Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Running Out of Doll Shows, But Here's One More

  Well, I didn't get this post up the very next day after the doll show, but then I have a good excuse. I've had a really busy couple of weeks. One week, amongst other things, I had to get an oil change, take the car in to get the tire plugged, thanks to a stray nail, and take the car to get the wheel bearings taken care of. When I did that, I had to leave the car for a few hours, which meant walking home, and then walking back to get it when it was done. It's a bit over a mile each way, and I strayed off on a couple of alternate routes to avoid the steep hills. So I was really pooped out that week. The next week Ken' sister and her husband were here to visit. We went to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and The Ohio State Reformatory, otherwise known as Shawshank Prison. We drove to Emma's two days, and I can't even remember what else. We went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary, Ken's sister's anniversary, and Emma and AJ's anniversary. Somehow we all ended up getting married in September, within a week of each other. (Ken's sister's son was married about then too.) I was totally exhausted by the end of the two weeks, and I didn't have time to do a post anyway. So I am finally getting around to this post about a show we went to about,,,what? Three weeks ago? A month ago? I have lost all concept of time. But we did see some cool stuff, so here it is.

  There was this pair of tall, pretty ladies, and some small girls, including a Tonner Betsy McCall, and a couple of Madame Alexanders.


  I like this small cloth faced doll. I'm pretty sure she's a character from something, but I can't think what. If you know, tell me in the comments.


   I may have seen, and shown you, this Madame Alexander doll before. I think she's Maggie. Anybody?


  More nice tall ladies.


  These Madame Alexanders might be the Little Women. You'll notice to the left of the one in red, that there is a doll in a plaid dress.


  She's a Betsy McCall. She's the Uneeda version, who was described as a 'child fashion doll', but she's sort of a tween. She's also referred to as 'preteen Betsy McCall'.


  The dealer said she thinks this is an original Betsy outfit. I've never seen any so I don't know. It isn't shown with the other outfits on the original box though. There were patterns available to make clothes for Betsy, so it could be a homemade Betsy original. You can see my Pre Teen Betsys HERE, and  HERE.

  As you might have noticed, I love Alice in Wonderland, so I had to take a picture of this Alice doll, with the baby that turned into a pig. Over her shoulders you can see a Madame Alexander, a Tiffany Taylor, and a Malibu Skipper.



  The cute doll in pink is Little Betty, by Madame Alexander.  Next to her is a more modern Madame Alexander.


  This doll and her dress were both beautiful.






   I thought these two were cute. They have those thin plastic or celluloid faces. Those faces tended to get caved in at the very least, so they're lucky they've survived all these years.


This is a crowd of Japanese dolls. I don't know who that first girl is, but she looks familiar. The others look like Jenny or one of her related friends.


School Going Skipper was a Skipper from India. I had never seen her before. She is slightly different from the U.S. Skipper of the same era.



   Petit Jenny is another Japanese doll. 


  This guy is obviously a Ken clone, or male doll from the early 60's. He's not the most attractive guy.



  My sister insisted I take a picture of this Phantom of the Opera doll. He's is really good.


  I ran across a whole spread of Cosimo and Cosima doll and clothes. They're Petra's little brother and sister, made in Germany.


  I always thought Cosimo was so cute. At one point in the 90's Big Lots had a huge buyout of Cosimo and Cosima dolls and clothes. I wanted a Cosimo, but by the time I finally decided to buy one, all they had left was Cosima and some clothes. So you might have seen my Cosima HERE. I finally got a Cosimo in a trade with a reader. You can see him, and several original outfits, HERE.



  These girls were so cute.


  I know I know who this dark haired doll is! Anybody want to remind me?


  This is a Connie Lowe doll.



  She's jointed and has some nicely detailed clothing. She's very expensive though. This is also a Connie Lowe doll, and it was my sister's favourite thing we saw at the show.




  I saw some more amazing Connie Lowe dolls near the end of the show that I wanted to photograph for you, but the dealer refused. She was one of those dealers who think their dolls are the only source of pictures of dolls for people who post dolls they don't own for sale online, in an attempt to rip people off. She didn't want her dolls photographed because people could post them for sale. People can get pictures of dolls anywhere and do that. They could get them online, or take pictures of dolls in stores or doll shops, or anywhere. But that's her prerogative. We had a nice talk about various things. She was nice. She just didn't want her dolls photographed, and that's her right.  
 This doll was about the size of a Tammy's Mom doll. She's quite pretty. I don't think I've ever seen her before. 


