Doll-A-Day 2023 #22: Roldan Gardener Girl

   Today's doll is one from a small bag I had Ken bring from home so I'd have dolls to post while we are here at Emma's, without bringing a houseload. She's this girl.

  She was made by Roldan, probably in the 1950's, or 60's.

  Roldan was based in Spain. This girl still has her original price tag on her back.

    She has a pressed felt face, and felt clothing.

The hair is supposedly floss or mohair. Hers doesn't feel like mohair.

Even her flower pot and plant are felt.

  Her wheel barrow and rake are made of wood. 

  She's wearing her ballet slippers, because, who doesn't garden in toe shoes?

She has a flower in her mouth. These dolls are always amusing and full of personality.

Roldan dolls are very similar dolls to the ones made by Klumpe, who was also based in Spain. In the 50's and 60's these dolls, made originally for the tourist trade in Spain, and later imported to America by Effanbee and Kimport, were at their peak. I have read that at one point there were about fifteen companies in Barcelona, making dolls like these. Roldan dolls, and also Nistis dolls are often mistaken for Klumpe dolls, because Klumpe is more well known. But Klumpe dolls are usually a bit more expensive than Roldan or Nistis dolls. You can see my Klumpe doll HERE, and my Nistis doll HERE.

  She seems like she would be about ten inches tall, if she were standing up.  Of course, she can't. She's stuck in this position. At least she looks happy about it.

Most of the Roldan dolls are between nine and ten and a half inches tall. Most Klumpe dolls are a bit bigger.

There was just something about this girl. She has some damage and soiling, but that's what made her affordable. She is sort of my cheaper substitute for the red haired, suitcase carrying  Klumpe doll I want.

  I saw this girl at a doll show in the Autumn of 2020. I really wished I had bought her, but I had just bought  three dolls from Emily over at The Toybox Philosopher, so I felt a bit bad spending money on more dolls. There were two dolls at that show that I considered 'ones that got away', and thanks to the dealers having them at later shows, I now have them both. 

  That's today's doll. Today my camera battery died. I don't have a charger or more batteries here at Emma's. When we came back from the trip I cleared out the bag I carried my electronics in, and left the baggie of camera batteries and my charger on the landing. I hadn't needed them since, so they were still there. Of course, the landing got intense heat and smoke. A bunch of things on the landing got melted. The firefighters knocked things everywhere and trampled stuff. That's okay. They kept our house from burning down. But my bag of camera batteries and charger haven't shown up yet. They could be fine. Or the heat could have ruined all of it. Until they are sorted out of the rubble of wood and plaster and melted or soaked things, I won't know. It's taking forever for the landing to get sorted, because Ken and Emma were both working full time until Tuesday this week. And Ken is having to drive a half hour each way back to the house/work. He can't exactly dig around in the soot and then go serve food at a restaurant, so it doesn't do him any good to go early and work at the house first. And he closes, which means he gets off work well after midnight. That's a little late to start that stuff when he still has to drive a half hour back here afterward. He spent one of his days off this past week running around to various things about the fire, and the other online, filling out forms about the fire, and on the phone about stuff. I do have a spare charger that is in the bedroom. I could give Ken detailed instructions, and he still wouldn't find it though. I've already had that with my address book. It is dark in there. I'll give him that. Luckily I photographed several dolls today, so hopefully he'll find my charger, at least, before I run out of photographed dolls. If not, I'm going to have to resort to my phone for taking pictures. I don't want to do that because I still haven't figured out how to send the pictures from the phone to my computer without messaging them to Ken, and stealing them from Facebook messenger. (I know. I'm hopeless.) Ken managed to put the trip pictures from his phone on Google Drive, but we can't figure out how to steal them back and use them! (I'm not the only one who's hopeless!) So that's where we are with that. I still have the rest of the trip to post, and fire things to show you. See you tomorrow for another doll.

Would I go to a Doll Show During a Pandemic?

