Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Doll-A-Day 2017 #185:Francie's Friend Casey

  Happy Fourth of July! Today's doll,wearing red, white, and blue, is Casey.


  Casey was introduced on 1967, as the best friend of Barbie's cousin Francie.


She was available until 1970.


 Casey had her name on some cases and houses, but she had no fashions of her own and had to share all of Francie's clothes.


She's wearing Francie's  Concert in the Park fashion from 1966.

The shoes are Mod Era Barbie, but don't go to this outfit. Oh,please excuse her support stick!


  Like Francie Casey is 11 1/4" tall.


  Casey came as a brunette or a blonde.

Over the years some of the brunettes' hair has oxidized to a reddish colour.
  Casey's short hair wasn't always the same length. There are a lot of variations in the dolls' hair. Some Casey's have hair that barely reaches the chin, and others have hair that almost reaches the shoulders.

She was known for her single earring,a dangling gold triangle on a chain.


It's almost always missing if you find a Casey doll.

Case in point.
Casey, like Francie,has rooted eyelashes.

  
Casey had a unique open mouthed head sculpt.



The Casey head sculpt was also used for the Twiggy doll from 1967 to 1968.


Alot of people have trouble telling Casey from Twiggy.The heavy eyelashes and slightly shorter hair are the best ways to make sure it's a Twiggy and not a Casey.


  A few years later the sculpt was also used for Malibu Francie. She was sold from 1971 to 1977.

Not the most attractive use of the head sculpt.

Like the later Francie,Casey had bend legs and a twist waist.



See you tomorrow for another doll.

12 comments:

  1. http://tamararubin.com/2017/12/francie/

    What do you think of this? I was alarmed to see that Malibu Francie was tested to contain as much as 1000x the modern regulated "safe" levels of cadmium. I could never stop collecting vintage dolls because I love them so much, but what's a collector to do...?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hadn't heard about the cadmium. There are other dangers too. Here's a post that talks about one:http://planetofthedolls.blogspot.com/2017/08/doll-day-2017-243-bend-leg-skipper.html

      Delete
    2. I private-messaged that blogger on Facebook and she said that most vintage dolls with rubbery vinyl limbs have levels of cadium and/or lead in the 0.07-0.2% range, which is highly unlikely to harm an adult collector who keeps them on a shelf, but could be problematic for a small child who puts things in their mouth to play with, though I think most avid collectors already know better than to hand our beloved valuable vintage dolls to a toddler ;)! She said since rubbery vinyl arms and legs are the main culprit, straight-leg dolls with their rigid legs tend to have much lower levels.

      Delete
    3. Thanks.It's good to have as much information as possible. Did she say it was just dangerous if they were put in your mouth,or could frequent handling be dangerous too?

      Delete
  2. Frequent handling is somewhat a gray area I would assume, but I think the main issue is mouthing. To put this into further perspective, MANY unavoidable everyday items such as doorknobs, house keys, and dishes tested MUCH higher levels of lead and/or cadmium than any doll, so it's completely impossible to avoid these potential toxins altogether, but on a positive note I looked up the main causes of cadmium exposure and they were smoking and certain kinds of seafood and meat, so a vegetarian who doesn't smoke could arguably compensate for any cadmium exposure they get from vintage dolls ;)!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's good to hear,for me anyway! I thought I would have escaped high cholesterol too, but my tests last time came back saying my cholesterol is borderline high! I think it's true what we read when my husband's dad had high cholesterol even though he was strict with his heart healthy diet: when you take in too little cholesterol your body produces it to make up for it. There's just no winning.
      I live in an old house with mostly metal doorknobs, and I never thought about that before. I wonder what they are made out of? You truly can't escape toxins. They are EVERYWHERE!

      Delete
  3. There's also apparently a difference between total cadmium levels and soluble levels which these tests can't show

    ReplyDelete
  4. I also just e-mailed Mattel the link out of curiosity to see what they had to say about this issue. Will keep you posted if/when I receive any kind of response!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sure they'll want to stay mum about it for legal reasons. but really, they can;t be held responsible because people weren't aware of the dangers when they produced the dolls. If they could be held accountable the flood gates would be opened for people to sue every company that ever produced anything that turned out to be toxic over the years.

      Delete
  5. As for how this info has effected my own future collecting, even though the odds of it seriously harming us aren't high, it certainly couldn't hurt to always make sure to wash our hands well after handling vintage dolls, and while it's not realistic at all to avoid buying dolls with the rubbery bendy legs at all, when I have a choice between two similar dolls one with straight legs and the other with bendable legs, it's better to try and go with the straight legs. Like I might stick to straight-leg vintage Skippers since the straight-leg and bend-leg versions are so similar other than the legs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess it's lucky I can't afford many bend leg dolls! I am seriously considering thinning out some stuff I don't like as much.

      Delete

Thanks in advance for your comments.