  You can kind of size her up by comparing her to the Sunshine Family Dad and the Pepper doll behind her.

  This Cinnamon doll in her original box was a good price at $25. I was trying to be good though, and although I love Cinnamon and don't have one in her original box or outfit, I do have two Cinnamon dolls.


  The rice of this set of Beatles bobble head dolls blew my mind.!


I know they're expensive enough without the box, so i guess that price isn't unreasonable. We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the next week, and they had the same bobbleheads. Theirs weren't boxed and as  as mint though!




  I think I have a couple of these Baby Bonnet Beans around here somewhere. I got them at a yard sale, and I thought they were missing their shirts. I guess not.


  This doll was really cute. She's a Madame Alexander Janie doll. I've never seen one before. I like her a lot.


  This was a gathering of clone dolls. Some of them are really nice. That guy, not so much.



This Barbie clone is another really pretty one. If you look close, you can see she has a couple of pretty friends with her as well.


  I don't think I've seen a loose Momoko before. Boxed ones probably. But not a loose one I could really see well.


  Okay. I would love to have a Brenda Starr doll. I really like them. This one is ready for the rain.



  This doll in green made me think of a thick version of the Skinny Jinny, or Metti dolls. You can see mine HERE. She's interesting.


  So that was the recent doll show. And what did I buy? NOTHING!! I was so proud of myself! I didn't buy a stinking thing! I did get something though. My sister bought my Christmas present while we were there. We saw a beautiful, although damaged compo Shirley Temple clone on a table. The dealer was very enthusiastic about me photographing her, and held her up to be photographed. 






They had a tag on her that said $40, but they did NOT want to go home with her. They said make an offer, which I hate doing. Then they offered her to me for $20. I caved, but my sister hopped in and said she'd get her for me for Christmas, because she didn't know what to get me otherwise. So she went home with my sister, to wait for Christmas, when we will be reunited. Me and Faux Shirley that is. I'll probably see my sister before then,.
  There was a doll show and a toy show this past weekend. Did I go to both, or just one? And if I only went to one, which one? Find out next time, same Bat channel...uh, I mean, in my next post.

Monday, August 18, 2025

A Doll Show Day Out

  I want to first of all say how nice reader Treesa is. She sent me a really sweet card for no reason except to make me feel good.  It was very thoughtful of her.

  I have cut back on going to doll shows since Ken's strokes. But Ken is doing very well these days. They recently took him off a blood pressure medication because his blood pressure was a bit low, but that might have been causing some extra heart beats. It might have been due to other things, and it was only a few times, but just in case they have changed his medication again. It always takes time to get things exactly right, especially after five strokes. So he's doing well, and feeling good. There was a doll show coming up, and I asked Ken if he would like to go with me, to have a day out and a change of scenery. He wanted to, so, with packed breakfasts and lunches, and Ken's medicines, yesterday we headed to Strongsville for the doll show. Here's some of the best of what we saw. 

  I found this cute Polish doll, which Ken knows as a 'woodentop', because his sister had a few when they were kids.


He wanted me to photograph it and show it to his sister. We actually have one of his sister's dolls, because when they were kids it's hair fell out, an their mom replaced it with some of Ken's! So it has tiny Ken's blonde hair.
  This pretty Toni doll was in her original box.


  The same dealer had these three Kathe Kruse dolls.


  She said this one is one of the very first Kathe Kruse dolls and is from around 1910.

That apron is in amazing condition.

  The middle one is from the 1920's and the one on the right is from the 1950's.
  There was also this girl, which she said is pretty rare.


  This one looks a bit scary.


  This doll, from the 1930's, was beautiful. She still has her original tag and her colours are super bright.


    This little kid is beautiful, and was only $10, but I had found something else for $10 at this dealer's booth that I wanted. Ken bought it for me for my birthday next year. I'll show it to you then!


These three were at another dealer's table. They were really big, as in, pretty much life size children.


  These two German dolls are made of wood. I love little Margie photobombing them!


  This newspaper boy had an interesting face and cute hair. The little German dollhouse man in the top hat reminds me of the drunk that hangs on the lamp post. This dealer usually has some Baps dolls, but she didn't this time.


  I hadn't heard of Nita Gehlhardt before. She's apparently a quite well known German artist. These little bisque figurines are very cute.



  This dealer had a few presidents too, but the Eleanor Roosevelt was great.



