Doll-A-Day 118: Hard Plastic Girl, Plus Doll Shows, The Death of Doll Play, and Extolling the Virtues of Little Boys Playing With Dolls

  Yesterday was the giant doll show, as you will know if you've been reading the blog. We didn't do terribly badly. We actually made a little money. Ken keeps saying, if you deduct the cost of the merchandise we didn't really make anything. But we have so much stuff we've been sitting on for years, and so much stuff we got for nearly nothing at auctions, that it's good to:
A. Get Rid of It!
B.Make something from it. It's not making money sitting here.
C.Clear out room in the house!
D. Ken also thinks I should do shows to get my Tamsykens stuff seen. It's not like anybody buys anything though. Apparently alot of the BJD people were looking at the furniture and liked it, but it was the wrong size for their dolls.I finally found out what size a Puki and a Puki Puki are, as well as Amelia Thimble. Even standard dollhouse scale stuff is a little too big for them. (And also, now that I know how extremely small Amelia Thimble is, I want a Hamish more than ever!)

Me, on the left, and Ivy, setting up for the show.

We were going to be there anyway. (Although, as Ken points out, he would normally have been working on Sunday and made actual money.) Well, I was going to be there anyway. But I can't do the show AND shop the show at the same time! I could just go to the show, but that doesn't clear any stuff out of our house.

Albert Einstein watching our table for me while I shopped.He looks so sad because I spent money....

  We stopped doing shows, years and years ago, when Fuzzy was tiny,and have only been doing them again recently. We used to just go to the show and I would try to buy something I could sell to make back the money we spent to get in. (Entry fees for a  family of five add up to a fair amount!)
  I keep saying how big the show is. Well, it gets smaller every time I go! This time there were even more empty spaces.

Empty tables and empty space against the railing that would have normally had dealer's tables there.

More empty space, against the railings above and below, where there should have been tables full of dolls.

The rumour was that the antique doll dealers were boycotting to protest the promoter's having a big doll auction for 2 days running, on Friday and Saturday, right before the show . The idea was that having the auction so near the show, and promoting them together was taking money out of the dealer's pockets. That's a point. If the customers have spent their money at the auctions,which were only about a half hour away from where the show is held, they won't have any money to spend on the show. On the other hand,alot of the people who go to the show don't go to auctions.That is where the dealers get so much of their stock though. Not everybody can afford to put out such large sums of money to get the lots at auction, or prefer to not to buy lots at auctions and get stuck with things they don't want. The promoter claims it saves him money on advertising to have them close together, because he can advertise the auctions and the show in the same ad. On the other hand, (I feel like Gilligan!), if he keeps losing dealers, either because they are boycotting or because they aren't making money because their customers are buying at his auctions, he's not going to have a show to advertise.
  Shows are dying anyway. Not least of all because their customers are dying. So are the dealers. I was noticing yesterday just how old most of the dealers were,and most of the customers weren't that young either.

The roving dealer: sighting number 1. Watch for the lady in black and purple in several of these pictures. She's a dealer. I didn't realize until I was putting these pictures on here that she must have done nearly as much roaming as I did.

In adding these pictures I noticed that there is a walker in this picture and the next one. And they're not the same one. Still, nice to see that these ladies haven't given up and are still enjoying their collections, and even adding to them. My friend Connie makes me sad when she says she needs to be getting rid of the collection she loves so much because she's in her 70's and her children won't want it when she's gone. Who cares? She's not gone yet. Enjoy yourself! Also notice the little girl in conversation with the old man. Cute.

Walker number two in the left center aisle, but notice her sit down walker is full of shopping! You go girl! By the way, I tripped over that wheel chair ramp TWICE! If I'm not more careful I'll be using a walker myself.It's not like the thing isn't big enough to see!

I was talking with one of the dealers at the Cincinnati show Ivy and I did last year, and she was saying that young people aren't collecting dolls any more. That's not strictly true. Ball jointed dolls are breathing a bit of young life into doll collecting. But those collectors aren't collecting older dolls.

The youngest dealer was probably this lady at the bottom of the picture. She was also selling to just about the youngest collectors, with her display of Pullip and other ball jointed dolls, Rement, and other Japanese goodies.She also has a shop in Columbus.By the way, the empty rail above her is more space where tables should have been.