   I have a confession to make. I have gone to a toy show and a doll show in the last few weeks. Don't worry. It was very safe. The toy show was held in three fairground buildings, where the big doors were open on both ends of the building, and the aisles were one way. The doll show, which was this past Sunday, was not very big, (in spite of advertising itself as "The best in the Midwest'".), and was held in a large fairground building, and was not crowded at all. And everybody at both events were wearing masks. I was in more danger going to the grocery store afterward, where it was more crowded, and some idiots weren't even wearing masks. I thought and thought about going to either. In the end, I went to the toy show, (which I will detail in an upcoming post.), partially because it was being held at a fairground, which usually means big, open buildings,and partially because my sister wanted to go with me! It was her idea! She has never done that before. Nobody has wanted to go to a toy show with me for years, so I thought I'd better take advantage of it. As for the doll show, I balked at first because I was hearing how the virus numbers were getting worse in many states. Then Ken said Ohio is actually one of the states where the numbers are not going back up. I thought that if they do, this might be the last doll show for a while. It was also one of the last of this year, and one of the few that wasn't cancelled, I told Ken I would go, see how crowded the place was, and if everybody was wearing a mask, and base my decision on whether or not to attend on that. 

  I was really happy to see that it was a big open room with not an excessive amount of dealers, (Most of the building was empty.), and not a big crowd. And as I said, everybody was wearing a mask. 

  I thought I'd take lots of pictures so those of you who have not been able to attend a doll show this year could live vicariously. I know we've all been missing the chance to get out, and especially the chance to go to things like doll shows. I took quite a few pictures, and then my camera battery died! But here are the ones I was able to take. I managed to photograph most of the best stuff.

  This baby looked a little sickly. Still cute though. I'm finding I am developing a love of shiny compo babies! (Although this guy might have been hard plastic.)

Then there were these beauties.

I thought this baby was cute, even if there is a slight resemblance to the one adult criminal pretending to be a baby in that one Our Gang/Little Rascals comedy. (You can see most of that short HERE.)

  I really love the kid in blue on the back row. What a sweet face! I kind of like the girl to the right of that one too, although she could use some colour in her face. She looks a little bilious. The Ginnys are nice too,and I've always loved the Campbell's Kids.

These are interesting.

I was tempted to ask about these two military dolls, but I had already spent a little by then, and was trying to not spend very much. They didn't have prices, and I let it go at that.

One of the first displays I looked at was this gaggle of Shirleys. I love me some Shirley.

  

  Unfortunately my camera battery ran out before I got to the HUGE compo Shirley from the thirties, in her original outfit and original BOX! She was gorgeous and absolutely mint. I think she must have been at least 30 inches tall. She was wearing the plaid "Good Ship Lollipop" dress.

  These Patsys were so nice! And look at the dolls below them. Madam Alexander Little Women? And I love the doll in green on the right hand edge of the picture.

There she is!

Sorry about the blurriness.

These are a bit older. I like them all, but look at the one in green.

More quirky babies.

Aw! Look at the little girl with the pink wreath. She's got some personality.

This was a cute pair.

  Can you guess which one of these was my favourite? If you said the girl with the red bow on her hat: DING DING DING! Good answer!

  I have always loved big eyed dolls, and goofy looking dolls. Check out these Googlies.

  A  lot of these pictures,like the one above, were taken at one dealer's table. She had some wonderful dolls. They were all out of my price range, but I can enjoy looking.

  Here's a bunch of beautiful girls. My favourite? The one in the red apron.

  One dealer was selling these  handmade pumpkins. I was tempted, but,as usual, I hate to spend money on something that I makes me tell myself, "I could make that."

  Now tell me something. Ivy threw a big fit about me saying,"I could make that." She says it demeans the talent of the person who did make it. I don't see it that way. I just mean, that's something that might be within my means to replicate, even if I might not do as good a job as they did. (But that takes a lot longer to say than,"I could make that.") I also can't see spending money on something I could make myself. My sister, who has also always 'made stuff', does the same thing. I have been at art fairs and things with her, and we have come across things we liked, and said to each other,"Yeah, but we could make something like that." Do you think it demeans the talent of the person who did make it to say something like that? Have any of you ever done that?

