Saturday, October 31, 2015

More Cool Thrift Store Finds: Miss Ginger and Mattel Modern Furniture

  Happy Halloween!

  It's that time of year again. I'm once more locked in that struggle with the yard waste guys. I have been really good about getting my leaves raked this year. Since my shoulder has been so bad I knew I could never rake them all at once, so I have been raking them a little at a time. That means I have only spent about half an hour every Tuesday while I'm here alone because Ken's at work and Ivy's at play practice and stage crew, instead of a whole day spent breaking my back, (and my shoulder). So of course, I fill three cans with leaves and the branches Ken and I cut this week, and the yard waste guys don't come.I think they only come when they feel like it. I can't have my trash can tied up all winter, plus I still have two more piles of leaves in my yard. (I didn't dare load up all my leaves and fill all my trash cans, because the chance of the yard waste guys not coming was too great.) I didn't want to put all my leaves in the tree line, like they actually tell you you can do, because there have been too many years they never came and sucked them up. Then all my grass there dies, and the rotted leaves make the ground all lumpy and hard to mow with my little non-motorized mower.

  I am still pretty proud of the two Fall/Halloween photo stories I did a couple of years ago, so if you haven't seen them yet you can check them out
HERE
"The  World Family at the Pumpkin Patch"

and HERE
"The Halloween Party"

  I found some cool things at Salvation Army the other day. First was this Miss Ginger doll.

Miss Ginger was made by Cosmopolitan. There were other incarnations of Ginger,including a childlike doll that competed with Vogue's Ginny, a taller version of my doll that competed with Miss Revlon,and an 8" version called Little Miss Ginger, similar to Little Miss Nancy Ann. This version is 10 1/2" tall and premiered in 1957.  She's in pretty nice condition.She could do with restringing because she's a little loose, but at least she's still together.I'm not sure exactly what to do with her hair.Is it supposed to be one of those bun things?

Anybody know? I know there were Miss Ginger's with ponytails. But this isn't supposed to be a ponytail, is it? One thing's for sure: it's not meant to be worn down!
That's not a case of empty plugs. It's rooted that way. By the way, she's marked 'Ginger' on the back of her head, just below her hair.
Her dress is too big for her. I'm not sure if it's homemade.I love the belt. It's sewn on in the front, which is why it didn't get lost.I think these are her original shoes though.When I bought her she was only wearing one shoe. I'll tell you where the other shoe came from in a minute.

I also got a bag containing this Mattel Modern Furniture!
There is supposed to be a cushion in the chair.


This other unidentified piece was in the bag too.

The Mattel Modern Furniture is really hard to find and really expensive.


It was actually made a year before Barbie, in 1958.

It's hard to see, but that's a Mattel logo.
The boxes it originally came in said it was for dolls 10" to 10 1/2" tall, like Miss Ginger and Little Miss Revlon.




Miss Ginger and the Little Miss Revlon I found at Goodwill recently.

And it is perfectly sized for them. People still use it for Barbie though, and it works well for her too. It's popular with collectors, especially now that Mid Century design is having a resurgence.

The other Modern Furniture included a couple of different styles of couch, lamps, a stereo cabinet/credenza, dining table and chairs,a bedroom set with bed, clothes rack,and dresser with mirror.

And where did I get the other shoe for Miss Ginger? It was in the middle drawer of this piece of furniture!

 Along with the little plastic guy, who was obviously originally driving something.

His steering wheel was in the drawer too. Must have been some accident.

  So this must have been Miss Ginger's furniture. I went back yesterday to see if any more of the furniture had shown up. If it had it had sold the day before,when I didn't go back. I'm wondering if the Little Miss Revlon and Barbie and Midge I found at Goodwill the last couple of weeks are another case of someone donating half their stuff to Goodwill and half to Salvation Army. That has very obviously happened before. (Like with the zillion Crissy dolls both had at the same time.)
52 in this Goodwill batch. Salvation Army had 42.
You can read the posts about that HERE and HERE.