The dealer was asking, "What's going to happen to all these beautiful dolls when we're gone?" Good question. Who is going to want them? I'm hearing more and more people say, 'my kids have no interest in my collection. They're probably just going to throw them away when I'm gone.'
  Another thing I keep hearing people say is that their children don't have any interest in dolls. Little girls don't play with dolls anymore. And little boys certainly don't. Most of the little girls I know of who want dolls want dolls like Monster High, not exactly the kind of doll you use the mothering instinct on! They also don't actually play with the dolls. They just collect them. They sit them up on shelves and display them.I was very pleased a few weeks ago, when Lori and I went to the flea market, to see a little boy cuddling his doll as his parents pulled him in a wagon. I made a point of telling his parents how good it was to see a little boy with a doll. I imagine his parents take alot of flack for letting him have a doll, and they probably get some sneers. But doll play is an instinctive thing, to teach people how to love and care for a child, or even just other other people.Little boys grow up to be fathers, and loving a doll is good for them,just as little girls will use that when they grow up to be mothers. Fuzz had his dolls when he was little. Apart from Fuzzy the Doll and all his friends, Fuzz had Hap,a Susan Perl rag doll, which I bought him because Hap had orange hair and a grouchy face just like Fuzz,and Sake, a 60's doll whom he rescued from our garage and couldn't be separated from, and his stuffed toys. He may not have played with them like Emma did, feeding and caring for them like a mother,(And unlike Emma,he definitely didn't breast feed his!), but he cared about them and put them to bed and changed their clothes...and made them attack people. But I always said that as a little guy he had the best heart of all my children. He's 19 now, and that isn't the case at the moment, but hopefully he has that base and will come back to that eventually.
  But I digress. It was still a pretty big show.

Roving Dealer sighting number two:Here she is about halfway down the aisle. I think this was where her actual table was.

A veritable ocean of dolls, as far as the eye can see...

The auditorium had played host to a wedding reception the day before, hence the fabric hanging from the ceiling.

 There were alot of interesting dolls on display.

This is the display of the people below us. They've been below us for several shows now.They sit opposite their display, just below our shelves, and we invariably drop something on their heads at some point. Yesterday it was all my fault.Luckily they are really nice about it.

This is a closeup of their display. I got a kick out of the Willie Tyler Lester ventriloquist dummy dressed as a clown.He's the only guy amongst all those girls, and he appears to be loving it.

Old stuff, new stuff, and handmade stuff.The little lady sitting with her husband at the bottom of the picture is so sweet. She was giving things away left and right. She gave away a whole shoe box of furniture for Tammy's Ideal House to a lady who bought some Tammy clothes. She tried to give me some things I wanted to buy, but I forced her to take some money. Sometimes I think dealers do it just because they enjoy it.

Handmade doll clothes of all sizes, and dolls of all eras.

I had to add this picture. Roving Dealer sighting number three.It's like Where's Waldo. Can you spot her?

Just about my favourite thing at the show was this Vogue Brikette doll with bright orange hair. She even has a ring and a watch, which is why she's wearing bags on her hands. I've seen her there before. Maybe nobody else can afford her $160 price either!

She deserves a close up.

 As for my purchases, my first was this Buffy and Mrs. Beasley for $10.

Buffy has had a slight haircut, but the glasses on Beasley are worth at least $40, and Buffy has all her bends and no green. I can steal her body for the nice Me and My Dog Tutti head that Connie gave me. Tutti's real body was badly greened, but her head was so nice, with pink colouring and her hair ribbon intact.
Then I got these pieces of Japanese dollhouse furniture for only $5.

Some of the pictures are painted, but the rest of the furniture has inlays. A little tung oil will make these beautiful again.
  Then I got really excited when I found a couple of items I will detail when I can work around the rain and cold.(It's freezing here today, and all wet and muddy outside. They were my finds of the show, and I want to show them off  as they deserve!) After that, I found this really cool coat from the same dealers, Ed and Jackie, who we have known for about 20 years.

It's Ken sized, or maybe more likely Tammy sized, since the hood is so big.The mittens,which I got from another dealer, look like they'll fit Pepper, but I haven't tried yet.

We have always called them The Barbie Clothes Guys, because that's what they mainly collected. They gave me the coat. It was that kind of day! I have no idea of the maker. The fabric is a silky, nylon type stuff,and the cool zipper really works.The zipper pull says 'zipp'.If anybody knows anything about it I'd love to know.
  When I went back later Ed gave me these two hats when I tried to buy them.

Ken's toboggan and a generic fedora. I'm going to add a band.

I got these two packaged outfits for $1 each! I think they were  from the little giveaway lady.

The two tiny books were from another dealer. They are fully printed and were only a quarter!
And I got this sailor suit. It's about Ginny sized. Anybody?

And the sweet little lady I showed you above gave me this doll for $2 because she has some problems. (The doll, that is!)

She has no makers mark. She's about 10" tall, and she has jointed legs. They aren't working exactly right because she needs her body put back together, but she still poses cutely.

I also need to redo her hair. the one side has lost all it's curl.

Aww. Isn't that cute? She fits right in with her ONE HAIR!

Well that's it.Tomorrow is another doll, and hopefully my other goodies,so be sure to check it out.