  This cute advertising doll was holding cigarettes, but the dealer didn't know what she originally held.


  I think this doll's face was paper mache.


  I've had an obsession with being able to change a doll with multiple wigs since Fashion Queen Barbie, so I love this doll.


  I don't know who this girl is, but she is very cute.


  The old sea captain has a cloth face, and an usual felt mustache. His disapproving companion is a Baitz whistler. You can see my Baitz doll HERE.


  This sleeping beauty was brought in by her owner, who was attempting to sell her. She was very big, with wooden, jointed limbs, and all original.


What was kind of creepy was, she was in a wooden box that looked like a coffin! I don't know if it was made for her, to protect her, or if it was her original shipping crate.


What a hypnotic gaze this doll has! Those eyes are only painted too!


I swear I have a Sunbonnet Babies doll around here somewhere. They were made by Knickerbocker in 1975.

The knitted doll is cute too.

  Loads of polymer clay Alice's. Sorry about the sideways thing. I fixed it once, and I don't have time to fix it again. My battery is on it's way out.


  This doll was pretty and she had very detailed painted eyes. I tried to get them to show up in a picture, but I don't think I was very successful.



  I thought this doll in a red dress looked familiar, and I thought I had found her in an old doll show post, but it wasn't her. Sometimes dolls do stick around for a while. As a former doll dealer I can tell you how frustrating it is to carry the same dolls from show to show to show.

I like the little doll at her feet too.

  Does anybody know who Deanna Durbin was? She was a very popular child actress/singer in the 1930's and continued her career as an adult until retiring in 1949 and moving with her husband to France. She famously costarred with Judy Garland in a 1936 movie called "Every Sunday", which MGM used as a sort of screen test, to see which girl they wanted to keep under contact. It must have been a tough choice, because the two were so different. Deanna had a very cultured soprano voice, while Judy, at the time, was known for her way with a swing tune. Deanna was more traditionally pretty, but Judy was the more talented and charismatic performer. In the end MGM kept Judy and Deanna went on to sign with Universal. 
  One lady there, who was quite old, definitely knew who Deanna Durbin was. She was gushing over the two DD dolls this dealer had. I apparently only photographed this one.
 

 

  Anybody know who these girls are?


  Remember how I was just talking about dolls hanging around for a while at shows? Well back in April of last year I went to a show somewhere else, and saw a group of little dolls that I just loved. It was as I was getting finished looking though, and I had spent enough money already. So I managed to resist buying any of them, but the chenille lady, especially, haunted me ever since. Well, Ken and I were going through the show, when suddenly I realized this was the dealer who had those Eubank dolls!

They all had these paper stands with the name of the maker and the doll on the bottom...except the chenille lady!

  There she was! And the other two winter themed dolls I liked too. I don't think I liked them as much this time though, so I was okay with letting them go. However, I did still regret not buying the tiny porcelain dolls with crocheted clothes that I had passed up on. Unfortunately, (or, fortunately for my finances.), she had sold them. But I got my beautiful chenille lady, and I only paid $10.


  This guy is Timmy Tumbles. He looks just like Tippy Tumbles, but I had forgotten they did a boy version, or an African American version. You might have seen my Tippy Tumbles HERE.


  I was tempted by this Effanbee doll, which I think is Half Pint, for only $5. I was really trying to be good.


And yes. That's talking Baby Beans at her feet.

  I'm not sure who the girl  in the stripes is, but that's Baby Go Bye Bye sunk down in her car like an elderly person. She and her car were only $5 too.
 

  The same dealer had these dolls. The big one, in plaid, (and maybe the one in pink.),  is Betsy McCall. The Drowsy, in her cardboard cradle was only $55!


  Pretty Madame Alexander ladies on a day out.


  I always have to take a picture of the mumpy Terri Lees for Raging Moon. I think this one may be a clone. Next to her is Lisa Littlechap. I saw two Lisa's for $5 each in the doll boxes at the antique doll tables. One was wearing her red nightgown and her hair was silky and still mostly in it's original updo. I thought she was a good deal, but I can't get into the Littlechaps. I have two Libbys, by accident, but what I really wanted a Libby for was to put Libby's winter coat and boots and book bag on!


Doctor Littlechap.hanging out with Pepper, Elly May/Calico Lassie, Tammy, Tammy's dad and brother, and...a Pepper clone?


  This lady had some great attitude about her. Check out her tiny cameo and pearl 'buttons'.


