I Just Discovered Milly's Miniatures! A Look at A Tiny Robin Hood

   As I have mentioned before, Ken and I have been taking one or two days a week, when he's off from work, to just take off in the car and have a 'Fun Day'. We pick a direction and just drive off. If we come to something we think is interesting, we stop. Yesterday we ended up in a town an hour or so away, and were looking for somewhere to eat, when I spotted a store that looked like it had antiques amongst it's cottagy décor items. So we went in for a look. I was looking in a showcase when Ken pointed out a little Robin Hood doll. He was about 3 and a half inches tall, maybe, with nice detailed clothes and a tiny bow.

  He's standing on a piece of paper that says he's a 'Milly's Miniatures' and that he came 'From the birthplace of James Whitcomb Riley'. Below that, written in pencil, it says 'Robin Hood'.

He's stuck to the paper, which makes it hard to read. 

He has a velvet tunic and a brown pipe cleaner bow. I'm not sure what his feet are made of.  

I did have him out of the showcase, but I didn't think to have Ken take some pictures until he was put back and the employee had gone back to her other work. So, sorry, these are through the showcase glass and hard to see.

I was confused by the blob of fuzzy brown yarn in the lower part of his face. Is it a mustache? A furry mouth? What?

  I was quite taken with little Robin Hood, despite his weird fur blob mouth...or nose. but NOT by his price! He was $135! What?! 

  I had never heard of Milly's Miniatures. When I got home I researched 'Milly's Miniatures'. I found a picture of another Milly's Miniatures Robin Hood, and he doesn't have the blob. He does, however, have a satchel and a little arrow for his tiny bow, (which is wooden and not pipe cleaner like the other guy's.), and a feather in his hat. I could see something was missing from the other guy's hand.

This picture is from his 2018 auction listing, where he was estimated at $400 to $600!

 He was a local boy too, as his auction was in Parma Ohio. That's your neck of the woods, Barb.

I think the blob was originally a mustache. If he was made in the 1940's, the memory of 1938's "The Adventures of Robin Hood", with Errol Flynn and his tiny mustache, would have been in Milly's mind.

The outfit was certainly based on his, but where is Milly boy's tiny beard?

  It turns out that Robin was made by a lady named Mildred Davis. She made the dolls from the 40's to the 60's.  Mildred was born in 1900, and lived in Greenfield, Indiana. One thing I read said that the dolls were made to raise money for the Riley Old Home Society, at James Whitcomb Riley's birthplace in Greenfield. I hadn't heard of Milly's Miniatures, but I had heard about  James Whitcomb Riley's home though, because we see signs for it every time we go to Ivy's college. James Whitcomb Riley was a very successful poet who lived from 1849 to 1916. His work was extremely popular, and he did live readings, at one point earning $1000 a week. He was born in Greenfield Indiana, and his boyhood home is now a historical site. He later lived in Indianapolis, and the house there is a museum now, fully decorated in the furniture and style of the 1800's. Doll people may be familiar with James Whitcomb Riley's work without even realizing it. That's because Raggedy Ann was named after two of his most famous poems, "The Raggedy Man" and "Little Orphant Annie". ("Little Orphant Annie has nothing to do with the comic strip/movies/character 'Little Orphan Annie', but it is the source of the phrase 'the goblins'll get you if you don't watch out'.)

   I managed to find a picture of the little booklet that came with the dolls, that lists the dolls available. There was a group of dolls based on characters in Riley poems, a group of 'Indiana characters', and a group based on nursery rhymes. 

Ken wondered how many she would have made of each one. Good question, but I don't have an answer.

  If the dolls were 'from the birthplace of James Whitcomb Riley', that would make them strictly a local product. That would be why they were described on line as 'hard to find' and 'rare', and it accounts for that price! The only way they would originally have gotten out of the general area of Greenfield is if someone visiting Riley's home from far away bought one of the dolls and took it home with them. That's possible, since the dolls seem to have been sold as souvenirs from the home. Of course, I'm not sure how far people would have come in the 40's or 50's to see Riley's home, but they might have visited while passing through. It might also mean that a lot of local people might have visited the home and bought some of the dolls. They might be floating around here all over the place, especially in Indiana. That brings me back to Ken's question. If only one lady was making these dolls, how many could she possibly have made? Just how rare are they? Will I ever find another one 'in the wild'?

  The dolls originally came on their piece of heavy paper, like Robin Hood, inside a small box like a box jewelry comes in. There were two different size boxes because the dolls ranged from 3 to 4 inches tall, . They also came with the list, and a small paper describing the doll. The dolls have embroidered faces and cloth outfits. They seem to have a pipe cleaner armature, but I'm still not sure what those feet are. From what I can tell, it isn't metal.

  I've developed a thing for small dolls lately, like Tiny Town dolls, the Caco dollhouse dolls and the Baps dolls. Milly's Miniatures gives me another series to be on the hunt for, and-- yay!---they're local! I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for these little guys now. I'm anxious for the next time we head toward Ivy's school, not only to see Ivy, but to hunt down some of Milly's Miniatures.