Our most treasured dolls may have caught us unawares. The Bold Doll reflects on some that were lurking in the shadows.
As doll collectors, many of us have had the excitement of finding a treasure when least expected. These lucky finds can be lucrative if we are in the sellers’ market, alternatively they might fill a gap in a collection, start us off in a new direction, or they may simply become dolls we can never part with.
One of my favorite stories is from a collector of Thunderbirds toys – based on the UK’s 1960s marionette TV series. Steve Clifton is a British collector who chanced upon an incredible cache of Fairylite dolls, as the Tin-Tin Kyrano character from the show. To say that these dolls are hard-to-find would be an understatement. They had been bought cheaply by an elderly lady when new, yet discontinued. She was a great fan of crochet, and had carefully removed each doll from its box, undressed it, made a crochet outfit for it, and returned it to the box. As for the original outfits – they had gone into the trash! But this was still an astonishing find. Over the years Steve was able to find examples of Tin-Tin’s clothing to restore and re-dress every single one of the dolls.
Steve Clifton’s amazing haul of boxed Tin-Tin dolls. You rarely see one of these in a box – let alone a whole bunch of them. I’m sure there must be a collective noun for Tin-Tins (a rust?) but it escapes me.
Incidentally, Steve also found all eight of the male Thunderbirds dolls listed incorrectly as ‘Matchbox’ (as for Tin-Tin, they are Fairylite dolls) and with a terrible picture. He got them all for the bargain price of about $250. Each one can sell individually for in excess of this. A cautionary tale for sellers: do the research and take decent photos.
A personal discovery was on a trip to Paris, I had agreed (slightly reluctantly, as I wasn’t in the mood for crowds) to join some friends at one of the city’s famed flea markets, Les Puces de Saint-Ouen. We were ostensibly looking for vintage kitchen-ware, or possibly furniture, though how that would fit in the overhead bin on the flight home was anybody’s guess. While idling at the back of a stall, I found a box of dirty old vinyl dolls, mainly of no interest. But I was pretty sure that one of them was a wigged Caprice (I was less familiar with these dolls then). So I grabbed this doll together with a handful of others and asked how much. It was only a few euros so the deal was struck, and I couldn’t believe my luck. I’m still astonished as the flea market sellers are pretty astute, but this was not a vendor that sold any other toys at all and I think they were happy to get rid of what they saw as junk.
The wigged Caprice, liberated from France. She was much dirtier than this, hiding in a box at the back of a market stall, but she scrubbed up well. The inset photo shows Caprice without her wig.
Another chance find was on eBay Italy, hunting for a Gio Ponti Super Leggera chair – so elegant, and so unbelievably light. There was nothing, so I thought while I’m here … and began browsing dolls. I was familiar with Ottolini dolls, and I recognized something listed generically as ‘vintage doll’ as a Sonia Otttolini. I was concerned about safe shipping, as the eyes can drop inside the head if roughly handled, but the doll was so well-priced – it really would have been rude not to.
Not a purchase, but still a lucky find, was when I discovered the Théâtre de la Mode (TDLM) mannequins for the first time at the Golden Age of Couture exhibition at the V&A museum in London. I had gone for the fashion and came away with a burning interest in these miniature models. This led ultimately to my discovery of one of my personal favorites, Milou the Mannequin, as well as the wonderful 16-inch reproductions that Robert Tonner created using the TDLM collection as inspiration.
A hand-made prototype, the wire-frame Milou the Mannequin – an experimental pre-production model. The face paint was created by Charles Fegen of Sybarite fame, and the couture suit is a one-off, Joie de Soleil, by Gary Alston of House of Retro.
An unexpected street discovery was not far from my local neighborhood in San Francisco. One summer, a couple of years ago, the neighborhood association near my office was hosting an annual garage sale to raise funds. There was the usual motley selection of goods you find at these events: mismatched shoes, unloved paint-by-numbers scenes, and moth-eaten knitwear. But there was also a boxed Mimi the Singing Doll that nobody seemed interested in, and I had never heard of. Nothing was priced very high, so it was more a consideration of lugging the (large) box home than the price. Naturally I caved in and then, of course, had to track down all of the fashions for this doll. Luckily there was a total of only six additional outfits. If only I could stick to small dolls, it would make the issue of storage so much simpler.
Mimi the singing doll in her basic out-of-the-box outfit.
The last dolls in this saga were found at an exhibition of the African Diaspora. Part of the exhibition was devoted to dolls and playthings, and the museum store had some of these items for sale. Included were a selection of cheaply-produced blown-vinyl dolls from Ghana, West Africa. They were made in a variety of colors, some were carrying hares and others held teddy bears. Made with the simplest possible figurine construction, with no jointing whatsoever, these dolls were nevertheless originally made for play, and have a definite charm.
A trio of blown-vinyl dolls from Ghana, West Africa. Each doll is fitted with a squeaker, for when you squeeze her.
The only takeaway from all this is to stay on the lookout at all times, you never know what you might find!
This story first appeared in the Winter 2020 issue of Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine.
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