Vintage Dolls: 2003 Archives

We spent a few days before Christmas junk shopping in Reno (and playing penny slots at the Peppermill Hotel). It was a disheartening trip shopping wise. We were on a tight budget and so we shopped very carefully. When I finally found what I wanted, I did the sensible thing and put down this beautiful but broken boudoir doll head after planning how I would restore her til we were done shopping the big store next door (just to be sure). The price was excellent and she was even discounted on top of that.

I returned two hours later to find that the booth owner had taken her home "to restore her" ten minutes after I had put her down. I assume she heard my plans to restore her. Grrrrr!!! And you should have seen how she "restored" the other once lovely girl in her booth. It was grotesque, down to Michaels curly doll hair and fake Laura Ashley doll dress. Bleh!!!

I was so angry.

WELL. We went to Martinez today to salve our wounded shopping wounds. And in the very last shop, five minutes til closing, what do I spy but a very unique boudoir doll, and this one even had a body!!!

Her face is painted silk, I don't believe the hair is original because there appears to be spit curl glue marks on the side of her face. But her big smokey blue eyes are lovely. She's about 28" tall.

I grabbed her and ran to the counter, got a good price for her too. So now I have a vintage project doll to redress. Yum!

WELL. We finally figured out what most of these big-eyed boudoir girls are called, at least stateside. They were made primarily by the Artmark & Bradley companies. And using that powerful bit of information, I picked up this gorgeous Santa Girl off ebay.

Well, perhaps not my first, but the earliest example to survive. Circa 1974...

Growing up, every time we made a day trip to San Francisco's China Town I got one of these poofy dressed Japanese boudoir type dolls (along with a packet of fire crackers and other flotsom). I eventually ended up with about a dozen. They weren't play dolls, but I think I managed to keep most of them in decent condition. This was the mid 70's and they are all long gone now.

Until I found one, in pretty bad shape, at the flea market recently for $1. I figured I could do something with her to clean her up. But when I glanced at her the other day in despair, her hand had come all unstuffed, and her base was missing. But her head was still in good shape. Her head. It was sitting right on top of a buncha dollfie bodies and *doink!* I had an idea.

I scrambled through my drawers, I had one beauty white EB A figure left. We pulled her head off, poked some of the styrofoam neck hole out to accomodate the neck post and jammed it on.

It was beautiful. A perfect fit. The skin tone even matches.

This Takara lingerie outfit fit nice, even the mob cap fit over her engorged head.

Must play with different looks.

Tried to look up some info on the web on them, and only found them referred to as "kelvin" dolls. This girl was a rather small version, the standard was about 19" tall. This girl was only about 12" with her giant head included.

I love flea markets.