American Character Little Toni Doll

  We were moving some boxes the other week, (Ok. I was.), when I came across the box with this doll in it.

I had her bangs laying down, but they have since popped up again.  

I thought she was so pretty. So while she had been in a box of stuff to sell, I sort of snagged her for myself.

She's a Toni doll by American Character.

You can see the American Character logo on her back.

The original Toni dolls were larger than this girl, and debuted in 1949. Following that doll's success,Toni dolls came in several sizes throughout the 1950's. This is Little Toni, and she's 10 1/2" tall.

Why Toni! What big feet you have!

The Toni dolls originally came with a 'play perm' since they were tie ins with the Toni home permanent.The 'setting lotion' the dolls came with to 'perm' their hair was sugar water!Apparently it didn't work well.

As you can see, my girl could do with a touch up to her 'do'.

She has green sleep eyes with hard molded lashes.

Toni dolls were competitors of the more well known Miss Revlon dolls. This girl is around the same size as Little Miss Revlon.

Little Miss Revlon on the left, Little Toni on the right.
Toni has a very different face from Little Miss Revlon, a bigger head,but a similar body.

Little Miss Revlon's identifying marks.

Little Miss Revlon competitors were plenty.Here are Little Miss Revlon and Toni with a Uneeda Tiny Teen Suzette. 

Tiny Teen has a much more similar face to Little Miss Revlon.

All three have almost identical bodies and hands.(You'll notice Toni is missing a pinky finger.)You can see other similarities too. Look at those feet.

Little Miss Revlon has bigger hands.

'Uneeda' on Tiny Teen's head.

 While I'm at it I'll compare her with Miss Ginger, another Little Miss Revlon competitor.

Like Tiny Teen, she has a short neck. Her arms are a little pudgier than the other girls'.

But again, the same feet.

The one piece undies are Toni's original clothes.

The dolls came in this one piece underwear, or in outfits. I'm assuming the underwear dolls were cheaper. A lot of additional clothes were made for her too.

Now I just need to get her some clothes worthy of her.

Doll-A-Day 193: American Character Sweet Sue or Madame Alexander Mary Ellen 30" Walker Doll

  Today's doll is another Salvation Army mark down. Here's what she looked like when I brought her home.

She went from her original Salvation Army price of $49.99, through several mark downs, all the way to $4.99! That's when I snapped her up.

 She has no markings of any kind, but from my research she's either a Madame Alexander Mary Ellen walker, (At least some of them were unmarked.), or an American Character Sweet Sue walker. Mary Ellen dolls are apparently often mistaken for Sweet Sue. If anybody knows for sure how to tell who she is, please let me know.

She has a beautiful face, but she needs her lips recoloured, and her blush repaired.

And I love her poseability!

Mary Ellen was made only in 1955.Sweet Sue came in different sizes, and with a hard plastic head or soft rubber head.

This girl is about 30" tall. It was kind of hard to measure her because she kept wanting to sit down. She's strung, with elbow and knee joints.

She even has little pointy elbows.

She has some damage, including her right knee won't hold a straight position, making her unable to stand without support.There's a big crack just below the knee joint, in the back of the leg. She is a walker, but her bad knee keeps her from being able to walk more than a few steps when led by her hands.Then her knee just bends, and she often squats suddenly!

She looks vaguely like she's thrown her hip out of joint, but it's because her right leg wants to bend at the knee.

She has medium blue sleep eyes. Her head and arms are soft rubber, but her legs and torso are hard plastic.

She has a beautiful full head of rooted brown hair.

She had a few ringlets left in the back when I got her, but when I combed her hair to tidy it up a bit, I combed them out. I suppose they can be brought back if I were any good at curling hair, which I'm not.

As you can see, the hostas are blooming.

 See you tomorrow for another doll.