So What Show Did I Go To? And a Few Odds and Ends

   In my last post I mentioned that there were two other shows recently, a doll show and a toy show. I have been so tired lately that I debated going to neither, and just staying home and resting. But then I thought that there weren't going to be more than a couple more shows until next Spring. Why not hit the ones I could before then? I thought of going to both, since they were on different days. But in the end, I was too tired and achy to do both. I have been going to the toy show with my sister for the last few years, and it came first. So Ken and I went to her house the day before, so we wouldn't have to get up so early and drive to her house on show day. She's an hour and a half away, and the show is about 15 minutes from her house. 

  We went to the show, which is held at a fairground. It's huge, covering more than half a dozen huge buildings, with all of them being packed full of dealer's tables. There were so many people shopping it was hard to get through the aisles. Worse than that, it also made the buildings like large, toy filled ovens. A few years ago we went to the Fall toy show, and it was so cold we thought we were going to freeze to death. This year my sister was sorry she didn't bring in the little hand held fan she had in her car.

  I think there were slightly fewer tables with dolls this year than the last couple of years. Maybe they found that dolls weren't selling as well as they wanted, so the dealers are bringing more toys than dolls. There were still way more dolls than used to be found at toy shows. Here are some of the more interesting ones I saw.

  This is a Moni doll.

  I recognized immediately that this doll looked like a tiny Sasha doll. Sure enough, the internet describes them as 8 inch mini Sasha dolls, of lower quality than Sasha dolls, and made in Hong Kong. They are supposedly rare because there were copyright problems, and they stopped production I guess. I can see why. They look so much like Sasha dolls. She doesn't have the scary eyes or the weird hands though.

  This was a beautiful Teeny Tiny Tears doll, in her case, with almost all of her things. 

  I had never heard of a Barbie PTMI Birthday doll. I liked the look of this one, so I took her picture. In writing this post I looked it up, and PTMI Birthday Barbies are given to employees at the Mattel factory in Indonesia on their birthdays, and have been since the 90's. That's the only way to get one, so they are pretty rare.

  I found this doll, on the left, kind of interesting. She looks like Tressy, but she's small. You can gauge her small size by comparing her to the 70's Charlie's Angel's doll to her right. (Assuming, of course, that you are familiar with the Charlie's Angel's dolls...)

She also doesn't have Tressy's grow hair feature. The tag she had said only that she was a Japan rubber doll with painted on shoes.

I recognize that jacket. In fact, I think I have one. I can't remember who it came on, but it wasn't this doll, unless there were two dolls who came wearing it. I have no idea why she's wearing a bunch of plastic discs around her neck. Completing her ensemble is the ever popular sock dress.

  I have a small collection of... shall we use the term? Hillbilly dolls. You can see mine HERE, HERE, and HERE. There were quite a few...such dolls at the show. In fact, there were more of them at this show than I have ever seen at a single show, and they were not all at the same dealer's tables. Strange. I didn't photograph all of them, but here's one of them.

  I also have a weakness for sad dolls, and dolls you're meant to feel sorry for. This Poor Pitiful Pearl was mint in her mint box. Check out her original clearance price.

  I am familiar with Brooke Shields dolls, but not with this one in an evening gown.

  At the last doll show I was proud of myself for not buying anything. This time I did buy something, but it wasn't for me. I spotted two old dolls with definate limb problems in a box under the dealer's table. At a previous show I got a Pippi Longstocking doll from the same dealer. She was complete and nearly perfect, and only needed a minimal wipe down and her ponytails put back in. The dealer considered her too far gone to fiddle with though, and sold her to me for $5! She must not deal with anything she has to spend any time on making presentable, because the two girls in the box were the same situation. They were very nice, but doll number one, which is a vintage 1950's flirty eye Saucy Walker, with teeth, brunette braids, and her entire original outfit, including onesie, dress, socks, and shoes, and even hair ribbons, needed her head and arms out back on. 

Doll number two, a vintage Uneeda Susan Stroller, needed her arms put back on. 

I got these two dolls at an amazing price. I didn't need them, and promised Ken I wouldn't keep them, but I figured somebody would love them, and they needed rescued.

   The dressed one is definitely a Saucy Walker, because she's marked Ideal, and, as I said, has her original dress, with her original onesie underneath, socks, and shoes. (Even her shoes are marked 'Ideal'.) The other doll is marked Eegee, and is almost certainly a Susan Stroller. They are in really nice condition, other than just needing restrung. Saucy has flirty eyes that work well, and their sleep eyes work too  Unfortunately the crier box doesn't work in either. I think I should be able to restring them. I have put the arms back on a Susan Stroller, but I didn't have to put her head back on. There are kits you can buy with the rubber bands and S hooks to fix them. When I have them fixed they'll go up for sale. If anybody is interested in them, leave a comment with some contact information, and I'll get back to you.

