Where's That Book Post Then?!

   I know the Book of the Month is a couple of days late. I spent the last week and a half running around getting things done for other people. For one thing we spent a few days getting Fuzz moved and sorted out. I took a day in between to let my leg recover. Yesterday I went with my sister to a toy show, which is quickly becoming over run with dolls. I made some good finds, which I will share with you soon, in more ways than one. In other words,  I got a bulk deal which included a lot of dolls I don't want, so they will be available for adoption. There is some interesting stuff in there. I also got a box full of stuff for an amazing $5, but I'm getting ahead of myself, and my posts, here. I'll show you that stuff soon. And it will have to be soon, because here's a surprise: We are finally taking our trip to England and farther shores! And it's for certain this time, because flights are booked, accommodations arranged, sisters and friends alerted,  arrangements made and remade. We have lift off! And we will be lifting off later this month! So the other thing I've been doing is working on the plans, (most of the big stuff was taken care of by Emma and Ken. I did the small stuff like making connections with friends and reminding people of details and gathering together things we need to take with us, like the luggage scale, plug converters, chargers, gifts for everybody, etc. Before we leave I have to get the rest of my windows scraped, puttied, and painted. With my bad leg that's going to be a challenge. I also need to let my leg rest and heal, or there's going to be a real problem. 

  Anyway, expect the book post tomorrow, and I will have another readied and set to post at the end of the month while we are gone. See you soon!

My Beautiful Bargain Skipper

   I'm still here, and the leg is on the mend. Whether it's because of the massive, (and extremely painful)  pop it did as I was climbing into bed the other night, or because I'm not climbing into bed the same way any more, or a combination of both, I don't know. To explain a little bit, I have an old four poster bed, and with the box springs, (These days they call it a box, because there are no springs in it.), and modern thick mattress, the bed is about waist high for me. (When I was a kid this bed seemed  like it was on a whole other plane.) I have trouble climbing in. So I had taken to climbing up on the side rail and jumping up on the bed, but to do that, I put my foot sideways on the rail, and then lifted all my weight on my sideways leg. That's a lot of weight. I knew it hurt after my leg started acting up, but the theory that that was what was causing the leg pain was something that was only a vague thought until the 'pop'. Anyway, I have stopped climbing in that way, and the leg seems to have gotten so much better so quickly. My new method of climbing into bed involves flopping up as far as I can and bracing one foot against the bed post and shoving. (I'm waiting for the post to snap.) It reminds me of the scene in "Only Murders in the Building" where Steve Martin has been poisoned, and is trying to get himself down to the lobby of the hotel, and ends up sort of upside down in the elevator, trying to push the buttons with his feet.

  But what you are here for is dolls. Today we're looking at one I got at the recent doll show I went to with my sister. I haven't added much to my Skipper collection for a while, but I did get Skipper's Sunny Suity play suit for a dollar at the show, and the girl we're looking at today, for $5!

  I should have taken before and after pictures, but as usual, I was so keen to get her rehabilitated, that I only took 'afters'. But when I got her, her hair was all bunched up on the sides of her head, and her bangs were really frizzy, which is a common problem with pre-mod era Skippers.

She turned out quite nice though. You can't really tell from these pictures, but she has a great shade of bright orange hair.

  She has a bit of an eyebrow rub on one eyebrow, but I could fix that if I wanted to bother. She still looks good.

Her hair is so bright orange that I thought at first she must be a color magic Skipper.

She isn't though, or she would have a brunette painted scalp, and not a red one. (If you don't know what I mean, click 'color magic Skipper' in the sidebar.) Oh well. She still looks great, especially for $5!

I have had a sinus headache for three days, so I am going to take a nap, before Emma picks me up to go to Detroit. I'm Emma's default concert going buddy, and tonight I get to tag along to see Florence and the Machine. I'll see you soon with another doll I got at the show.

Betsy From the Doll Show

   Let's try this again. You don't know this, but I tried to do this post before. I set all the pictures to loading, and then, because it takes ages, I went about doing some other stuff. When I came back the pictures were all loaded, so I 'selected' all the pictures and clicked to load them onto the post. Of course, what I didn't realize  was that while I  was gone the laptop had gone offline. So the pictures didn't show up. It said 'update failed'. I signed back on, but the pictures still weren't showing up, so I assumed I would have to do everything all over again. At that point it was late, my leg hurt, and I was tired, so I gave up for the night. I kept putting off doing it again because it frustrated me. When I did come back to it, I found that the pictures had loaded after all, and were here all the time!