  I hope everybody has a safe and fun Halloween.This is the first year I have been in the position of handing out candy on Halloween, with no kids Trick or Treating, and I totally didn't think about it until the Trick or Treaters went by! Now I feel guilty! Next year I'll be ready. It's hard getting out of the idea, 'I won't be home on Halloween. I'll be out taking the kids Trick or Treating.' Sniff!

12 comments:

  1. Great finds, I love the Barbie furniture. Happy Halloween :-)

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    1. Thanks. I wish I had fund the bedroom furniture. I think the lamps even worked.

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  2. Well! Very early morning from MS. My husband is a minister, retired and writing all day on beautiful Historic Christianity. So I do not use the computer too often, but spend days thinking of passed times of dolls, puppets and museums.
    And shopping for old, used dolls and doll furniture. I wish my mother was still alive she loved flea markets and antique shops.
    So I purchased a MISS REVLON doll for fifteen dollars... She was in good shape: hair great, shoes good, nylons and girdle in good shape. Black hair and lovely face.
    Do you ever find patterns for her costumes? An acquaintance of mine in 1990 went to an auction and bought up Miss Revlon patterns and fabrics. I copied the patterns, now wish I had used a copier.
    I also would love to find a TERI LEE DOLL OR A walking doll from 1952. All old and maybe a bit damaged. Just don't have time to look.
    Enjoyed the scene of the Barbie doll Halloween photos. Thanks for blogging such interesting subjects DOLLS... ATK

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    1. Thanks Annette. I see Terri Lee dolls on Ebay, etc. Have you tried that? I know they are expensive, but there are also the remade Terri Lee dolls from just a few years ago. I think they're actually prettier than the originals. No, I haven't found any patterns for Miss Revlon clothes, but then, I couldn't sew them if I did! I could never figure out how to use a pattern!

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  3. Happy Halloween :).
    Your two stories are really cute - I love how you can see the emotions - you've captured them perfectly through the movements :)
    Great finds! I really like the furniture

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    1. Thanks so much! I was a bit disappointed because they never got many views,and I thought the pumpkin patch pictures turned out so well. I do have some other stories you can see at http://planetofthedolls.blogspot.com/2013/10/first-day-of-school-photo-story.html and http://planetofthedolls.blogspot.com/2015/06/happy-fathers-day-world-family-is-back.html and http://planetofthedolls.blogspot.com/search/label/doll%20sledding

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    2. So sorry, just saw your answer now >.<. I will definitely check them out - thank you :)

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  4. That Modern Furniture is awesome! If only Mattel made stuff like that today...

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    1. I love that it's really made of wood. There is a lot of wooden doll furniture now, especially the stuff that comes with those big wooden 1/6 scale houses, but it's really chunky and not as realistic looking. I suppose these days they'd say the pointy legs on that Modern Furniture would be too dangerous for kids to play with.

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  5. My daughters did apple bobbing at their Halloween party! The only kids that managed to get apples got them by the stems.

    What is the turquoise and pink outfit your Jo is wearing in the pumpkin patch scene? It looks familiar somehow. I also love her Sleeping Beauty outfit at the Halloween party. Did that come off of a Disney doll?

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    1. We did a sort of apple bobbing at one of the kids' Halloween parties one year. To avoid everybody having their mouths and noses in the same water we strung the apples on fishing line and hung them up. It is just as hard, or harder to catch apples floating in the air! Most of the kids just cheated and used their hands to put the apples to their mouths and bite!
      Jo's sweater is one of those wrap around Barbie sweaters with the sleeves pushed up,and the skirt is from one of those big head teen Skippers I think. The same fabric was used for a skirt on the Fisher Price dollhouse mom in the 90's I think. The blouse is either Barbie or the grown up Skipper they did briefly. I think it has a picture of a diamond on the front. I'm not sure which doll the Sleeping Beauty dress came off of. I may have just had the dress, but I think it probably came off a Mattel Disney Sleeping Beauty. I don't know which one.

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  6. Hello from Spain: great pics. I like your furniture. Keep in touch

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Thanks in advance for your comments.