Several big dolls came home with Naomi last week and this one had a problem. She had a big dent in the side of her head, probably from something heavy resting on her head while she was in storage. Sorry, I didn’t take a picture of that but I will tell you what we decided to do.

On the back of her head in tiny letters I managed to make out some numbers, the words “Uneeda Doll Company” and some Roman Numerals. After some online searching I concluded that she was a vinyl doll from 1976.

This doll is a big girl of about 30 inches with a slim waist. She has a hole in her torso. I thought that it might be for a mama box but now I am wondering if there was some kind of walking mechanism there. She is about the size of a Wispy Walker but I have no idea what the mechanism looks like. I couldn’t find a photo of a nude doll to compare. I actually hadn’t realised that Uneeda is still operating and still making Wispy Walkers today. You don’t see them advertised over here.

She looks as if she has faded from too much exposure to the sun as when I took her head off, I could see the peachy colour of her original complexion.

Getting back to the dented head I decided to try a solution that Naomi had suggested. I removed her head by warming it a little with my hairdryer which made it easy to pull it off without damaging it.

I tried warming the dented area too but that didn’t really do anything. I could push the dent out but it would go back to the previous position. I didn’t want to use a lot of heat on her so I then followed Naomi’s suggestion of stuffing her head with something to try to push the dent out. We had a lot of polyester wadding which had come with the piles of material and craft stuff we’ve been given so I stuffed that into her head and pushed it in tight with a big knitting needle. The dent looks a lot less obvious.

Now I will leave her for a few days and see if she stays in shape. If she does, I’ll fix her hair and give her a clean before I put her head back on. If she doesn’t, I’ll clean her and when her head is completely dry, I’ll put the stuffing back in. I don’t think it would hurt to leave it there indefinitely. It is not interfering with the movement of her eyes.

Naomi commented to me that many people would see this doll with her dented head and faded, vampire like skin tone would call her a creepy doll and probably use her for a Halloween prop. We just saw a doll who had some damage that might be fixed. She came from a home where she was loved and now she is part of our doll family.

It was the same with Connie, her white eyes and filthy appearance at the Op Shop might have made her seem creepy to others but look how nicely she turned out.

I’ll be back with another post soon to show you the end result of my repair work.