New additions to my collection

I have been too busy for many of my project dolls lately, so I haven't been posting here as much as I used to. However, I have been adding a lot of dolls to my collection.

In addition to fixing up "project dolls," I have a couple of boxes full of clothes that I enjoy finding dolls to wear. Just this week, I have found several nude dolls to dress. Here are a few of my newest additions.

The Ginger on the left is one I've featured before, #444 from 1956. The one in the center is new — a nude with perfect hair that I found and dressed in #226 from 1954/55. The one on the right is another I've had a while, but recently completed her outfit with hat, belt, and lavender socks. The accessories came in a boxed outfit and are correct for this dress.

This little sweetheart is a Ginger clone that I've dressed in one of my favorite clone outfits. I'm not sure who the doll is, or who the outfit belongs to. The dress closes with a Greek key snap, which was used by both Cosmopolitan and some of the companies that sold Ginger clones.

Next we have a pretty little brunette I just got and dressed in #441 from 1954/55. Although I put the outfit together myself, all of it is correct except the bloomers (she has white taffeta fat pants on, but they should be the same navy waffle weave as the dress). The belt has torn before and is a bit short as a result, but is otherwise correct for the outfit.

This next one is probably my favorite of my new additions. She is wearing an outfit I've featured before: Ginger's sailor outfit, which I've since discovered is #333 from 1955. I found one for myself, then found the white belt and red ribbon necktie to go with it. The beanie is a lovely crocheted one made by Regitze to replace the original red felt beanie.

The doll has a broken walking post, which I might try to fix eventually, but for now I'm not too worried — she is lovely enough that I don't care if her head wobbles a little bit!

The trunk used as a backdrop for these pictures is a new addition too, incidentally.

I am hoping that in the coming weeks I will have an opportunity to catch up on my project dolls. Stay tuned for some posts on hair restyling and seam split repair.

Another year, another doll show

On Sunday my mom and I had a booth in another doll show. A fellow Ginger collector and good friend of mine from Denmark, and the owner of GingerDolls.dk, also had a few things (a few small dolls and a boxload of clothes) for sale in our booth.

This particular show ran twice last year — October and December — and we did both shows. This one, however, was more successful than both of last year's shows combined.

I've been slowly focusing my collecting efforts on Cosmopolitan Ginger, and as a result I've been getting rid of dolls that don't fit my collection anymore. There are some dolls that I won't get rid of no matter how my collecting changes, but there are others that I don't care as much for and that take up too much room to keep. My mom would call it downsizing, but I think techically a collection has to get smaller in order for that to be true — and mine is growing all the time.

Anyway, here is a listing of what we sold at the show:

My mom:

* 1930s Madame Alexander Madelaine DuBain
* 1950s American Character Tiny Tears with original trunk, clothes, and accessories
* 1950s magic skin baby with clothes and accessories
* Figurines from occupied Japan
* Carved wooden animals from Kenya
* Doll clothes

Me:

* 1950s 14" hard plastic "Made in USA" doll
* Madame Alexander Alexander-kins with the Maggie Mixup face and a 1960 tagged outfit
* Newer MIB Madame Alexander dolls
* Several "$5 dolls" — nude 1950s fashion dolls, Ginger clones, etc. — all needing TLC
* Doll clothes

Regitze:

* Ginny and Jill doll parts
* Doll clothes

One thing we have found about these shows is that it helps to have a combination of high-dollar dolls ("eye candy") and bargain stuff. So in addition to our nice dolls, we had a number of bargain dolls and several plastic tubs full of clothes (off to the side, out of the picture) for people to dig through. We set our prices fairly low, and by the end of the day our table was quite a bit more bare than what you see here.

Of course, the result is that we will turn around and put a lot of what we made into buying more dolls. The cycle never ends!