New dolls seem to be finding their way to me at a great rate lately. Last week at the Op Shop I was talking to a regular customer and the conversation came around to dolls. She told me that she had some dolls at home that I might be interested in and that she’d bring them in to the shop for me to see. To be honest I forgot all about it but yesterday she did bring them and gave them to me.
One doll is porcelain and the other two are vinyl/ hard plastic dolls.
I’ll talk about the vinyl ones first The larger one is about 60 cm or 24 inches tall and she is marked Perfekta, Hong Kong on the back of her head. I’d guess she probably dates from the 1960’s or 1970’s. So far my googling has not turned up much information about Perfekta or pictures of this particular doll. Dolls like this were mass-produced through the sixties and early seventies so it is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. She has white hair, not my favourite colour as you know. Although she is wearing her original panties I am not sure her dress is original. I think it may be hand-made. It could be a wedding dress or perhaps a communion dress. Her veil is sewed on. Her original shoes had gone but someone cared enough to put knitted booties on her. She had been pretty well looked after, all I did was to comb her hair.
The smaller vinyl doll is around fourteen inches tall and although she is unmarked she looks a lot like several of my other Pedigree type dolls. Her face has faded a bit as these dolls often do but her eyelashes are all there. She has long red hair but as you can see she has been redressed in a historical costume and her hair piled up on her head in the appropriate style. Her dress is handmade I think and decorated with sequins and pearls. She even has handmade boots.
This doll was a bit grubby from being stored, mainly her face but she was easy to clean up. I washed and conditioned her hair and combed out the tangles before pinning it up again.
The porcelain doll is more modern I think. She has a bit of a problem with her arms at the moment. They need to be re-strung. I will have to see if I can do this or whether I’ll need some help. She does have her original outfit and apart from her arms she’s in good condition.
She is marked “Posh Lady Limited Edition ” and “107 of 300” Again I’ve not learned much about her yet but I think that she may be the type of porcelain doll sold in gift stores such as Copperart/Homeart. I’ve seen a photo of another with similar problem with the arms so this might be common in these dolls. Little Posh came with a chair of her own to sit on which is good because as she is a bent leg girl it would be hard to pose her without. Because of the bent legs it’s a bit hard to measure her but I think she is around the 35-40 cm size as well.
After I photographed the girls I managed to shoehorn them into the doll display. Little Posh went into the TV Unit where there is now no more room so no more porcelain dolls until I get another cabinet – and another room to put it in. The white-haired doll, Blanche I think I’ll call her, managed to squeeze in beside some similar sized sisters on another unit and Lizzie the Pedigree type has of course gone to stand with her same size sisters although I had to move the Scottish Roddy’s to get her in there. I think I am now officially out of space in the doll room. If I get another big doll I really don’t know where I would put her.Some changes will have to be made.
Dolls, Dolls, Dolls 