  So I'm doing this today, instead of being out on Fun Day with Ken, for two reasons. One: last night climbing into our tall bed, I popped something in my bad leg. It was excruciating, and it hurts REALLY badly today. I'm staying off it as much as possible, not least of all because moving it hurts so much. The other reason we're home today is that we have finally been planning our trip to England, but Ken discovered a couple of days ago that he can't find his passport. The last time we used our passports was five years ago, when we went to Canada for our anniversary. (We went to Canada on our first date. That's a story and a half, which you might have read in THIS POST.) When we came back I wanted to put our passports in the vanity, where I keep our birth certificates, social security cards, and my passport. I made the mistake of saying, "Let me put yours in here too so it doesn't get lost." Ken was very indignant. How dare I insinuate that he couldn't keep track of his own passport! He wouldn't lose it! So he refused, and found his own storage place for his passport. Five years later we are trying to plan this trip, and he wanted to get the names exactly right on the tickets, because the last time his sister booked the flight and got something slightly different in the names, and they weren't going to let us fly. She had to pay extra to change the name. (She was treating us to the trip.) So he wants my passport, which I got out of the vanity a couple of weeks ago and laid up in the bedroom with some other things I don't want to forget to take. He then proceeded to try to find his passport, and couldn't.  He's torn the house apart looking, and can't find it. I have been vindicated. So now he won't book the trip because he's afraid of getting the name wrong and not being able to use the tickets. I told him, it's almost certainly his full name, and just book it and find his passport later. It hasn't left the house. We'll see.+

  Anyway, today what we're really here for is to look at this doll I got at the doll show recently. Remember I said I went to two doll shows in the space of a week. I went to one on a Sunday, by myself, and the second one I went to the next Saturday, with my sister. We went to the same show last year and it was all really expensive fashion dolls, and just basically things I either couldn't afford or didn't want. So I wasn't crazy about going, but my sister had enjoyed it and wanted to go again.  So we went. But this time I found quite a few things I wanted and could even afford. I even won a door prize! Again! This time it was $25 to spend at the show. Before entering the main sales room, where I placed my entry in the box to win the door prize,  there were a bunch of tables out in the hallway to shop. One table belonged to a guy who knew nothing about dolls, but who said he had 'bought a collection from my buddy". From his table I got this girl.

She's a pre-teen Betsy McCall. You may have seen my other one HERE. This one has a bit of an eye problem, and a haircut. You'll notice in the first few pictures that her one eye  is not sitting in the socket properly. I managed to get it fixed though, and now it stays in place. You can see that in the rest of the pictures.

This is pre-eye fix. She also needs the edges of her eyelashes touched up, but that's no big deal.

That eye was twisted in the socket, and the metal socket was showing at the bottom.

This looks really bed. I kept shoving the metal part down, and it looked fine, but came right back up in no time.

We're getting there!

And fixed!

The eyes on these dolls look a little alien anyway. I had been shoving it so much it started to go sideways. Then I shoved it another direction and it popped into place. I wish I could do that with my leg!

   This one has darker hair than the other one I got. It's a very pretty auburn colour. 

  I did a little part reweaving on her, and her hair is a bit choppy at the back, but it doesn't show much.

  When I got her she was wearing a dress belonging to the Kellogg's Calico Lassie, or  Elly May Clampett doll. I had this dress from some other stuff I bought and it has been waiting for someone to wear it. I think it suits her colouring pretty well. It matches her lips.

It was a windy day at the park!

Ken and I have been going through that park often, to see if we can see any animals. The day I took these pictures we saw some deer, some vultures, and a heron.

She almost looks photoshopped into this picture, but she's not.

This one kind of looks photoshopped too.

  When I went into the woods to take these pictures, so I could get the water in the background, (There's a pond or part of the reservoir back there somewhere.), I found some hickory nuts. Ken helped me and we picked up a bag full. Well, half a bag.

  Then I started taking her picture on this rock, and found that I had lost one of her shoes. (They aren't actually her shoes. I think they're Ginny shoes. They were straight pinned onto her feet!) They don't fit well, but they matched her dress.

I had to back track to where I entered the woods, and I found them. 