  A cute little bear deserves a cute little dress.


  This lady was so pretty, and in such nice condition. There's a reason for that. According to her tag, her body isn't original, and her eyes have been replaced. Who knows how old the dress is.


  This was the biggest Furga doll I've ever seen. She was over two feet tall.


  Our friendly neighbourhood doll maker, China Cupboard Bears was there again. She lives on the next street. She's made quite a business of her animals. She started the business when our kids were little, and in school together.



A red furry elephant.

This cat was really big, and really cool. His head is jointed, and so are his legs.

  This may be my next 'one that got away'. But maybe not. She's pretty. You know I love my pressed cloth faced dolls. But I was tempted by him. He's a very old, little Lotte Sievers Hahn doll. I have several, (You can click Lotte Sievers Hahn in the side bar.), but none dressed in his colour scheme, and no boys with his colour hair. He was only $10, but I passed him by to see what else I might rather spend my money on. We went to look at him again at the end of our rounds, at Ken's insistence, but even though the dealer offered to come down to $8, I  only had $3 left of what I'd brought in with me. So I had to say no. 


  As we were going out, I happened to think that I had never heard them call any of the door prizes. I asked the lady at the door if they had called any, and she said, yes, they had called two, and were about to call another one. I said I hadn't heard any. She said they had called a couple and nobody had responded, so they called another one. She asked what my name was, and I told her. Then she asked what Ken's name was, and she held up a ticket and said, ""Is this you?" Yes! Ken won a door prize! It was $15 cash. He wanted to go back and buy me the Lotte Sievers Hahn, but I thought he should get something for himself with his winnings.
  My pictures loaded in reverse order, so the next pictures are some of the first things we saw.
  This dealer provided so many pictures for this post, I had to include her card. It wouldn't have been fair otherwise!

  
  
  This beautiful pair were quite big, probably over 2 feet tall, and in great condition. They had stuffed cloth bodies and limbs, and thin plastic or celluloid faces. They were only $50 each!


  When we passed again as we were leaving, the dealer had put out another great doll with them.



  She had this great doll too.


  This dealer had such a lot of really wonderful dolls, that she could have been her own blog post. I mean there were sooo many gorgeous dolls.


  Look at this sweet baby.


  I saw a lot less dollhouse dolls or tiny dolls at this show. This lady had some nice little German dollhouse dolls.



  The clothes!


  Look at these kids!








  Big girls...



...and little girls.


  See how big those girls really are?

Holiday Barbie for scale.

Just wow.






  But if you want to talk big...


  This gorgeous pair were the size of real kids.

  And then you have the smaller kids.



  This girl was just breath taking.




  Three gorgeous Googlies.


  Check out those glasses. And that Shirley! That's Skippy behind, in uniform, and an Effanbee girl in a cute hat.


 

 


Another Shirley down front, and a nurse I might have shown you in a previous doll show post.


  Okay. We are at another dealer's table now.  If I'm not mistaken, the kid on the left has been repainted. I know I've shown you the other little guy before, but I like him.


We're at another dealer's table, but you can see those two life size twins in the background, behind this wonderful Zwergnase doll. I love her!









And I called Terri Lee mumpy.

  I love the little guy trying to peek out from behind the girl in blue!


    
  So that was a good show. Lots of beautiful stuff to look at,  I didn't spend much money, Ken got some of his shopping for me done, and to top it all off, he won a door prize! Since the prize was $15 cash, he can spend it on whatever, wherever he wants. I did buy a couple of other things. I got a $1 doll dress, a little bolero shirt for over a dress, (It was so small and had tiny embroidery on it.), and a free doll, which I forgot to photograph. She's a 7 or 8 inch inexpensive doll that might be Little Red Riding Hood. She's wearing a flowered dress, a red hooded cape, black tights, and...red toe shoes?

  It was a little down hill after we ate lunch though. I got really sick  I don't know if it was dehydration or what, but I felt really sick  I hadn't gotten enough sleep, so that might have been a factor too. But I thought I was going to throw up. I wasn't sure I could do the hour and a half drive home. After a  while I started hiccuping. I must have hiccupped for half an hour. It hurt in my chest when I hiccupped, but I think it made me feel better. I still didn't feel good, but, better. A cold drink helped too. I have no idea why I got so sick.

  Anyway, I'll see you again soon. I'm pretty proud of how fast I got this post up! Yay!