What I Got at the Doll Show: My New Old Betsy McCall!

   You may have read my post on the recent doll show. (And if not, why not?!) I mentioned that I finally got a Betsy McCall with reddish hair. Well she had her photo shoot yesterday, so she's ready to be introduced.

  This Betsy is the 8 inch American Character doll, 'Tiny Betsy McCall. She's the most common to find, and the most preferred by collectors.

  When I bought her she was completely naked. Luckily I have been saving some clothes I thought might be Betsy McCall clothes. Turns out this dress is an actual Betsy dress. I'm more familiar with the red plaid version, but apparently the dress was made in various fabrics.

 

 I don't know about the hat, so if there are any Betsy experts out there who know for sure, let me know. It might be a Ginny hat.

  Betsy McCall began life in 1951, as a paper doll included in issues of McCalls magazine. 

 You can download Betsy McCall paper dolls for free HERE.

 

She has jointed knees.

But I have three Betsys now, and none of them can really sit down. Is that a thing? Or is it just my girls?

  She was included in the magazine for the next 44 years, until the magazine ceased publication in 1995.

She has greyish blue eyes.

The first three dimensional Betsy McCall doll was made in 1952. 

They're sleep eyes.

It was a 14 inch doll, made by Ideal.

Her lashes are hard plastic, with molded detail.

  The next Betsy doll made was today's girl. These 8 inch dolls were made by American Character, starting in 1957 or '58.

She also has painted lower lashes.

  American Character also produced 14 inch, 20 inch, 22 inch, and 29, and 36 inch versions of Betsy, some with flirty eyes. There were even cousins for Betsy. Linda, and a boy cousin, Linda's twin, named Sandy, were produced in 1959, as 36 inch Play Pal type dolls. Sandy is SO cute! I want one!

Her little face is blushy.

  Uneeda produced an 11 1/2 inch Betsy McCall in 1964. You may have seen mine HERE.

And she has the sweetest shy smile.

  In the mid 70's Horsman produced a couple of sizes of Betsy dolls.

Her hair is rooted to a skull cap, which is glued to her head.

The dealer said that, in her opinion, this doll is a golden blonde, but her hair does have quite a red tone to it.

Especially in the sunshine. What colour would you call it?

  In the 80's Rothschild made 8 and 12 inch 35th anniversary Betsy doll that looked similar to a vintage Ginny. Tomi and Larami also made Betsy dolls. Tonner brought Betsy back in the early 2000's, in a new version of the 8 inch American Character doll, that looked very much like the original, and a 14 inch doll that greatly resembled the 36 inch Sandy, with it's slightly alien eyes and watermelon smile. 

They also made a 14 inch Sandy doll, and a 29 inch Betsy as Alice doll. Good thing I didn't know about that at the time. At least she's so expensive now I don't even think about her. There was a 29 inch Little Orphan Annie produced using the Betsy sculpt for the 2004 Tonner convention. I don't like that one. In 2008 Tonner and Effanbee produced the Ultimate Tiny Betsy doll. She was an 8 inch Betsy that also had jointed elbows and wrists!

  You can see my other two Betsys HERE, and HERE. Now, just for the fun of it, and because she's so cute, I will leave you with more pictures of Betsy. See you soon!

 

Goodies From the April Doll Show!

    I hope everybody had a good Mother's Day. We saw Fuzz a few days before, and Ivy s at college. They both messaged me though. Emma and I went to spend some time with my sister at a flea market/antique show, since Unsentimental Niece is boycotting her mother. I made a great find I'll show you another time.  Then Emma and I went back to her house and I opened my gifts, and when Ken joined us we had take out from The Cheesecake Factory. Other than all the food places in the town where the flea market was being closed when we tried to get a late lunch, good day.

  The point of this post though, is 'doll show'! There was another doll show the last Saturday in April. I think it was the last of the big Spring doll shows. There are  a couple of others, even farther away, which I probably won't go to. This one was about an hour and 20 minutes from my house. There were lots of beautiful dolls and things, some of which I had seen at previous shows, (and one of those came home with me!) I also got a big surprise! I'll show you one of the things I bought at the show. The other things we'll get to eventually. But, without further ado, here are some of the wonderful sights from the show.

