Doll-A-Day 2023 #334: Baby Santa

   Today's doll is one that belonged to my sister when she was a kid. I played with him too. He's...Santa Claus.

  Now this guy isn't your ordinary Santa doll. For one thing, he has a beard, but a baby's face! He also has blonde hair, which is weird. There was an African American version of this doll, and he has blonde hair too.

With little baby curls along the bottom.

  He's about 9 inches tall. He's almost exactly the same size as my Newborn Thumbelina, and in my world when I was a kid, he was her boyfriend.

He used to be much more plush I guess! He's all soft and stuffed, except for his soft rubber head.

  My sister was born in 1956, but I'm finding this doll described as a 1955 Knickerbocker baby Santa. He would have originally had a Santa hat too. We always had a little velvet Santa hat floating around in our doll clothes. I figured it was his, but all the pictures I see have him with a hat with a bell on the end. Ours has a pom pom. I have it somewhere.

  That's today's doll. Also check out the first day of The Twelve Days of Tammy World post today.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #276: Sweet Sue Sophisticate

 Today's doll came from the toy show I went to the other day. She's Sweet Sue Sophisticate.

  Hey, I tried not to buy this doll. The dealer came at me, offering her, and my sister tried to get me to buy her. But she was $45. I said no, and the dealer told me to make an offer. My sister pushed me to go ahead and make one. I said no, because I didn't want to make the dealer mad by offering a low price. He kept saying to go ahead, because he wouldn't be offended. My sister pushed on. I said, "Oh, I think he'd be mad if I offered $20." Wouldn't you know it! The dealer said, "That's just what I was thinking, $20." Crap! Trapped like a rat! So I took her. She is very nice though.

  Sweet Sue was made by the American Character Doll Company between 1951 and 1961, in various sizes. She started out as a large walker doll, and a smaller doll in  a variety of sizes. (You can see my two HERE and HERE.) Sweet Sue Sophisticate appeared in 1957. She was made in two sizes, 14" and 20". This one is 20" tall.

She has a face that really does look like a more mature Sweet Sue.

She has big blue eyes with some gold in them.

Her lower lashes are painted, and she has brush lashes on top. Her eyebrows are only a couple of brush strokes.

She has sleep eyes.

While we're in close, let's look at her jewelry. She has pearl earrings, (mine is missing one), and a necklace.

Her dress is midnight blue taffeta.

It has a V neckline, and cap sleeves, trimmed with black lace.

The bodice is accentuated with a gold trimmed 'jewel'.

It's a very pretty dress, and in good shape, except for one thing...

A patch! There's a ding dang PATCH on the back, at her shoulder! A hunk of black velvet that shouldn't oughta be there!

  Crap! Taken again! I need to react more slowly!

The hemline of the dress is sort of scalloped and puffed. I don't know how to describe it.

Here's that sleeve trim again. and that *%#@* PATCH!

  The dress has a built in tulle underskirt and slip. Her you can kind of see the elastic or whatever around the hem.

She also has undies, and stockings.

I could not decide which feet these shoes went on. Both ways looked wrong. There is also a strap that goes at the back, over the heel. This one's straps are a bit stretched.

  Her hair is quite long, but still curled and in the original set.

She even still has her curled bangs.

It's brown, but came off a little red when I used the flash.

She has a few bobby pins in her hair, holding it in place, but I don't know if they're original.

 She's quite a pretty doll.

She would have originally had what I think is called a headband hat or half hat, in a fabric that matched her dress, and a black purse.

She has very elegant arms, I think. Of course, there's that PATCH again!!

I love the colour and fabric of her dress.

I might not keep her. She was a good deal. (A much better deal before I knew about that patch!) I thought it would have been silly to pass her up, even if I did get rid of her later.

And I guess I cave under pressure.

  That's today's doll, See you tomorrow,  

Doll-A-Day 2023 #273: Horsman Doll

  I got this doll at the toy show the other day. I have no idea who she is, as I looked her up on the Horsman doll identification page, and I couldn't find any doll exactly like her. But here she is.

She's about 14 inches tall.

She does say Horsman on the back of her neck.

  Her face has some damage There's a nick in the colour on her nose, and her eyebrows have apparently been drawn on with black marker.

Those eyebrows look like they'll be easy to remove.

  She ha sleep eyes with brush lashes.

And she has teeth. They are a bit off center though. 

She's strung, and jointed at the neck, shoulders, and hips. Her little knees are blushed.

Her undies have a built in short slip.

 Her hair is mostly in it's original set. It's a bit surprising her hair is in such good condition, considering how dirty and worn her face is. It's a nice colour too, sort of a dark auburn.

It's full of hairpins.

What a beautiful colour! That's the red I would have loved my hair to have been.

  I think her dress is homemade. It's a pretty good job, but I can tell from the stitches that hold the rhinestone straps on in the inside. (They are rhinestones, but they have darkened.)

Her dress does have a built in underskirt. She's also wearing undies.

  She seems worth saving. Think how cute she'd be with her face washed, new eyebrows, and her nose nick fixed, her hair tidied, and a cute little dress.

  She was in a box under the dealer's table, along with some more boring dolls and light fixtures and stuff. The dealers kept coming over and saying, "$8. The dolls in those boxes are $8." That's not bad, but you can't fault someone for trying! So I said, "Would you take 5?" He immediately came back with "Six." Done and done.   

  If anybody knows who she is, please leave a comment. See you tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #262: Plastic Baby Doll

   Today's doll belongs to my sister. He's a simple plastic baby doll.

  You can see where he used to have a bottle on his chest, that disappeared many decades ago. It was a 'magic bottle':  a clear plastic bottle with white sand in it, that disappeared when the baby was laid down.

  My sister was born in 1956, so he is most certainly from the late 50's. He's about 8 or 9 inches tall. The poor kid has a melt mark on his leg, as you can see. This old plastic does that, often from being in contact with another plastic it reacts to.

He has a marking on his back, but I can't read it. I do know that he was made by Irwin though. He's wearing a molded and painted diaper, but the paint is mostly worn off on the back, so it looks like he just has a weirdly lumpy butt.

  That's today's doll. Sorry it's short, but I am still doing wedding clear up duty, and trying to go through the pictures I took. See you tomorrow, when I will almost certainly photograph something to post, because Ken got my camera working again.