Vintage 1981 Effanbee Renior 15" Vinyl "Girl With A Watering Can" Doll

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!!

Well, it's been pretty well established that I have some serious love for Effanbee Dolls. Specifically vintage ones but generally only because I am much too cheap to buy the newer ones they make now. Which are to die for really, produced by Tonner from what I understand but that's another blog for another time...

I think I've mentioned we are in process of moving. We sold our house on Wednesday and so drove the approximately hour drive to the west to look at our short list of houses we want to buy. We put contract in on our favorite, so if you don't mind saying a prayer we get it, I'd appreciate it. It's the one that I can envision an amazing doll room in, so... I do ever so hope it works out. Trying to leave it to God though because I know He will take us just the right place. 

All that being said, on the freeway exit to that house is an antique mall. See? It's meant to be!! So since we happened to be right there in the area, after we'd decided on a house to offer on and had some lunch, I stopped in...

Oh. My. Stars!

Vintage. Doll. Heaven!!

I was so overwhelmed that I didn't think to take even one photo of the amazing booths I found that were chockablock full up with Madame Alexander and Effanbee Vintage Dolls all safely protected in their boxes as if they rode a time machine from thirty years ago. Love Love Love! I had such a hard time choosing just one. If we do get that house, I suspect that booth might be my undoing. I'll go and take you on a tour if we get the house... Otherwise, I don't want to go back because it'll be too painful a reminder of what could have been! Hahahaha! Seriously though, the booth had a whole rack of vintage dolly dresses and all manner of cool and it was just one booth of hundreds. I could spend hours there and I only had like fifteen minutes to spare that day! So...

I chose this sweet girl! I have decided to name her Renior. Because it fits, eh?

Isn't she pretty?!

It helps if you are familiar with the painting she is based on. She is "Girl with a Watering Can" from Renior's famous painting. I have to say I think they got her pretty spot on, right down to the flowers she's holding in her hand. 

As you also know, I am not one to leave 'vintage display only kind of dolls' in their original clothes and such... Dolls are meant to be played with or what's the point? So, I took her dress off for the very first time since 1981 to check her out. 

As per their usual, Effabee did a top notch job on her costume. Her little slip isn't even able to be seen when she has the blue dress over but there it is, anyway. It could be used as a little night gown or even summer dress all by itself. Bloomers too! I love bloomers!

Her hair brushed out really nice and pretty, it's rooted and very thick. 

See her costume components? So pretty and cute. The socks are adorable! They are a bit dirty from the shoes but that's normal even in modern dolls. 

****WARNING!! NUDE DOLL PHOTOS FOLLOWING*****

TURN BACK NOW if you you are bothered by them....

Don't say I didn't warn you...

Ok... Here they are... Gotta review a doll properly!

She has the same body type as my two other 15" Effabee Dolls by Jan Hagara. You can read more about them here: Laurel and here: Christina&Larry It's one of my favorite body mold types from Effanbee, very sturdy and well made with soft plastic and five points of articulation. 

Here is her back.

And her stamp on her back. She was born in 1981 when I was nine. I like to think of my current burgeoning collection as a fantasy collection I would've died for as a nine year old. Why not? So many people collected these dolls and tucked them away in closets as the treasure they are. I am so glad that they did.

That's it for now Doll Friends!

Till next time!

XXOO

Effanbee Dolls: My New Infatuation

Greeting Doll Friends!

As I've mentioned before, I had a little doll collection in my adult life, prior to children. It consisted of a few dolls I owned in my childhood, such as My Friend Mandy by Fisher Price or Kimberly by Tomy, and some I bought here and there in my early 20s because I loved them when I saw them, like my Heidi Ott dolls. Well, three of those dolls were 11" Effanbee dolls. Here is a (bad, predigital) photo of the ones I had then.

This is a photo from a scrapbook page of mine where I am discussing my hobbies. It shows my collection of "My Friend" dolls and the three Effanbee dolls I owned at the time. This was before I did much doll shopping on eBay but as I recall, I got these three on an auction on eBay. I loved them at the time even though I knew their costumes were incomplete. They had such pretty faces! As I've reported before though, when I had my kids when I turned 30, I lost my mind and got rid of all my dolls (other than the ones I was going to "save for my kids to play with"). The Effanbee dolls went then...

So recently I was thrifting and glanced up at top shelf and who did I see staring back at me? The same Effanbee doll from before! Ok, not the same one... Not even the same model... But the same pretty face mold. This one had dark hair and was still in her original box! So I plunked down my $3.99 and brought her home.

Isn't she pretty? She arrived named Holly but I already have a doll named Holly and so my dear daughter renamed her Hope.

She is 11" tall and has sleepy eyes. She'd never been removed from her box and I was thrilled to get her! I realize as I write this that I didn't unbox her step by step to show you how she was packaged but it was pretty standard.

The costume is interesting in that the collar, cuffs and sash are all separate pieces from the dress itself. All top notch costume, very well made. I love her. 

So... Not long after that, again, thrifting, I made a very interesting discovery. I was lucky enough to get to Goodwill just as they were bringing the new stock carts out from the back. All the really good stuff at Thrift Stores usually never makes it off these rolling carts out, people take the best right out of it and put it in their own carts! I am no exception. When I saw a load of dolls, all in plastic bags and tagged like they'd been in an estate sale, I grabbed every single one up into cart. I knew I wouldn't buy them all but it gave me a chance to look them over well and make decisions. All of them were Effanbee dolls and it was literally the first time I realized that Effanbee made dolls with faces other than the pretty one above. Uh oh. That would likely be dangerous knowledge... But I'll get to that later. I decided to buy four of the seven they had there. I left a Mae West, a Charlie Chaplain and a Winston Churchhill doll there because I've never been into dolls of adults. That left me with these.

As you can see, Hope is standing in middle of the four I bought. I got them in bagged sets for $3.99 a bag!!! So they were only $2 each!! I love thrift stores! Aren't they fabulous?!? To the left there is Flossie and Freddie, twin 11" dolls and to the right you see 13" Lotus Blossom and Little Tiger. They are all vinyl, with poseable arms and legs and are made very well, as is their costuming.

I was having way too much fun checking them out and didn't take as good a pictures as I might should've but here is some of me checking out Lotus Blossom's costume. It's so lovely! Every detail is made so well!

Here is the mark on the back of her body. She was made in 1982 and her doll artist was Jan Stafford. 

Here is Little Tiger in costume (minus shoes, one was broken) with his little kite.

Here is Lotus Blossom with Elizabeth (18" Just Pretend doll) and Simone (14" Heart for Hearts doll) all redressed with Simone wearing her outfit, which fit like a dream! More on them all later, just had to come show you how my latest obsession, Effanbee dolls, got started! I will come back and show much better details of the dolls later! I kept Freddie and Flossie's original names because they just seemed to "fit" but wanted something different for Lotus Blossom and Little Tiger because those are a mouthful! I decided it'd be cute to keep their names if I could come up with them in an alternate language and so decided to try Chinese first. It was perfect! So Little Blossom became Ha'n and Little Tiger became Hu'! Perfect!

Well, that's it for this time Doll Friends! See you next time!!