Doll-A-Day 2023 #264: Tonner Sindy Reproduction

   Today's doll is this Sindy doll. Sorry about the nudity, but I don't have any clothes for her. I bought her this way.

 I got her at one of the doll shows I went to a couple of weeks ago.

She's a bit tanned for a Sindy. Sindy was always very fair skinned. Well, she was British...

 She's a reproduction Sindy, made by Tonner. I think she may be the Chill in the Air Sindy, or possibly the chestnut haired Just Sindy. (Just Sindy was a basic doll that came in a swimsuit.) Chill in the Air was a dressed doll, limited to 500 pieces. Just Sindy with chestnut hair was a 1000 piece run.

Tonner began making Sindy in 2013, to celebrate Sindy's 50th anniversary. The sculpt was loosely based on a Sindy doll called Trendy Girl.

  This Sindy features a twist waist.

And a belly button.

  Her arms lift up and down, but aren't jointed in such a way as to move outward from her body.

She's 11 inches tall.

  Like Tammy, which I think Sindy always resembled more than Barbie, Sindy has tiny, childlike  hands.

I've never had a Sindy, (although I did briefly have a McDonald's Sindy, which I sold), but apparently she is known for having uneven legs The Tonner reproduction is no exception.

She does the scissor sit, so that's something Tonner left from the originals.

  The other thing unchanged from the originals is her ball jointed head. So she is able to look up and down and tilt her head a bit. She can look up a lot better than down. 

  She has eyelashes. I read that the first run had eyelashes that were glued into a groove above her eyes, and they fell out easily. The second run, which I think this girl must be from, had rooted eyelashes. They are really hard, almost like they are plastic, but they are actually hair.

  I like her natural lip colour.

  The other thing I love about her is her hair. Not only is it a beautiful dark auburn, it is super silky and soft. 

It flops around like real hair. What? Doesn't everybody's hair flop around? Mine does.

  It's a wig actually, but it's glued on.

  The colour was really hard to capture in a photo. The next one comes closer than the ones taken in direct sun, above.

  Sindy was made by Pedigree in England, and later Hasbro, Vivid Imaginations, and New Moons. Ken's sister Gloria had a Sindy as a kid. She thinks she may still have all her old Sindy stuff in her attic, or as they call it in England, 'the loft'.  In the late 1970's Marx made Sindy for the American market. They weren't successful. I keep reading that they made her look more American. What does that mean? What does an American look like? Americans are everything. We can look any way. How can you tell an American from an Englishman if they don't talk? Well, I usually can, but most people can't. 

  In the late 1980's the rights were bought by Hasbro. Hasbro produced a Sindy that had a more realistic sized head, who looked more like a standard fashion doll. This wasn't as popular as the original Sindy had been, but they continued to make small head Sindy until the mid 90's. Hasbro were sued by Mattel for copyright infringement at one point because Mattel thought the latest Sindy sculpt looked too much like Barbie. How they got away with that I'll never know. These days, and even then really, there are loads of companies that make fashion dolls, some direct rip offs of Barbie's face, and they get away with it. How can you copyright a realistic head anyway? Copying the face directly is one thing, but just making a fashion doll is another. I don't think Sindy ever looked like Barbie.

  The Tonner Sindys were, like all Tonner dolls, a bit pricey. The clothes made for her were too. I got this girl because she was an unbelievable price at the show. I might let her go to pay for what else I bought. But I'm getting quite attached to her. That hair and tilting head won me over.

  That's today's doll. See you tomorrow for another one.

The Doll Book of the Month Club: The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat

 This month's book is one that was a favourite of mine when I was in first grade. It's The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat.

 I went to a four room school, and we didn't have a library. But my teacher had a stack of books that we were able to borrow every week. There are two versions of this particular book. There is this version, which contains not only The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat, but also The Dinkey Bird. Here are some of the beautiful illustrations from the Dinkey Bird. No dolls, but it's gorgeous, isn't it?

In some editions one book is on one cover, and the other book is on the other cover, with the covers facing the opposite vertical direction. That way either side is the front cover of the book, depending on which way you hold it, and the stories can be read with either first. In this one both covers are The Gingham Dog, and it doesn't even mention the Dinky-Bird. The stories simply come one after the other, like a regular book. 

   I borrowed a different edition of this book quite often in first grade, because I loved both poems the book was made up of, and their accompanying illustrations. That edition had The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat, and Wynkyn, Blynkyn  and Nod. Both poems were written by Eugene Field, and illustrated by Helen Page, (as was The Dinkey Bird). These days these editions of the poems, which have been published many times, are expensive and hard to find. I bought a more modern version of Wynkyn, Blyken, and Nod for Emma when she was small, but nothing comes close to the beauty of Helen Page's illustrations. I was really excited, when Ken and I were on our anniversary day out, to find this book in an antique mall. I was disappointed that it was the Dinkey Bird version, but glad to have the other poem, at least, in the edition I loved all those years ago. And the price was affordable, and Ken insisted on buying it for me for our anniversary.

