Doll-A-Day: 261: Mysterious Little Weird Happy Herman Relative and What I Scored at The Flea Market

  Yesterday Lori and I went to what is probably the last Flea Market of the year for us, since they are held outside and it's getting too cold. (Lori only goes to the...uh...'outdoorsy' type of flea market, where they sell animals, guns, used stuff, and animal supplies.Luckily for me, there are also people there with antiques, toys, and 'junk', so you never know what you'll find.) The last flea market we went to had very little stuff for me, but yesterday I filled my cart. (A new, used basket cart that is less embarrassing for Lori than the hinge lidded storage tub duct taped to a light weight 2 wheeler that I have been using.(Personally, I don't care.) It also has rubber heels, so it makes a lot less noise on the flea market's gravel paths than the old 2 wheeler's plastic wheels.Plus the basket is part of the cart, so it doesn't keep falling off like my storage tub. Although I will say this: my storage tub at least contained everything and has a lid, so if it rains nothing will get wet. I brought bags with me, since not everybody at the flea has bags,and stuff was still falling through the square spaces in the basket.I'm going to have to get some waterproof stuff and make a liner for the basket.)
  Anyway, here are some of the goodies I got:
Hot peppers for Ken.

These dolls were 50 cents each.

In Back: Velvet, Velvet, Drowsy,Velvet with moviing waist, (But no pull string, so...not Look Around Velvet?), and Cynthia.In front: Dawn's boyfriend Gary, Dawn...and Dawn, (We seem to be working in multiples here.),Skoocum? half doll,Mammy and Scarlet? Topsy Turvey doll, Stacey head on a non twist and turn bend leg Skipper body, and a mystery girl whose clothes I plan to steal for someone else.

The Velvets are all beautiful. Drowsy actually has all her hair.and it's silky. I just need to make it lay down.The Stacey head is pretty bad: missing face paint and hair, no eyelashes. But the Skipper body is pretty good. One ankle has a small hole.

This bag with a Penny Brite clone and a Katie doll was 25 cents.(The $1 price was not theirs!)

 

"Got milk?" Penny clone has a strange white mark on her upper lip. Either she's channeling Colonel Sanders, or maybe she likes powered sugar donuts.

It didn't scratch off, or come off with a wet finger. I also now notice she has a very similar body to Susie Slicker/Sad Eyes.(Hollow plastic, and not thick, bendy rubber like Penny Brite.) Maybe she will end up loaning her body to my platinum Susie head that came on the 'dress me' body.

And she's wearing Twist and Turn Barbie's swim suit bottom!

This little Dutch girl condiment container, (She has a space in the join between the top and bottom for a tiny serving spoon.) was 25 cents.

And the same lady sold me this Posin Tammy doll for $5. I have never found a Posin Tammy before, only the regular kind.

She also sold me this Furga baby for $1.

I got this pile of dolls and doll clothes for $1.

Various Barbie,Stacie, and Ken clothes,a  Forever Best Friends doll, an older Ken wearing Princess and the Pauper Ken's clothes, and the Ken to go with the clothes. an Animal Crackers Kelly, an original Strawberry Shortcake friend and an Only Hearts Club outfit.

From the same nice man I got a wooden doll wardrobe.I just didn't photograph it.
This German made antique coffee pot and creamer was $10, but the lady offered it to me for $6. Ok!

This little musical jewelry box that looks like and old fashioned stereo was marked $5, but I got it for $3. It's missing the fake record off the 'turntable', but it's still neat.(And it does work.)

From the same guy I got a $2 bag of miscellaneous toys, which I wanted for one thing:

Our doll for today, which is the guy X 4 on the left.

I saw him in the bag and had to have him. When we were kids my sister and I both had 'Happy Herman' dolls.

Happy Herman, made by Larami Corp. Check out that motto! Gross! By the way,I borrowed this picture and I'll be glad to remove it if asked.

Hers had a red vest and mine had a green vest. I don't have mine any more. I still have the head from hers though. She took it off the body, cut the neck hole a bit bigger, and sewed a homemade beaded necklace to his neck and popped it on one of the posts of her four poster bed. (I still have that bed too...) What can I say? She was a weird, artistic hippy type. I don't know what ever happened to mine. My mom liked to sneak toys into the trash when I wasn't looking, so I can guess.
  There were also other dolls, with different bodies and similar head to Herman that were called 'Brat' dolls. Some of them blew up real balloons when you squeezed their stomachs. I have a few of those too. My choice in dolls was fairly consistent...
  Anyway, when I saw this little guy at the flea market I knew I had to have him. Not only did he have that crazy Herman face I loved as a kid, he was tiny. Whereas Herman was about 5 inches tall, this guy was only a couple of inches tall! A miniature Herman! Plus, he was a keyring, and sealed in a plastic bag. I know that some times the stock that remains of old toys gets used for other things by other companies, (or sometimes by the original company.). That's why you find Susie Sad Eyes heads on 'dress me' craft doll bodies new in package, like my platinum girl. The story behind this guy was driving me crazy!
    I didn't want anything else in the bag, so I was about to ask the guy if he would sell me just the tiny 'Herman' when I noticed that there was another one in the bag. Well, that was it. It was worth two dollars now. When I got it home and opened the bag I found that there were FOUR of them!

Taking them out of the bag  of other stuff and having a good look at them showed me something else weird. Tiny Herman's body is very similar to the mold for the Kosmic Kiddles, which were made by Mattel in 1968!

I also had all four Kosmic Kiddles as a kid. (What am I saying? I still have them.)The body is familiar to me, especially since I spent all that time peeling the 'gloves' and 'boots' off of some of them! Talk about wanting to kick yourself. I even wanted to at the time, but I'm a compulsive peeler!)

So now I'm really confused. These guys look amazingly new, but are they? I found this girl on Etsy. She's being sold from Germany.The body mold actually looks closer to hers, which would make a little more sense than him having a Mattel mold.

But was her body mold stolen from Kosmic Kiddles? That kind of thing happened a lot back then.

Supposedly these are from the 70's. Herman was a sixties doll, but a lot of U.S. toys got closed out years later in other counties.Their outfits are also made from odd fabric scraps, just like his.

The outfit is a little weird too.

What exactly is that supposed to be? It's just a soft vinyl square on his head, and an outfit made out of the same stuff, with an added yellow velveteen Kermit collar.

Is that camouflage?

 

What the heck is that? Through the bags I originally thought he was wearing some sort of pirate outfit. Now I don't know what it is. In any case, this guy is a neat find, even if the history of him is going to drive me crazy!