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Sunday 4 October 2009

Unexpected identification of doll cabinet residents

I invested in a couple of doll identification books in the hope of finding the maker of my playdoll Susie, but still no luck. However I was able to identify the maker of the sadly worse for wear occupant of the bottom shelf - Joy the disco diva. She is in fact a Rock Flowers Heather doll, though of course is in anything but mint condition! 'The Collectors Guide to Dolls of the 1960s and 1970s volume II' on page 165 shows two super examples of this doll, and also shows outfit #4052 Jeans in Fringe which I remember my sister had for Joy as well. The mint version dolls are wearing the orange sunglasses which I do remember (long since lost).

I was very gratified to find my Jasmine Pippa doll featured in the other book I bought - 'British Teenage dolls 1956 - 1984' by Francis Baird. There is a nice section on the Pippa family in this book, with some wonderful colour photos, and I was able to work out which Pippa my sister was given for her birthday - it was the Bridesmaid Pippa Gail with shoulder length brown curled in hair, but my sister named her Laura, probably after Laura Ingalls Wilder, as we were reading the 'Little House on the Praire' books at the time. I have a yet to fulfil dream of visiting all the Laura houses but have not managed to visit the USA so far.

The British Teenage dolls book also has a sizable section on Sindy dolls which I have yet to pour over properly. Unfortunately the only Roddy dolls in the book are the teenage ones, which are nothing like my Susie. So I have ordered more books ('The Collector's Guide to British Dolls Since 1920' and 'British Dolls of the 1960s') which hopefully will have what I'm looking for, and may perhaps help me identify other dolls in my collection.

3 comments:

Rebecca said...

Congratulations, I always like knowing about my dolls and dolls house furniture (though, in the case of the dolls I collect, they were mostly not created with names, so it's the maker's name I want to know).
Hope the new books help you identify more dolls! Will they also lead you to buying more, I wonder? I've looked many times through my dolls house books thinking about what I would like to buy - a very enjoyable form of window shopping, and lovely when I do find something I've coveted.

DollMum said...

Buying more, well there is always that. I've got lots of doll related books which I have studied and identified things I would love but wouldn't buy mainly because of cost and space. I also identified my little Judith doll online last night (Edi from Germany) and am tempted to look out for another, but we shall see.
And I do have some dolls my family don't even know about, but that is another story for the future...

Rebecca said...

Oh, that's great that you've identified Judith. There are little Edi dolls on German ebay from time to time, of different vintages, I'd say. - Do you know the Puppenhausmuseum site? They have some pictures of Edi dolls (and others). - Maybe one day you'll see one who is just right as a friend for Judith.