One of the dolls Naomi brought round for me to ID that we initially thought was a Sindy clone turned out not to be.
When I had seen her in the past I’d said to Naomi that while I was not sure if she was a genuine Sindy or Tammy if she was a clone she was a very good one. The reason I was not sure was because she had no markings on the back of her head. Pedigree have always been shockingly inconsistent about doll marks.
I decided to give Sindy’s hair a tidying as it was rather dull and sticking up here and there. When I picked her up I realised that she had a very hard head. Clone dolls usually have soft vinyl heads but some Sindy’s have extremely hard heads. I have a couple so I knew that. I went to my favourite Sindy reference site and started to search for Sindy’s made in Hong Kong. Sure enough some of them were made with no head markings, just the “made in Hong Kong” on the back of the doll.
While Sindy did have a small head her body did not seem as small as the mini Sindys I have seen. Comparing descriptions I decided that this doll might be a New Zealand Sindy. These dolls were composite dolls, Pedigree would send doll parts which probably were made in Hong Kong factories, to the Lines Brothers factory in New Zealand. They would assemble the dolls which were sold in Australia and New Zealand. Lines Brothers was a major toy manufacturer at this time and Pedigree was one of their subsidiaries.
The dolls were made up from whatever parts they had on hand so sometimes you might find a mini Sindy head on a standard body and so on. Naomi’s Sindy is the normal height but when I put a Sindy blouse on her the sleeves were a little long as if her arms were shorter. Luckily I have both standard and mini Sindy’s in my own collection and was able to loan her a spare set of “Weekenders”.
Naomi also has a Paul and a Patch.
While redressing Paul for his photo shoot I discovered that the jeans that belong to my Paul were much too long for him. This means that Naomi’s doll is the 1967 doll which is considerably shorter than the 1965 and 1966 Paul. Here you can see the two of them together. 1967 Paul looks like my Paul’s younger brother.
Patch is marked Hong Kong on her back. There are a couple of versions of Patch who was made in three different sizes, another thing Pedigree was inconsistent about. Patch will go and say hello to my three Patch dolls and all four of them will be measured to see if there are any differences.
Look at these mischievous faces. Here you can see that they are all the same size. Naomi’s Patch is the brunette next to blonde Patch.
Further Reading:
Although you can find these links elsewhere on my blog I am including them again for people who may not have visited before and for those of you who are in a hurry .
http://www.petradolls.co.uk/ – Although this site has not been updated in some years it is an excellent reference for Sindy ID’s
http://www.oursindymuseum.com/
http://www.ebay.com.au/gds/Most-Popular-Vintage-Sindy-Dolls-/10000000178694024/g.html
Dolls, Dolls, Dolls 
Thank you for a fascinating blog! I just recently found out about your blog and have told other doll collectors about it. Although I have a few Sindy dolls, I had never heard of Patch before, I did know about Paul, but not that there were different sizes. All the information you provide and your fabulous photos are so helpful. By the way, I live in Canada so you truly do have an international audience. Thanks again!
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Hi Betty, thanks for your kind words. I love sharing information on my blog and I’m glad you are enjoying it. The internet is such a boon to doll collectors providing so many photos and access to information. I only have one Paul so it was only when I compared him with my sister’s doll and saw how different they were that I hurried off to research.I seem to get a lot of visitors from Canada probably because I have a few Reliable dolls. I wish I knew more about Canadian dolls.
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Thank you for your blog. I am from Western Australia and collect Sindys, Barbies and Action Man and greatly enjoyed to read your blog. I have noticed differences in some of the Sindys with 033050X and 033055X heads, from the early to mid 1970’s and it has driven me mad trying to make sense of it. Reading this blog has settled my detective mind, to know that perhaps some that have 0 at then end, but look like ones with 5 at the end of these codes could possibly be the same and simply been stamped as such. Mystery solved, thanks! Keep blogging, plenty of people appreciate it and enjoy to get to know you and your perspectives on things.
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Thanks Miranda I am no expert either but I enjoy these doll puzzles and sharing information with fellow collectors. Luckily there are some good resources on the internet you just have to have the time and patience to keep looking. Of course it probably helps to be as old as the dolls are a bit 🙂
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Great blog. From what I have been able to piece together, a lot of the early Sindies sold here in Australia have the ‘Made in Hong Kong’ marks. I have been told by NZ collectors that New Zealand produced Sindies often have bodies that tend to go very yellow with age, as the bodies were made in NZ and the other parts of he doll imported. I often wonder if the smaller versions of Sindy, Paul and Patch were made from smaller moulds, or whether it’s due to the chemical composition of the plastic used, as they tend to be a harder plastic and I wonder if over time it has shrunk and hardened. S’pose we’ll never know.
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Thanks Jennifer, I never knew about mini Sindy’s until I became a collector and have puzzled over why Pedigree decided to shrink Sindy, Paul and Patch. Mini Paul looks like original Paul’s younger brother. I wonder if they had to redo the molds at some point, maybe they switched factories and had to start over or whether it was a cost cutting measure. As you say we may never know but it keeps collecting interesting.
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