  I didn't take many pictures at the show, so here are a few stray pictures I took at some of the places we went lately. 

  This pretty girl is roughing it outside at a local antique mall.

  The place has a habit of putting a lot of cool stuff outside, including dolls that I suppose it thinks aren't good enough for them to sell inside the actual building. This girl is in some rough shape, but I think she deserves better treatment than this, especially if they are still asking $45 for her! She isn't going to be worth anything before too long. I wish I could rescue her before she's completely ruined, but I can't afford to do that.

  We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while Ken's sister and brother-in-law were here a few weeks ago. You might not be expecting to find dolls there, but I did see this guy...

Okay. This marionette of Beck that was part of the Saturday Night Live exhibit, (which I highly recommend,), isn't officially a doll, he comes close enough.

  And if you saw my last post you will have seen these original 60's Beatles bobbleheads.

  And that's it for this post. You got two fairly close together this time! I am proud of myself. There  was another doll show yesterday, the last this year. Did I go? We'll see next time 

Doll-A-Day 2023 #353: Red Haired Hillbilly

   Okay. I have a weakness for these vintage hillbilly dolls. I have a couple from when I was a kid. My parents were from Kentucky, and every summer we spent two weeks in Kentucky, visiting relatives. Dolls like this guy were sold at souvenir shops there. I used some of my vacation money to buy my hillbillies. You can see them, and another I bought s a grown up, HERE.

  Today's guy is about 11 or 12 inches tall. 

  He's pretty typical of this type of doll. He has a scraggly beard, cliche' hillbilly overalls, and bare feet.

And of course, a floppy hat. This one is a faux straw. Another thing that was common is the nylon string in his hat. I don't know if these guys have the string to hang them by once you've bought them, or because they were hung on a rack in the store.

  

He has crossed straps on the back of his overalls..

He has a very serene look on his face.

He appears to have originally been holding something. I'm guessing, from seeing so many of these dolls, that it was a 'moonshine' jug. That might account for his serene look.

 

He has stitched in toes on his bare feet.

  You can see another pair of my hillbilly dolls that are different from this guy, HERE.

That's the doll for, well, not the day. Let's say, for number 353. There will be three other posts today, at least. We're steamrollering through posts to catch up with the days for the end of the year.

Doll-A-Day 2019 #218: Hatfield and McCoy

  Today's dolls are sort of a sequel to yesterday's. These guys are hillbillies too.

They're about 7 inches tall.

These guys incorporate some of the biggest cliche's about 'hillbillies'. They have 'dirty' bare feet.

And rope belts,like Jethro on "The Beverly Hillbillies".

I think some of those cliche's came from the depression era. The depression hit the hills of Kentucky pretty hard. My mom and dad were born in the 1920's. They often talked about the things they had to do when they were kids because they were so poor.

My mom,age 10,in 1937. By the way, that says 'Mae',not 'Moe'. My mom was named Lelia, (after her mother), Mae (after her Aunt Mae.) She was often called Mae, although as an adult she was more often called Lelia. The family called her Lelia Mae. She was a tiny lady, and when my cousins,(Read about the dolls they gave me HERE.), were little they thought everyone was calling her 'little Mae'.

Dad also age 10,in 1934. He turned 11 in June that year. Right down to the red hair, I have always looked like my dad, and these days when I look in the mirror I see Dad's lower face. My brunette sister looks like my mom.

Shoes were worn only in the winter, because they had to be worn in the winter, so nobody could afford to wear shoes in the summer when they didn't need them. My mom told a story about how she and her brothers and sister cut pictures of shoes out of catalogs and tied them on their feet to play in.  I don't think any of my family ever wore rope belts, but who knows?

My grandpa driving the plow in the mid 1940's. That's my mom in the big hat, with some of her brothers, and her sister.

The difference from yesterday's dolls is that these guys aren't knee huggers. They're plastic.

Their legs aren't jointed. Their body and legs are one just solid piece.

The guy on the right has a string to be hung by too, like the doll yesterday.

But their arms can move. They seem to have some wire in them.

I call these guys Hatfield and McCoy. Those of you who are too young, or not from the United States may not be familiar with the story of the two feuding families from the 1880's, who lived either side of the Big Sandy River, in Kentucky and West Virginia. You can read the whole story of their feud HERE.

 

The families feuded for over 10 years, resulting in over a dozen deaths. The story became part of popular culture, and 'Fighting like the Hatfields and the McCoys'  became a phrase.

Both the Hatfields and the McCoys were 'moonshiners' at some point. Moonshine was illegal alcohol made from corn. One of these guys has the cliche' moonshine jug.

I think the number of X's had to do with the strength of the moonshine.

