Although 'The Golden Age of Hard Plastics' is probably closer to my mother's era than mine, I became enamoured with those dolls at an early age when my sister and I discovered three hard plastic 'Sweet Sue' dolls in a local Woolworth. They reposed in their original boxes still and evidently had been 'lost' in storage until some one came upon them and set them out for sale at least twenty years after their creation. They were not antiques at that point, but they definitely were vintage. I bought one, my sister bought another and my mother bought the third. They all were 'walkers' and absolutely stunning. I believe that my sister bought the doll I wanted and gave it to me that Christmas and I gave her the doll she liked best in return. We did not buy them, therefore, for ourselves. My mother gave me the third doll although she kept it for years.
The Sweet Sue that was given to me wore a rose lace ballgown and had auburn hair. I took her with me everywhere, from continent to continent. Unfortunately, she developed a skin ailment that is not uncommon in the hard plastics from the 1950s and 1960s. A blotch appeared on one cheek, marring her perfection. I still have her though.
As a young girl, I felt that Sweet Sue was perfection. As a girl who loved 'Gone with the Wind', when I saw Cissette in the role of Scarlett, I thought she was the prettiest doll in the world and bought her for my sister. I do not think my sister ever really appreciated her as I did. She was not a great fan of the book or the film. At that stage in my life, however, to purchase that doll for myself would have been unthinkable. The last time I saw the doll I gave my sister, her head had become separated from her body. I did manage to find another Cissette Scarlett from the same year when I had my doll business.
Here are a few of the dolls from the 'Golden Age of Hard Plastics' as well as two contemporary Madame Alexander dolls and one beautiful cloth doll made by the incomparable Chad Valley of England. My New Year's Resolution is to catalogue my doll collection, partly in order to dust each and every one of them and partly because one only truly enjoys a doll by interacting with him or her a little. It is a great pity that most of my dolls have existed in a state of neglect for the past few years. As with silver, dolls require maintenance which is one reason why the idea of collecting dolls for investment was truly foolish. Dolls require space and attention. Even if one never opens the box in which the doll was sealed originally, there is a possibility that the doll will be ruined or at least damaged by constant contact with tissue paper, the box itself or the doll's own clothing. Unlike bars of pure gold that probably could be left untouched in a chest for hundreds of years, dolls and edged weapons require service and love.
From top to bottom, the dolls are:
'Princess' doll by Madame Alexander with the beautiful 'Margaret' face, so named for Princess Margaret. 'Bride' by Madame Alexander with the 'Margaraet' face. 'Riviera by Night' by Madame Alexander (late 1990s, 16" vinyl). 'Suzanne' by Effanbee, redressed in a Betsy McCall outfit designed by Robert Tonner. 'Alice and the Jabberwocky' by Madame Alexandar with the lovely Lissy face, one of the last dolls to be made using the original mould, now retired forever. Alexander made a number of dolls with the Lissy face in 1993. 'Toni' doll by Ideal. The platinum blonde doll was so-named for the hair colouring and was extremely popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This one is in excellent condition but redressed by another collector who was a wonderful seamstress and based the outfit on an original. 'Jenny Lind' by Madame Alexander with the Cissette face and body. Jenny Lind was a famous singer known as the 'Swedish Nightingale' Last but not least, a cloth doll made by Chad Valley, all original apart from her shoes.
