Today's doll is a recent internet win. She's Teresa.
Teresa was made by Furga in 1967.
I keep referring to her as 'Ter-eeee-sa', but since she is an Italian doll, I suppose she's 'Tair-Ay-sa'.
She's absolutely gorgeously mint, except for some spots on her dress,and all original.
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| She has a big bow tie that nearly covers all the gathers on her dress. |
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| Leather-look shoes. Sorry about the sideways thing... |
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| Bloomers that match her dress and fishnet tights. |
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| There are those gathers. |
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| Her braids are actually tied with pieces of her own hair. |
Teresa is a whopping 24" tall.
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| Eegee's Georgette on the right, Teresa on the left. |
Readers of the blog may have seen my
Eegee Georgette on Doll-A-Day 240 back in September.At that time I didn't have Teresa, and I assumed they were the same size, due to their similarity. I was really surprised when I opened Teresa's shipping box and saw how tall she really is.(Georgette is only 19" tall.)
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| There are differences, like the shade of red hair, and the skin
tone. Georgette may be a little faded out, but I don't think she
started out as pink as Teresa anyway.Georgette also has bigger freckles. Teresa's stuffed body is a pink flesh colour, and Georgette's body is white cotton fabric. |
They are awfully similar though.
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| Georgette even came in the same dress! |
It's like Eegee shrunk the molds for the head and limbs.(Georgette is from 1971.)I still don't know the connection between Eegee and Furga, and if anybody knows, please leave a comment.Other than the size, the only major difference is the shape of the eyes.
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| Georgette's eyes are, well, eye shaped , but Teresa's are vertical ovals. |
Teresa's eyes aren't nearly as alien looking as they appear in some pictures.
Their hair is two different shades of red.
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| Teresa on the left, Georgette on the right. Teresa's hair is silkier, and less choppy looking. Her hair is glued to her forehead and the back of her neck, whereas Georgette's is loose. Notice that Teresa's dress has the gathers in the back too. Also, look at the tiny point of hair they bothered to put at the nape of her neck. My cousin Tim used to end up with the same little piece of hair there when he got his hair cut as a kid. |
I'm sure they both get mistaken for Pippi Longstocking.But then, who doesn't? (Ok. Maybe that was just me...)
In 6th grade we had to line up for lunch right next to a bulletin board with a poster from this Pippi movie on it. I always seemed to get stuck in line right in front of the picture of this girl, who even
I thought looked like me.Same red hair and big teeth. Luckily I at least somewhat grew into my teeth. I wonder what ever happened to this girl!
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| "Hey. Did you know you still have a flower growing here?" It's a weed. Now get back over here and let's get this thing finished. |
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| "Sorry." |
She has sleep eyes, and very long lashes.
I'm not sure if her nail polish is original, but the rest of her has been taken such good care of, I almost think it must be.
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| Notice she even has blush on her hands. |
She has a bit of trouble holding her head up. She also can't stand on her own. Georgette had to back her up here.
Oddly enough, even though she's so much bigger than Georgette, she seems a little bit lighter. From some pictures that were posted of a Teresa re-do, she's stuffed with foam. Georgette must be cotton or something.
Tomorrow is another Skipper Saturday. See you then.
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I am look for a Theresa as I has one given to me on my 10th birthday and unfortunately my ex-husband burnt her. I would dearly love to have her again. If you know of any that are for sale could you let me know.
ReplyDeleteThey do show up on Ebay occasionally. That's where I got mine. You just have to look on a regular basis. Good luck!
DeleteI have this doll. My sister bought it for my 18th birthday, back in 1974. My doll is 43 years old come March 2017.
ReplyDeleteWhere you looking at selling her?
ReplyDeleteOh no, sorry. I'm not ready to part with her.
DeleteI have Georgie and George. I have searched and searched to find something about these dolls!! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGlad I could be of service. Lucky you to have George! Don't forget to check out the post on Georgette. The link is above.
DeleteDid Teresa also come with blue eyes? I just purchased one on eBay (haven't received it yet) and the pictures show this doll with blue eyes and the mouth is a lighter shade of pink,but it looks original. She comes with the box and is made by Furga. Any thoughts? Thanks
ReplyDeleteIt could be the lighting the picture was taken in, making them look more blue. They're sort of a bluey green anyway. Likewise the mouth may have been painted in slightly different shades, or it could be the lighting.
DeleteThank you,I ended up purchasing two different ones, I will share a picture when I get both.
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ReplyDeleteMy Teresa was given to me when I turned 11, so she's 52 now. :) She looks pretty good, but not as impeccable as this one in the pictueres. So many memories.