He looks a bit like the old mascot for Mountain Dew,(which was named after another name for moonshine).

  There were bootleggers in my family. There was a story about one of my relatives, a miner, who had  'died in the mines'. He was mentioned at one point when my dad and I were visiting my maternal grampa's brother. At the mention of the guy 'dying in the mines'  Great Uncle Reggie snorted, "Yeah, he died in the mines...when his still blew up." Apparently he was hiding his still from the law, in the mine where he worked. It exploded and killed him.
  These dolls also remind me of the hillbillies in the old Bugs Bunny cartoon "Hillbilly Hare". 

You can watch one of the best parts of that cartoon HERE.

The other guy has an ax!

He's either chopping wood, or very involved in the feuding!

  I never realized until doing this research, that the Hatfields and the McCoys came from the same area as my mom and dad's families.

My dad's family still lives in Louisa and the surrounding area. My maternal Grama and Grampa lived on top of a hill outside of town. When mom was a kid they lived just over the line into West Virginia for a while. The Hatfields and the McCoys were from the Tug Fork area.

 I told Ken I'm probably related to the Hatfields or the McCoys, and that accounts for the temper in the family!

  Those are the dolls of the day. See you tomorrow for another one.

Doll-A-Day 2019 #217: Hillbillies

  Today's doll is a couple...well,several. The first two are a couple of my childhood dolls.

I bought these dolls when I was a kid. We went to Kentucky every summer to visit my grandparents. Before we left every year my dad would give us vacation money to spend while we were there. I was a kid,so I spent my money on candy and toys.

 

These hillbilly dolls were always sold as souvenirs there.
 

The smaller one has a string in his head so he can be hung. For display at the store,or for dangling somewhere else?

I guess Kentuckians didn't mind embracing the stereotype of them in those days. My dad was always proud to call himself a hillbilly. I don't think that would be quite the case these days. Korglady,can you shed any light on this? (Not that you're a 'hillbilly',but you live in Kentucky!)

This guy is what is referred to as a 'knee hugger' doll.

For obvious reasons.

Knee hugger dolls were usually Christmas elves,like The Elf on the Shelf.  You can see a load of knee hugger dolls in my post HERE,you can see some Easter elf knee huggers HERE,and also check out 'knee hugger doll' the side bar. Although they are called 'knee huggers' , they can actually let go of their legs.

But as you can see, their arms are usually sewn together, or,as in this case,are all one piece. So they can't have free moving arms unless the kind that are sewn together have their stitches cut. This guy has the 'all one piece' kind.

So he's stuck in this position.

His little skinny legs are pretty free moving though.

But a little too free moving. They are so dangly they don't hold a pose.
 

He's about 9 inches tall.

The other guy has wired legs and arms.

He has a net in his hand,so he's apparently...fishing?

I had him first, and he was played with a lot more than the smaller one.

When I bought him my grama thought he needed a log to sit on. So she had Grampa cut a piece of tree limb for him that looked like a curved log. I still have it, but he's not using it today.

This guy is about 12 inches tall.

When I made the kids a movie,"Emma and Fuzzy Take a Road Trip",starring their dolls of themselves,this guy made an appearance as a guy selling handmade quilts by the roadside. (His quilts turned out to just be 'pictures of quilts',which angered Emma the Doll.) In the end Emma the Doll decided 'they don't have anything',and wanted to leave. Fuzzy the Doll insisted,  'No, wait. I saw something I like'. In the next shot they are in their car and Emma says,"I don't know what you wanted that thing for.' As they drive out of the shot,Fuzzy insists,"I like it.",and the hillbilly,obviously Fuzzy's purchase, is laying on the trunk lid and complaining that he has to 'go to the tall-et', (as my dad used to pronounce it.) I think this accounts for my kids quite a bit...

When Emma  made a sequel to my movie,"Emma and Fuzzy Take a Time Trip",both of these guys appeared.
 

 The other guy probably came from a  yard sale.
 

He reminded me so much of my original guys, and my childhood,that I had to buy him.

I'm sure he's from the same era as my guys.

He's also about 12 inches tall.
 

Like the smaller of my childhood dolls,he's a Knee Hugger.

 I took the pictures today in the evening, just before sunset. It rained really hard today,and the pile of limbs where we trimmed a tree weeks ago were black from being so wet. The late evening sun through the green and black foliage looked misty in the photos. It looked great, like these guys were posing in the middle of the woods.

I wished I had a fairy or wood sprite doll handy to photograph before the light changed.

I tried to find something as quick as I could,and still get the dolls I needed for tomorrow photographed too.So you'll see that doll at some point.
 

  So that's the crowd for today. I'm sure you learned some things you didn't want to know. Come back tomorrow and see if I force unwanted knowledge on you again.