Is the head of that guy on the left a...lightbulb?

  I looked at these Tressy dolls. I particularly liked the one on the left. After circling bck around several times I ended up buying her. 

  Here she is. 

  When I went back to buy her a lady came up and told me I have beautiful hair. There's one I haven't heard in a while! She was an old lady too, and she had beautiful long, wavy grey hair. Gives me hope, as mine is turning from orange to white right now. I keep telling Ken I'm too old for long hair, but she looked good.

What a lovely bunch of babies.

I've shown you that kid on the left before, from a different doll show post. He was holding the same 60's doll.

Here's a close up of some of the babies from the above picture.

These kids were on the edge of the babies picture. So pretty!

Aw! Little boys!

And a pretty girl with articulated wrists.

I think these dolls were from the same booth where I took loads of pictures. Everything that dealer had was gorgeous.

Love the girl top, center. That pink kid on the left you may remember from a previous doll show post. A lot of dolls make return appearances.

More beautiful dolls. Look Raging Moon. There's one of those mumpy looking Terri Lees you want.

This girl was still in Easter mode apparently.

How cute are these guys?! The kid on the llama! Oh my goodness! And there's another kid in Easter mode.

A couple of Shirleys with other pretty girls.

  One lady had some amazing animals and things in her booth. Everybody who walked by fell in love with this camel.

He was made by Hansa. 

And yes, he was every bit as big as he seems! Probably bigger. He was gorgeous! She also had this beautiful bear. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good shot of his tag, so I don't know who he was made by.

  Another gorgeous sight at her booth was this cat!

He is a creation of  artist Candi Taylor.

He's even posable! 

He's jointed at each leg, and has not one, but two joints in his neck. His tail even has an armature in it!

  The same dealer also had this Alice in Wonderland Caterpillar and mushrooms.

It's by Pic-Nic-Bears.

  There was also a beautiful snail.

Then I found out she was supposed to have a bear on her back, but she wouldn't sit up that way so the bear had been sat next to her.

They're Journey and Abella by Diana L. Watts of Dibears.

If you're interested in any of these beauties, you can contact the dealer at: jhollin952@aol.com

  There was another dealer with some animals by Candi Taylor, maker of the fabulous cat. One of them was this donkey. It's so cute!

The same dealer also had this fine lady.

Her neck wrinkles made me uncomfortable!

  One dealer had a display of wonderful new R. John Wright dolls.

I'd love to have an R. John Wright doll, but I'm not rich.

The dolls in the next fourteen pictures were all so wonderful, and all from the same dealer.

My favourite here is the one with the titled head.

This is a fun bunch of little dolls.

This little girl is so cute, and has some real personality.

Beautiful bear.

The little winking guy!

The big ones are Kathe Kruse dolls. Aren't they cute?

This lady was made of wood. Her price, $375, made me feel a little wooden myself!

Beautiful animals.

  I really love these cloth faced dolls. I was just reading something today on how to make a pressed cloth face doll. I'd like to try it some time. Not that I have any belief that I can come anywhere near these guys! 

I actually photographed this girl early on, although she was at this booth, where I photographed all these other dolls later. I obviously liked her, and took her picture. Later I bought her 'sister' at another booth.

If any of these gorgeous dolls appeal to you, the dealer seems to sell on Ruby Lane:

  Moving on to other dealers, look at the face on this guardsman.

Very cute old cloth dolls.

These pressed cloth face dolls are so cute. The prices were crazy expensive though.

More pressed cloth face dolls, with a Poor Pitiful Pearl lurking on the right.

Check out the little girl on the right, wearing the plaid skirt.

There she is again. I guess she's supposed to be Scottish. Look at her attitude. She was great, but her price had been torn off, and I was afraid to ask!

The girl in plaid is a Toni. You can see her hair curling set behind her. That blonde girl is really posing. Next to her is a Mary Hartline, with some heavy duty eye makeup. Next to her is a Dianna Effner Mary Mary Quite Contrary, made by Knowles for Ashton Drake. I don't know who the little girl on the end is, but she's sweet.