ReplyDeleteYour Teresa was probably loved more than this girl. Wouldn't we all trade looking perfect for being loved more?
DeleteI find this Furga/Eegee connection really fascinating! I am searching hard for a "mystery doll" that I don't have anymore that I got for Christmas in 1967 or 68 as a child. I have looked at hundreds, maybe thousands of doll pictures, vainly trying to find the right face, and her unique hands, until someone showed me a picture of Teresa, which brought me to your site. That was the wrong doll, but definitely the right face, and especially, hands!
ReplyDeleteI have only two hazy pictures of her, but I know I could recognize her, and I remember her box very well, because that's what lured me in as a kid.
The box was had her holding up that flat right hand, (by wire) --which was shaped *exactly* the same way as these two dolls' hands--like a police officer stopping traffic, and she was "saying" in a word balloon, "Stop! I want a mommy!" The pointy left hand on these seems to me to be *exactly* the same pose as I remember on my doll as well! That instant recognition factor. She was blonde, though, had a "Pebbles Flintstone"-style, top-of-head ponytail thing going on. She wore a minty green sleeper with a lace inset by the neck.
For as well as I remember the box, I don't know what brand name she was; I don't think it was a real "name-name" like Teresa or Georgette, because I usually stuck with an assigned name if they had one, and this doll's name I played around with and changed occasionally--but she clearly seems to be made from this same mold, literally.
Mine was more the size of Georgette, not 2 feet tall like Teresa, but being stuffed with foam like Teresa sounds more to my memory like what mine was, and just the same face mold as well, *exact* same nose and cute, closed, smirky mouth as on both dolls above. Her eyes were shaped basically *exactly* like Teresa's, the very tall eyes. Blue, I think, but I'm not positive.
I know my mother got her at a True Value store, which I very much doubt was selling Italian dolls! I have not been able to find any other Eegee or Furga dolls with this general sort of look, face and style at all, much less any other dolls at all anywhere with the same exact hand mold to try to compare.
Whoever was passing around this mold, expanding it, shrinking it, whatever, I think Georgette and Teresa had another (apparently older/progenitor!) sister out there somewhere!
I do have those fuzzy pictures if you're interested, and a rough Microsoft Paint sketch I did of her in her box which I remember quite well except for any kind of name. I've looked at pictures of dolls of the period still in their boxes, and the box looked a lot like an Eegee box or maayybe Horsman box, as opposed to other companies, and almost certain it was olive green with orange or peach highlights.
Actually, Italian dolls were sold over here, including Teresa and other Furga dolls. I would love to see your photos. In fact, maybe we could include those in this post, and some day maybe somebody will spot it and tell us who your doll was. Comment with your contact information, and I'll get in touch with you. Then we can figure out how you can send the pictures. In the meantime, I'll do some research myself.
DeleteIs it this one?! https://www.pinterest.it/pin/985231147381907/ or this one? https://www.pinterest.it/pin/657314508084108435/
DeleteThanks for your interest! Your site is the first solid lead I've had which led to some good clues!
DeleteYour second link didn't work for me, but I did see some other related dolls that were similar linked on Pinterest when I went to your first link. This blonde one looks the most like mine out of those, because of her hair: https://www.pinterest.it/pin/326862885459866650/ . I saw other blonde Giudittas there with curly hair but mine's hair wasn't curly. I haven't been able to figure out when these types of Giudittas were created/sold (but around '70 or so) nor their exact size or body types. And in most of the pictures you can't seem much of their hands.
I then ran across on Pinterest some Furga Arabellas, @18 inches, so more like Georgette's size or my doll's size. They were a big clue. They have wire/foam bodies. But especially, they have the same very distinctive flat/pointing hand molds! They also have somewhat similar heads to all the others, and very tall eyes...but a very different mouth, open with teeth. And a very different box than mine or any other doll I've seen.
I'm starting to think maybe mine had the foam-with-wire body like the Arabellas, maybe even the same body mold, because around the same time I also had a Baby Trix with a foam/wire body, but she wasn't as much a huge favorite. At first I thought I might be blurring them a little.
But when I went to this French site about Arabellas,
( https://www.paramourdespoupees.com/t3662-ARABELLA.htm ), the Arabella without clothes (down a couple posts on that site) did look strikingly familiar and struck me like that exact body (as opposed to Trix's) belonged on a favorite doll I really loved. That unclothed Arabella doll's worn-off-to-white-wire "toes" also rang a memory bell for me. (I do own another Baby Trix now, and Trix's foam body is similar but was somewhat different--chubbier, with a belly button, and with distinct divided toes.) Maybe my mystery doll WAS foam, which would make her like an Arabella body but with a head design much more like Teresa?