  Okay. Moving on. These ladies were one of a kind! The dealer told me that these hand carved wooden dolls were hand made years ago by an older lady from Kentucky, obviously long gone, named Helen Claxton. She wasn't a famous doll maker, or an artist. She was just a lady who 'made stuff'. Well she made some great stuff!

The first three dolls in that row were made by Helen, as well as some men I forgot to take a picture of, which were on another shelf to the left. My favoutite of all of them was the lady in the green blouse.

  I really couldn't send $45 on her though. I'll reveal why soon. But I also couldn't spend $30 on this girl, although I was sorely tempted! 

If Ken had been with me I would have asked for her for Christmas or SOMETHING! She's by Roldan, and would have been something of a replacement for the Klumpe girl with a suitcase Ken didn't get me from my Ebay watching a few years ago. (She was in there for about 2 years!) Here she is hanging out with her friend the shepherd, with his AMAZING sheep.

Zoom in on that sheep. It's awesome!

  I REALLY liked this standing girl with a teddy bear too. These two were made by Kathie Clarke.

  You're going to think I loved the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, and I do. But look at the golfer in the striped socks!

I don't know why, but this little girl really appealed to me. She, along with the Roldan gardening girl, was this show's 'one that got away'.

The dealer had her at $20 I think, and kept coming down. She was going to let me have the doll for $10, but I was trying not to spend very much, considering I had gotten three dolls in the mail just the day before. If Ken had been there, once again, I would have asked for her for Christmas or something.

I spotted one of my neighbours, Cindy Maguire, at the show! Her youngest son went to school with Emma. I've seen her at other shows because she has a business making bears and other animals. I always forget the name of her business though! This time I made sure to get one of her flyers so I could remember. It's China Cupboard Bears. You can go to the website HERE.

Some of Cindy's creations:

They're all cute, but I love the pig!

These are sweet. Cindy uses all natural fibers now. I know this because she told me when I bought a big bag of her synthetic fur at her yard sale this summer. Ivy's still growling at me because I missed buying Cindy's surger for $60. Apparently that's really cheap and Ivy has been wanting one.  I didn't know what it was, and thought of asking, but didn't. I had to go home and get my money to pay for the fur, and when I got back a lady was buying it. I asked what it was then. When Cindy said it was a surger I thought,"Ut oh. I'm in trouble." I said, "Out of curiosity, and so Ivy can kill me, how much was it?" When Cindy said $60 I knew I was in trouble!

Look at the face on that...sheep?!

Another cute pig!

I told Cindy I would post some pictures of her creations. She said she has a new website, so I said maybe some of you will see her work and order something. She had doubts because she said, "When you tell people in town the price they just say,"How much?!" I assured her that you guys come from all over the world, and are more aware of how much beautiful hand made dolls cost than our locals! So check out Cindy's website, and if you order something from her, tell her you read about her here on the blog!

  Moving along, remember I said I'm getting to be a little obsessed with beautiful shiny compo babies?

How cute are those two?! And this gorgeous Dimples, below, is wonderful too.

I want to get my Dimples to look like that!

  This pretty girl was unmarked. She had a wonderful mouth with teeth. Anybody know who she might be?

I found this strange faced little lady interesting.

  One dealer had a stunning display of Schoenhut dolls. This is only half of them!

Here are the rest. Schoenhuts are more dolls I would be very interested in owning, if only they weren't so expensive.

More pretty girls and a carved wooden guy. Pinnochio maybe?

This girl, Toddles, has some personality.

   These are all nice, but I particularly liked the girl on the right.

This dog is in the picture above too. Isn't he cute?

This small girl appealed to me.

  I LOVED this girl. Little Red Riding Hood?

  This doll was so cute! She looks like a real child.

  So I said I bought a few things. What were they? Well for that you're going to have to wait for the next post. It won't be long. I'll see you then.