My doll cabinet - top shelf part 2

The second set of dolls on the top shelf are a little smaller than the 5 Hong Kong dolls from my previous post about my doll cabinet.

These three little treasures are identical.  They were made in Italy.  The two in homemade costumes were part of the chorus line for the doll theatre, and I made their little outfits out of scraps of slightly stretchy material, their boots and bonnets are felt.  Their elastic bands are perished, so their arms fall off, but they really are very cute all the same, with wonderfully natural moulded bodies for dolls so small.  I have some even smaller baby doll versions with bent legs, but those are in storage at present.  The doll in the centre is partly clothed in some national costume which had been glued onto the doll.

The arms on these three identical dolls are so detailed

On their backs is 'Made in Italy' with a logo showing a stork holding a baby.  I don't know which Italian factory made them, and would like to find out.

The next two dolls are unidentical plastic dolls, both Made in Italy, but by different companies.  The taller one has CS very clearly on its back and the other has a symbol/logo of some kind which looks like it could say FOLO, but I'm really not sure, as it could say FDLO.  I would like to know which Italian doll factories made these dolls.  They were picked up in my 20s from a table top sale somewhere.

The two Italian dolls of different makes

Markings on the shorter doll

Markings on the taller doll

My doll cabinet - top shelf part 1

The top shelf of my doll cabinet is the home for a collection of small plastic dolls, plus the two handmade jointed wooden dolls that I created myself.  There are several of particular types on the shelf.  Because of the way I've arranged the dolls, I don't want to work from left to right this time, but will talk about the dolls in categories, starting with the biggest.

The top shelf of My doll cabinet

Hong Kong dolls

These five plastic dolls have Made in Hong Kong on their backs, and came with outfits glued on.  However as you will see from the photo, I made dresses for some of them and embroidered initials on the dresses, as each doll had a name.  Some still have their names sellotaped on the top of their heads.  I bought them all as a teen from one of those shops that was small but seemed to sell everything, including a nice selection of pocket money dolls.  I had so many because I needed them for the chorus in theatrical productions!  During our early teens my sister and I built a miniature theatre out of wood, wire rods, fabric and paint.  It was rudimentary, but had rows of real side curtains like a proper stage and the main front curtains opened and shut when we pulled a cord.  We spent hours devising a show to all the music of the famous Musicals, so the dolls had changes of costumes and were positioned differently for each scene.  Sadly I never thought to take any photographs and after one season the theatre was abandoned and eventually broken up.  But these dolls are survivors from that time.  Their elastic bands holding their limbs to their torsos are perishing, so they are very wobbly now.  Some of them have their original plastic shoes, two have knitted boots that I made for them.  One of them had her eyes fall into her head, so I had to glue them in place, which means they no longer open and close.  If you know which factory made these dolls, please let me know.

Two of the girls, one with a dress over
her original outfit, the other with the original dress

Identifying Susie (and Chrissie)

Posting up photos on Flickr has had some amazing consequences - I've succeeded in tracking down the pattern for Susie's clothes which inspired me to track down her coat pattern, and now another person on the other side of the world has realised that her doll is very similar to my Susie and wants to repaint her doll (Chrissie) using Susie's face as her model (Susie is flattered!) http://www.flickr.com/photos/beezmcs/3952062548/

However this has once again set me on the trail of trying to identify Susie. I suspect she may be a very late Roddy/Bluebell (Roddy Dolls were taken over by Bluebell Dolls in the mid 1960s), but have never been completely convinced because I haven't yet discovered a doll with a similar body shape, none of the Roddys I've seen online are exactly like her, as although some on ebay appear to have very similar length and shape arms, their legs and torsos are different from Susie's. See my post about Susie being restored for a photo of her body shape.

Susie has a vinyl head, a hard thick plastic torso and vinyl arms and legs. The only marking I thought she had on her head was a sort of G symbol near the air hole in the back of her head, but I've now discovered that she has "Made in England 18D" stamped on the back of her neck. She also has "14" stamped on the sole of each foot. Roddy dolls tend to have Roddy stamped on them and apparently Bluebell Roddy's have a distinctive circle around "Made in England" (which Susie doesn't have), but unless this has somehow rubbed off, I can't find such a clear identification mark of her maker.

Made in England 18D (but not in a circle)

The G type symbol (this photo is the right way up,
the G is on its face when Susie stands upright)

The soles of her feet with "14" stamped on them

The top of her feet, showing the detail of her toenails

A close up of one of her hands

I've found a small reference to the Roddy factory (in Tulketh Street, Southport, Lancashire) on a Southport forum http://www.southportforums.com/forums/printthread.php?t=50357618 but there is little else in the way of information about the firm online that I've been able to unearth. So I've sent off for a couple of doll identification books, and hopefully one or both of these will be able to help me identify who made my Susie.

Susie's face and shoulders in profile

My doll cabinet - middle shelf part 1

In the left corner of the middle shelf sits Matilda with Judith on her lap. Matilda is a Pippa type doll with long blond (rather frizzled) hair. She originally belonged to one of my school friends but we did a swap. She got her name from the book 'The Ship that flew' by Hilda Lewis, which was a favourite of mine at the time (and years later I bought a copy as the version I read when a child was a school library book). The Matilda character in the book was a girl from the middle ages whom the four children with the magical ship visited when they went back in time, and she had long hair. I think it was this and the shape of her face that prompted me to give her that name.


She is wearing a dress I made from material that was left over from a dress made for me when my father remarried. I've still got the full size dress!

Judith is very small, just under 2 inches tall (about 48mm). When I was about 7 or 8 I had private Art lessons from the mother of a pupil at school, who ran the group lessons in her garage which she had turned into a wonderful studio. We did some great projects in those lessons, including making puppets for a show which was put on in her living room for all the parents at the end of term. I can remember two of those shows, the first was done with glove puppets, and was Jonah Man Jazz, and the second was a made up story about two children going in a rocket to the Moon with their mouse that got enlarged by a ray gun. They had a grandmother who got left behind. I was given the task of making the two children, the grandmother and the giant mouse. These were all marionnettes, and I think I've still got some of them. One day my Art teacher sent me from the studio to fetch something from her living room (probably some material or a source book, I can't recall) and I spotted little Judith lying on the dining room table. She had no clothes on and was the dearest little doll I had ever seen at that point, though not in great condition even then. I took her back to the studio along with whatever it was I had to fetch, and showed her to my Art teacher who told me I could keep her as I had been doing such a good job with my puppets.



I made the little felt dungarees for Judith. She has been through the wars though, as at one stage her leg was broken, so I glued it back with epoxy. She also has a rather unsightly piece of wire sticking out of the back of her head, which I left alone rather than try to saw it off. Earlier this week my elder daughter expressed an interest in looking at her, and while I was removing the dungarees, both her arms fell off as the elastic band had turned black and disintegrated. I did a careful repair by using twisted doubled over cotton thread from the hooks on her arms. Fortunately they are not too loose. Her legs are not jointed. I used to take her to school in a little box in my blazer pocket and was teased mercilessly by some of the other children for doing so. To me she was a little mascott, something to help get me through the school day.