3" tall, jointed hard plastic.  But I bought this pair strictly for the baby, who is a vintage CACO dollhouse doll.  So sweet.  The baby will go into my Keystone dollhouse.

And my favorite purchase of all...a CHASE Hospital Baby.  I have other Martha Chase Cloth dolls, but this particular doll is a little different.  She was specifically made for hospitals to help teach new mothers how to handle their newborns.  She is all cloth and very firmly stuffed and weighted so that she weighs 4 pounds!  She is painted in a thick coat of oil paints so that her skin could be "washable".  She has holes in her nostrils...not sure why?  She was made in the 1930's-40's.  Martha Chase also made life-sized hospital dolls!  They were a little more realistic, and were used for training nurses.

I just fell in love with this little sweetie's face.  She is completely hand-painted.

She even has dimples!

She's in fairly good shape, considering her age!  Most of her thick paint is still intact, with only a little flaking under her neck and in some creases.  She has a tiny scrape on one cheek I may try to repair at some point, and also some paint loss on her head.  It doesn't really bother me, though.

Here you can see her heavily molded hair

I was so pleased to see her body stamp looking almost brand new!  Many times these have faded and worn away.

When I redressed her, I decided to change her into the little blue dress I bought at the doll show.  It fit her pretty well!!  So she will wear that for now.  The white dress she had on originally was tearing in a lot of places with many small holes.  I'd still like to find her another white baby dress, but this blue one will do for now.  She cost me $100.  So not as cheap as all of my other purchases, but definitely worth it!  She will be proudly displayed with my other, antique, cloth baby dolls.  I also gave her a little dolly to hold in the picture.  Because, you know, even dolls need dolls!  

Recent Dolly Treasures from Local Shows

Sometimes I don't blog for awhile because I don't think I have anything of interest to share.  And then I go to an antique show, like I did this past weekend, and realize that I never showed you things I brought home from the antique show before that one!  Oh, well.  Better late than never, I suppose.  Anyway, doesn't this group make you happy?

 

I've had the buggy in my collection for several years and showed it to you before, so it isn't new.  But it was the perfect height to go along with my new SHIRLEY TEMPLE doll I just bought this past weekend!  I also found the pink bunny and the little Kathe Kruse doll at the same show.  The mini bears in the buggy and the stuffed kitten are from previous shows.

 

Shirley Temple--she's been a favorite of my mine ever since I was a little girl and watched all of her old, black and white movies which I recall playing on Saturday afternoons.  As I grew older and realized there were dolls made in her likeness, I wanted one SO BAD.  I had the cutest, 11" composition Shirley in my collection for several years, but finally sold it a while back, thinking I needed to clear out some dolls to make room for new ones.  MISAKE!  I've missed her ever since.  I really don't know what I was thinking.  So when I stumbled across this 13" composition cutie at the antique show this past weekend, I immediately knew she had to come home with me.  She is in really good condition, with minimal crazing.  Her eyes are clear and bright with no missing lashes.  She has a full, soft, mohair wig with those famous curls.  Her former owner made her a reproduction dress and undies which are very nicely done.  Her stringing has come a little loose, so she can't stand unaided.  But I just happen to have a good friend (hi, Donna!) who will help me restring her.  She just makes me so happy!

 

Her mohair wig is in beautiful shape.  Many times, these dolls have crushed and matted wigs from being in storage, so I am very pleased that this isn't the case with this doll.

 

Her outfit is adorable, and a copy of the original.  Shirley Temple outfits are usually tagged, so when I didn't find a tag on this one, I knew it had been handmade.  I will be replacing the synthetic, pink bows with silk ribbon ones, just to make the dress more authentic.

 

Here are the little friends that Shirley wanted to push in the buggy.  Forgive me if I have shown them to you before, but I don't think I have.  They are both newer, artist made bears, sewn from mohair.  They are jointed at their hips, shoulders, and neck.  The cream-colored bear is 5 1/2", and the pink one stands just 3 1/4"!

 

They make perfect props for smaller dolls.

 

How cute is he?  Even though it's pink, I still think of it as a "he".  Maybe it's the expression?  There's no tag, so I don't know who made him.  But he's a mid-century toy for certain.  So cute.  He will be a perfect decoration in an Easter basket next spring.  He's about 15" to the tip of his ears.

 

Don't you just love that expression?  The vendor where I bought this rabbit had another, smaller one.  I almost bought it, too, but decided one was enough.  Now I wish I had brought it home as well.  It was white and made in Japan.  I'm finding that I've become a sucker for vintage, stuffed animals.

 

I couldn't believe my good fortune when I found this 10 1/2" Kathe Kruse baby!  He's a limited edition, probably made for a doll convention.  According to his wooden hang-tag, his name is "Paul" and he is number 52 out of 75 made back in 2003.  His body is a very, firmly stuffed cotton, and his head is a hard material (new composition, resin?) which is softly hand-painted like the originals.  I love him.  My German grandfather's name was Paul, so this seems like he was meant to become a part of my doll family!  I have looked and looked on the internet for another like him, but have found nothing yet.  He was part of such a small production, that I may never see another like him again.

 

His stuffed friend is this sweet, well-loved kitty I picked up at a local antique store a few months back.  I just couldn't leave it behind!  Anything miniature tugs at my heart strings.  Throw in the fact that it's a vintage, stuffed animal, and you don't have to twist my arm!

 

So, those are some of my recent treasures.  I'm sure there are more I haven't told you about!