Today I thought I’d share some photos of my small collection of dolls in national costumes. I have occasionally featured these in the past but not often because they lived on the highest display shelf and to reach them I needed to use my stepladder.
Now they have a new home which may or may not be permanent. They live on a shelf in my bedroom where they are much easier to get at. At the moment two or three dolls are missing from the display. They need new rubber bands or other small repairs. The largest dolls in the group have also been relocated. My oriental baby doll who is quite old I think is hanging out with the other older dolls downstairs and the two Scottish dollies are still boxed while I figure out if there is room for them in the bedroom or if they are going to have to live with their same sized friends who are not in costume.
Oriental doll 
Two Scottish dolls by Roddy.
I know that I have written about most of these dolls on my Costume Doll page. Now that they are a bit more accessible I may be able to research them a bit further. In the meantime here are a few new photos.
I have written about these small dolls before. They were all made in Hong Kong and were sold as Rexard dolls in the UK, Faun in Australia and more recently I bought three who were marked Genius.
Here are a few newcomers that Naomi got for me in Oatlands. They are all hard plastic dolls most of them with sleep eyes. These two from Fiji are still in their original tubes. The other three I need to do a little more research on. I haven’t examined them for doll marks yet.
In a future post, I may take down some of these dolls and feature them individually as they are quite interesting. I think collecting this type of doll is quite fun. They are colourful, they don’t cost a lot and they don’t take up a lot of room.
Dolls, Dolls, Dolls 
A very good collection and they have some amazing colourful costumes. The only actual costume doll I have is a Welsh girl which I bought on holiday in Wales. She is still in her tube and I named her “Carys” I do have Kenyan Barbie NRFB and also a Hindu Barbie doll, dressed in a green sari who I’ve named “Sunita”.
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Some of the DOTW Barbie’s are very nice but these don’t take up as much room.
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Lovely.I have a few travel doll rescues but DK where they come from. Plus the hard plastic dress me doll sleep eyes ones. I have two Scottish looking ones in tubes but I seriously need to do more research. Been bogged down w/ boxing/binning tagging bagging/logging for too long.I’m in the re-homing or re-heading duplicates stage. (for the hair-cuts I cant salvage.)Pulling out these little guys after the 1;6 scale over-load is a welcome break!I had even pulled out trolls and my daughters Furby to see if anything got ruined in storage.I’m glad only one doll was damaged sinse last repack.(she was already in bad shape.Did you manage to bring your shelves w/ you to put doll on from the old place? Thanks for the sneak peek of your travel dolls..look forward to more.
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I did bring the wooden boards and shelf fixings but I’m not sure yet where or how they will be used. We have to fit Naomi’s things in the same rooms. I’ve still only unpacked a few things.
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Good enough,,How are the pets settling after the move?How is Naomi? Meant to ask you do you lean your dolls against the wall on the shelf or do any have stands?
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Naomi is fine although we haven’t seen each other for 2 months due to the Covid-19 restrictions on travel. We speak on the phone or online regularly. We hope she’ll be able to come next month when people are allowed to travel further from their homes and stay away overnight.
With these little dolls they are mostly leaning against the wall. A few have their own stands or tubes. I did have stands for a couple of them but these are the ones out for repairs at present.
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Wow amazing collection, specially the small dolls in costume. I wish i could also display mine in an open shelf like yours. In our place it will easily gather dust.
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It is a bit dusty here too but I don’t have a glass cabinet so just have to remember to dust them regularly.
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I loved seeing these as it brought back wonderful memories of my own childhood. My aunt worked for NATO and lived in Paris and then Brussels. Every time she made one of her rare visits home to the USA, she brought us dolls in national costumes. I have a doll very much like the one you have in a sari. I still have several of these dolls. What a fun way to learn about the world as a child!
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I should also add that these dolls were kept in a special box on a shelf and we had to ask my mother to let us play with them. They were called “the collection dolls,” and I think we learned how to treasure and play gently with our dolls because of them. I’m always stunned when I see the state of the dolls you bring home from the Op Shop because never in my life, even as a tiny child, would I have abused a doll that way.
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I know. It shocks me too because we were taught to play nicely with our toys. Of course there were a few that broke but if we had done the things that kids did to those rescue dolls mum would have been very angry with us. What shocks me most is that some of the mothers attitude seemed to be “Kids make mess and break things.”
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A couple of the hard plastic dolls are my childhood dolls. The rest were bought or given to me over time since I started collecting.
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