  

   Now, I will warn you, the poem is disturbing! Some people who read it as kids were creeped out. I don't remember ever being scared by the poem, but I think I found it dramatic. You see, the story concerns two stuffed toys, the dog and cat of the title. 

  

From the off we're told that there's gonna be a fight.

"The air was littered, an hour or so, with bits of gingham and calico."

It's pretty violent, but the end is still a bit unexpected. Spoiler ahead.

  I remembered the last line being something like 'all they found was the tail of the dog and the hair of the cat', or something like that. But it ends this way: Next morning where the two had sat, they found no trace of dog or cat. And some folks think unto this day that burglars stole the pair away! But the truth about about the cat and pup is this: they ate each other up!

  They ate each other! Pretty gross, huh? I suppose it was reading stuff like this that made me what I am...whatever that is. The other poem in the one I read, Wynkyn, Blyken, and Nod, is very sweet and sentimental, and makes me cry these days. 

  That's the book for this month. For once I'm on time, sort of. Also check out today's other post for the doll of the day. See you tomorrow for another doll.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #263: Bo-Katan Kryze

   First of all, I will warn you that I got a new lens for our anniversary, but I'm still having autofocus trouble. If you find that annoying, that's nothing to how I felt after I looked at the pictures I took at Emma's wedding!!

  Today's doll is a new one of Emma's. She's Bo-Katan Kryze.

She looks great in her box. Nice presentation and all her stuff is staying where it should...except that one knee pad is already traveling South.

  She is a special edition Star Wars doll from Disney Parks.

 The character is from the TV series The Mandalorian, as well as the animated series The Clone Wars. She is a Mandalorian herself.

She's about 12 inches tall, maybe 11 1/2. 

Emma thinks the doll is a really good likeness of Katee Sackhoff, the actress who plays Bo-Katan. I think the doll looks like somebody, but I don't think it looks like Katee Sackhoff.

She's very pretty, and well painted. Her eyebrows are detailed, and her lips have a light coloured highlight on the lower lip. The eyes themselves are a bit basic and cartoon like though.

The doll has quite a few accessories: two guns...

...that fit into two thigh holsters. But they fit very loosely, and fall out REALLY easily. I've already lost one of them twice...and found it once. (It has to be here somewhere! I swear there's a black hole under this couch!)

The blue things are knee pads.

And if you have guns, you need ammo, right? So she has an ammo belt.

They did a good job of making it look dirty and worn.

...a helmet...

...which looks great, but upon closer inspection, is just a rubber toy, that doesn't even have a head hole in it.

She has that headband thing. I'm sure it has some other purpose, but I haven't watched Clone Wars, and I haven't seen her in The Mandalorian yet. We're way behind.

As you can see, she has rooted hair.

She has leg armour, and heavy shoes.

Pretty sure they aren't removable.

She also has a jet pack or something on her back.

One of her thigh holsters has slipped down. That was a problem with her knee pads too. They either moved down, or turned around. They didn't stay in place. I think they should have been made as part of the suit, so they would stay in place. They also keep her knees from bending, so that's not good either, for a jointed doll that should be posable.

The pack is supposed to look worn, but it kind of looks like somebody coloured it with pencil.

The back looks worse, but it isn't supposed to show.

There is a place on her back to attach it, but it doesn't clip on because the backpack thingy is soft rubber, and when you try to press is on, it just squashes in a bit. So it falls off really easily.

  She does have some armour that's stitched to her body suit.

Like the chest and abdomen plates and the shoulder pieces.

She has some wrist thingies that look like they might be for communication? Weapons?

Her hands are made in a gun holding position. The guns probably stay in her hand better than they stay in her holsters!

Here's a blurry shot of her armour.

  As I said, she has a pretty, and an interesting face, and rooted hair.

Red hair and brown eyes.

  I mentioned that she's articulated. She's jointed at the neck, shoulders, (but her arms can only move back and forth, not outward.), elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles.

  She can't really hold her helmet the way it looked when she was still in the box. Her arms won't curl around it enough. And her gun toting hand pose means she can't hold her helmet.

Her legs bend at the knees and ankles, which means she can tilt her foot.

She can't sit down very much though. This squat pose is about the best she can do.

I'm not sure why she can't bend enough to actually sit. I don't know if it's her outfit, or her articulation that's holding her back.

She can get her hand on her holster at least.

  She's pretty nice. Her accessories are fairly well done. She looks good, but I'm disappointed with her articulation. But oh well. She's not mine. And she's pretty expensive, so I'm not going to have one.

  That's today's doll. Also have a look at today's other post, the Doll Book of the Month Club.