  She's not very posable, just neck, shoulders and hips, but I like her.

Especially now that I got her eye fixed.

Next time I'll show you what else I got and tell you what I did with my door prize money. See you then.

The Doll Book of the Month Club: Henriette, The Story of a Doll

   This month's Doll Book of the Month Clun entry is Henriette, The Story of a Doll, by Tracy Friedman. The illustrations are by Verna Rosenberry.

  Henriette is a beautiful china doll from France. The book opens with Henriette in the warmth and comfort of her elderly owner's arms, in a cozy chair. 

When her owner, who was given Henriette when she was a child, opens a letter, out drops a gold locket. The locket belonged to the daughter of Henriette's owner. Henriette had been passed on to the daughter, but the daughter had moved away as an adult and left Henriette behind. 

The Civil War ensued, and after a time, the daughter, (and her husband), passed away, but not before having a child of her own. Henriette's owner had tried to find her granddaughter, Amanda, and finally the locket had been sent as proof that  Amanda had been located. She is in Atlanta, in an orphanage. Henriette's owner sadly decides that Amanda would be better off being adopted than coming to live with an old lady on a decaying plantation.

  When the owner leaves the room, Henriette knows what she must do. She was meant to be Amanda's doll, and she must get to Amanda before she is adopted and lost forever. And, a doll after my own heart, Henriette decides to take the locket back to Amanda too, as it should be with her. Henriette does something most dolls in books like this don't get to do: She communicates with her owner. She writes a note to her owner, telling her where she has gone, and promising she will try to bring Amanda back. She digs through her trunk of clothes and puts on a red velvet cloak and a straw bonnet, and sneaks out through the kitchen, and into the wide world. Luckily a load of cotton is about to be sent to Atlanta, and Henriette is just on time to hitch a ride.

  This book reminds me a bit of Hitty, or The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane , (Click on those titles to read my reviews), in that it tells of a doll's journey somewhere, and her adventures along the way.

 'Henriette' has neither the complexity of Hitty's story, nor the poetry of Edward Tulane's, but then, it's much shorter than either of those books.  'Henriette' is a short, 64 pages, and if you have patient children who can sit for somewhere between half an hour and an hour, (I didn't time my read, and I don't know how fast you read.), you could cover the book in a sitting. It's an entertaining book, although I wasn't quite satisfied altogether with the ending. It didn't really settle everything. It's almost like there should have been a sequel. And there was! The sequel is called, "The Orphan and the Doll". I think both books should have been combined into one satisfying story, but I guess there were a couple of years in between. I think I can still recommend 'Henriette'. 

Two Doll Shows in One Week! Am I Lucky or Crazy?

   I have been to two doll shows in the space of a week! I went to the first one on my own last Sunday, and would have skipped the second one entirely except that my sister wanted to go again. We went last year, and my sister, who has no interest in dolls really, enjoyed it so much that she wanted to go again! So we went Saturday, and I probably did better at the second one as far as finding good stuff. This post is going to focus on the first show, where I took pictures. I didn't take any at the second show, just because I didn't think that show lends itself as well to interesting photographs. So the post on that show will focus on what I bought there. (I did buy something I've been wanting at the first show, but I'm saving that for a special post involving some other dolls. The few other things I bought will be dribbled out as I get them photographed.)

  Before I start, to update you briefly on my leg, it still hurts. I'm still limping a bit and if I'm on my feet too much the leg and my back really start to get out of control pain-wise. So I'm trying to not overdo, and I think the leg is continuing to improve little by little.

  Now, on to the show...

It was held in Strongsville Ohio, up near Cleveland. It's about an hour and a half drive for me.

  My pictures loaded totally backward from the order I took them. The first dolls  I'm showing you were some of the last I looked at. This dealer had some very interesting and very expensive dolls. A lot of them were cloth or cloth faced, and they had great personality. I loved the 'modern major general' looking guy with the red feathers, and the wonderful girl in the red skirt.  

I've left this for a week, and now I forget where the girl was made. Czechoslovakia maybe?

The two googly eyed dolls are great.

This guy was the dealer's favourite and not for sale. She called him Good Time Charlie, and likes to imagine he's 'been out on a bender'. For those not familiar with the term, it means he's been out on a drinking spree.

The two gentlemen in the back were former museum pieces, created by an artist named Helmut Krauhs. Their prices were over $2000.