I can't remember for sure, but I really feel she was either foam/wire, or her torso was stuffed with foam. Not stuffed with cotton-type stuffing, I am pretty sure. If she did have a foam body, though, one of my photos shows that the plastic part of her arms went up quite high, maybe even farther than that Arabella's arms. In that same photo I have my hand over my doll's feet, so maybe I was hiding some beat-up foam feet with white wires coming through? (In that photo mine isn't wearing her original green sleeper that covered her feet. I am pretty sure she IS wearing her original sleeper in the other photo I have, which is b/w, but as I said, they aren't super-quality photos.)
Oops, it's telling my my comment is too long. Maybe it will let me put the rest in a "part 2"? I'd love to share my pictures and clues and even my primitive attempt at drawing the box. My email is: lauri point a AT gmail DOT com, if you leave out the spaces and replace the capital letters with the appropriate symbols. If you need other contact information, you can let me know here or at that email. Thanks again!
Part 2
DeleteArabella came out a couple of years before I got my doll, which now makes it seem like the general design, the tall eyes and especially that original hand mold with "stop" and "pointer" hands, was indeed originally designed by Furga in 1966 for Arabella, then since Furga seems to have some cross-pollination connection with Eegee, and also my box looked quite Eegee-ish, so I'm guessing probably Eegee made mine concurrently with (or shortly after) Teresa, both with the same basic head/chin shape, tall eyes, unusual hands, but a different mouth (thin, closed sweet smile) from Arabella. Then apparently a few years later in 1971, Eegee made Charlotte/Charlie with many similar features but slightly different eyes.
Which makes sense now, because it seems more likely that Eegee would be making Furga "knockoffs", or being able to buy/borrow some of their mold designs, whatever, than the other way around!
Then as a final P.S., after all that I also ran across another Italian doll called Petula, made by the Ratti company, in about 1968, again no idea about any inter-company connections, but she has a quite similar face style, but with a bit chubbier cheeks. She also has hands in those same very peculiar positions--but the hands look to me like they may be chubbier! Or maybe I'm just beginning to lose it after looking at so many doll hands! I wonder if anyone's ever done a study of doll hands! :-D
All these dolls seem to be clearly "related", though!(I knew that Furga dolls were sold in the US, but I doubt they were sold in hardware stores, which sold a few toys on the side, mostly at Christmas, which is what True Value stores are if you didn't know (don't know where you're located). And I know that True Value is definitely where we got her. My sister had a fancy doll that I think was a Furga (looked very much like this one: https://www.pinterest.it/pin/708472585126452964/ ) This was considered a much different type of "special" doll by our parents, to be regarded with a degree of awe, just for looking at, not for playing with. We knew hers was an expensive "foreign" doll, and my sister basically had to leave it sitting on top of her dresser as a decoration, while my mystery doll was just a "regular"-not terribly-fancy doll bought at the hardware store, which was fine for playing with.)
Sorry to run on so, but that's what happens when you give a detective a clue! ;-)
(P.P.S., I now see that Mattel bought Ratti in 1969, but that was after most of our tall-eyed, unusual-handed friends had been created.)
I'm going to have to look back through my posts, but I remember writing about some companies who both got their parts from the same manufacturer. Maybe that's the case here, with those hands. I found a Furga doll from 1969, called Martina.
Deletehttps://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=4fe896d42225783c&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS957US957&sxsrf=ACQVn08olzOtsBPmaw-KJi8E7Uh8YhK-Qg:1709238594382&q=furga+martina+doll&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwihmYT6sdGEAxV-jYkEHQyEDcUQ0pQJegQIDRAB&biw=1540&bih=738&dpr=1.25
She came in one piece footies. (The one I saw had peach coloured ones, but they may have come in various colours.) She has vinyl legs, although they do look bendy. But she didn't have those hands. But that led me to this Furga doll:
https://www.ebay.it/itm/185576008517?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=724-53478-19255-0&campid=5338722076&customid=&toolid=10050, who seems to have the hands, but not the other qualifications.
Interesting! I've found a few more "relatives" as well. I'll check these out when I can!
DeleteI found a picture of a Martina doll sans clothing and it seems she has a cloth body. I do agree that photos I found of Martina in peach sleeper does look like she could possibly be foam, though. Your second link led me to an ad Paciughina doll who is cute doesn't seem to have the hands in question. Was that the right link? Anyway, I emailed you a bunch of the information I found!
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