How to date your early Elise Ballerina

Update: Since the writing of this post, I've found different information about how to date Elise ballerinas.  I will write a new post with the new information soon, and update this post with a link to it.

In an earlier post, I introduced you to my first Elise, a white Elise Ballerina. This post will discuss how I determined what year she was made in (1958).

You can date an early (i.e. hard plastic) Elise Ballerina by the color of her tutu. According to Linda Crowsey's 2008 price guide,

* Yellow tutu = 1957
* White tutu = 1958
* Gold tutu = 1959
* Pink tutu = 1960
* Pink tutu with an upswept hairdo = 1961
* Blue = 1962

The years 1963 and 1964 are a little trickier — no color is specified, only that 1963 ballerinas wore small flowers and 1964 ballerinas wore large flowers. However, I think these Elise Ballerinas have either the newer vinyl Elise head or the vinyl Mary-Bel head, and so are easily distinguished from the earlier Elise dolls.

These Elise dolls also appear to have matching Cissette ballerinas. For instance, a gold Cissette ballerina was made in 1959 to match Elise. I also have a white Cissette ballerina whose wig dates her to 1957 or 1958. I'm assuming it is the latter date, since that would correspond with when Elise wore her white tutu.