Sorry I photographed her paper badly! In too much of a hurry.

These were more of the dealer's gems. I love the cat and the girl in the chair.

These dolls are more Jammi Originals, like the girl in the chair, and the kids below.

I thought it was clever that the dealer had made use of a bakery stand to display all these small dolls.

These two French characters seem to be under the scrutiny of the gendarme.

These people look a little like potatoes.

These guys had such great faces. Their tag says they are Japanese dolls.

   Moving on to other dealers, I saw this Tearie Dearie, just like the one I got for Christmas in 1965. You can see her in my post on Christmas HERE.

  One dealer was promoting her own handmade resin ball jointed dolls.  

She designs them all and makes them using a 3D resin printer, (not the type that uses filament.) She sells them as finished dolls, and as kits for making your own.

The dolls are available in several sizes, and you can mix and match the body parts to create your own customized doll.

There were also anthropomorphic dolls.

The dolls range in size from larger, 12" or so dolls...

...to 8 or 9 inch dolls...

...to this little 4 or 5 inch doll that fit in the palm of my hand...

She had made a lot of Legend of Zelda characters, at her son's request!

...to the very tiny doll about 3 inches tall that you saw above in the picture with the unfinished dolls.

  She has a brand new website, so new that there isn't anything for sale on it yet. But she said you can order from her if you see anything here you are interested in, or want to buy a kit. 

Her website, mysfitdolls.com

Or you can contact her by email at mymysfits@gmail.com

And on to the rest of the show.

Such pretty girls.

A couple of nurses.

Must be a children's hospital. I think that's Deanna Durbin on the far right. Does anybody recognize the girl next to her?

I think that's Deanna, next to Deanna.

Two fellows that look to be Skippy, next to their girlfriend Patsy, or at least someone who looks like her. YOu can see my repro Skippy HERE.

This kid is Judy Splinters. I walked up just as the dealer was telling her story.

She was based on a ventriloquist dummy from a kid's show called "Judy Splinters". The show started in Los Angeles in 1947 as a regional show, moved to Chicago in 1949, and finally to New York, where it aired until 1950. It was even a summer replacement show, (Remember those?), for "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie". During it's run the show was nominated for a prime time Emmy award for Most Popular Television Program. Judy's performer was only 19 when the show started.

According to IMDB the show was only nominated for one Emmy, the one I mentioned above. This paper the dealer had says Shirley Dinsdale, the ventriloquist won the very first Emmy for "Outstanding Television Personality" in 1949. This is verified by other information on the web. It also says the award went to Shirley and Judy.

 

Shirley Dinsdale poses with her dummy, and one of the dolls based on it. The doll the dealer was selling was about 20 inches tall. Apparently the doll came in 18, 20, and 36 inch sizes, and had a string in her back that could be used to move her head, (but not her mouth, as she didn't have a hinged chin like a ventriloquist dummy).

Here's Judy in the 1950 Sears catalog.

  The lady buying Judy was telling about an interesting doll she owned. It was a Pepsodent toothpaste premium called Miss Pepsodent. She was made in 1953. Her teeth are printed on a ball that rolls when she is laid down. When she is upright her teeth are white, and when she's 'sleeping' her teeth appear yellow, as the ball rolls to reveal the yellow painted teeth. (You can see some good pictures of a Miss Pepsodent doll HERE.)I had never heard of Judy Splinters or Miss Pepsodent, but they were both fun to learn about!

More beautiful dolls.

The world's most shocked nun.

Gorgeous dolls!

Some Shirley Temples.

A very pretty Mary Hoyer doll with blushy knees.

Old and new dolls mingling together.

This kid wasn't very big, but she was full of personality.

Most people would probably be drawn to the baby, but I loved the big cloth girl.

I always love the felt faced dolls.

This Where the Wild Things Are doll was handmade by the dealer.

Unfortunately she doesn't make dolls any more.

I would have loved t have brought home this big Betsy McCall. But not for $100.

 She was about 30" tall. Her clothes are all original.

What a beautiful girl!

These cute little characters were 10 or 12" tall.

                                             How cute are all these little felt guys?

This magnificent felt lady was $5, and maybe I should have bought her.

Patsys or Patsy types.

  So that's it for that show. Stay tuned for the dolls I got at the show we went to yesterday, coming soon.