Is this an Alice?

Quite a variety of Wizard of Oz Dorothy dolls. The top one , far left is a cloth faced Madame Alexander. I think the one top, far right, is a Tonner. She seems to have been redressed though. The short one with the red ribbon on her pinafore looks like a Madame Alexander. The one with the slightly yellowed face is the 1987 Dorothy by Hamilton Presents. Emma had the set of  Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow. They all came with stands that had a plastic base that looked like a piece of the Yellow Brick Road, and they all connected together. The likenesses were all pretty good really. (The Wicked Witch, with we never got, was really amazing. I wanted that one!) Unfortunately the Dorothy yellows.

  There were also these guys. Pretty scary, but fairly accurate underneath the cartoonishness. I would like to have the set. but it's way out of my price range. I do have the one though, the Paul, which I got cheap in a box of auction stuff. I was the only bidder.

George's lipstick is a bit Marilyn Monroe.

  The tall doll in the hat is another of my favourites. I didn't know who she was. Her tag says she's Barbara Lou, an Effanbee doll from the late 30's.

  Terri Lee, and an early R. John Wright doll that was only named J1. That reminds me of when we were having Fuzzy. We had referred to Emma during pregnancy, as 'Sedam Junior'. So when we were having Fuzzy we started referring to the baby as 'Jr. 2', which quickly got shortened to 'J2'. Emma always called Fuzz that until we started using the name 'Fuzzy'.

This doll is one of those beautiful shiny compo babies I've been so fond of recently. She was in her original box. Her clothes were original, but I'm not sure she hadn't been repainted.

Lots of cartoon characters here: Popeye, Dopey, Nancy and Sluggo, Pinocchio, Little Lulu and Tubby, a king I recognize but can't remember the name of, and Felix the Cat.

These dolls are different. They're 1967 dolls called PeePul Pals. They came in little house shaped boxes. The dolls themselves are kind of like Pose Dolls.

  This pretty child is Betsy McCall. This is the larger version of Betsy, by American Character. She's 29" tall, and was made in 1961. These are her original clothes too. She was nice. 

I considered this little tiny bisque girl with jointed arms . She has the best face, but when she's standing, her head is tilted down so far you can't see her face. Instead of buying her, I took her picture. 

  I ran into the same little Betsy McCall...

This picture is from the other show.

... and the Whimsies Tillie Talker that I had seen at a previous show.

This is from the other show too. Since I had already photographed them, I didn't photograph them again.

 The Whimsies dealer dropped Tillie's price, which made Tillie and Betsy the the same price. Both were very tempting. They were also right across the aisle from each other! I stood between them trying to decide what to do! Betsy was a really good price already, due to a torso joint that wasn't joining properly. She was still more than I wanted to spend. I was torn. I decided to go out to the car and call Ken and ask him to tell me no on either! Of course, he's Ken, so he won't do that anyway. But also, on the way out I remembered to stop at the board by the admission table to see if I had, against all reason, because I don't win anything, won a door prize---and I had! My name was on the board! I was allowed to pick anything I wanted from the prize table.  There wasn't anything I wanted, so I decided to try to choose the most valuable thing, so I could sell it and make enough money to justify buying either Tillie or Betsy. I chose the Jailhouse Rock Elvis Presley doll from the 'The Sun Never Sets on a Legend' series. I don't like Elvis Presley, (I like Elvis Costello.), but I do like dolls of real people that actually look like them, and this doll is pretty good. If I get stuck with him, I can live with it.  

  Ken suggested I ask both dealers if they would mark their dolls down any more. I knew Tillie's wouldn't, because she already had knocked $10 off for me. I wasn't even going to ask. I went back in and had another close look at Betsy. The lady dealer who had been there before was gone and the male dealer was there. His first reaction to me looking at Betsy was to offer a discount! He asked if the new price would make a difference and I said, "Yes! That makes me make a decision!" So, even though she's not quite a red head, I'm glad to have my beautiful Betsy! I'll do a photo session with her in a few days. I'll also show you the other dolls I got. Right now I have to go mow my overgrown yard!

mmmmmm