Many vinyl glamour dolls of the late 1950s and early 1960s are marked 14R on the back of their heads, sometimes with other marks as well. These dolls have a wide variety of hair colors, hair styles and body types.
This example is 19″ tall and marked 14R-1 on the back of her head, and PAT. PENDING in an oval on the right side of her blow-molded torso. This is the first time I have ever seen a side marking on a glamour doll. Her torso is very straight, with a small bust and hips. In addition to the usual neck/shoulder/hip joints, she has jointed wrists as well. Her dark blonde hair is very short and may have been trimmed.
Wearing a vintage mommy-made dress, all ready for display!
In the 1950s and ’60s, Cameo began making Kewpie and some of their other characters in vinyl, but also licensed other companies to manufacture them. This makes identification difficult, unless the original packaging is present, as they may be marked with the Cameo name while actually made by other manufacturers. Cameo closed in 1969, but founder Joseph Kallus retained his copyrights and continued to license them to various other firms. The dolls pictured above include an 8-inch Kewpie marked Jesco, and two smaller dolls marked Cameo. Kewpies were made in many different sizes, from miniature to child size.
Kewpies finally got fashionable in the ’50s and ’60s. Kuddly Kewpie, like most of the vinyl versions, was sold in various outfits.
Kuddly Kewpie photos courtesy of eBay seller your-favorite-doll. The doll on the far right is 12 inches tall.
There were variations of the standard Kewpie dolls as well: Kewpie Gal has chin length molded hair; Ragsy Kewpie, which is a vinyl version of the original cloth doll, has a body molded in color and is jointed only at the neck.
Ragsy Kewpies made by AMSCO under license from Cameo.Photos courtesy of RubyLane seller Romancing the Doll.
Another sweet Kewpie by AMSCO. Photo courtesy of RubyLane seller Romancing the Doll.
Most vinyl Kewpies were flange jointed, but the unusual doll pictured below is strung together with elastic cord.
For much more information on Kewpies and their history, visit this page. Sadly, the Kewpie trademark is no longer owned by a doll manufacturer, but by a Japanese mayonnaise company.
Vogue made an all-vinyl baby version of their popular Ginny doll beginning in 1959. In the first two years of production, she was made in an 18″ size only. (This is the doll pictured above. She is missing her shoes and socks.) In 1961, 12″, 16″ and 20″ sizes were added. These were all drink-and-wet babies. In 1962 and ’63, an 8″ doll that did not drink and wet was produced. Beginning in 1964, the 8″ doll had the drink and wet feature too. This causes confusion for collectors, as she was identical to Vogue’s 8″ Ginnette doll, and can only be conclusively identified by a wrist tag or original box. Ginny Baby was made in both molded hair and rooted hair versions, with sleep eyes. Rooted hair dolls were made in platinum blonde, dark blonde and brunette. Boxed outfits were sold separately.
Black dolls were available beginning in 1964, and possibly earlier. These were made from the same molds as the white dolls, with rooted black hair and brown sleep eyes.
In 1975, a 25″ doll was produced. Watch my video about the 25″ Ginny Baby here. That same year, a 12″ Ginny Baby will rooted red hair was sold. In 1978, a Ginny Shower ‘n Bath set was made with an 8″ painted eye doll.
Ad for the first Ginny Baby dolls in the March 1959 issue of Playthings magazine.
16″ Ginny Baby from the 1970s wears an orange knit coat with a white sleeveless dress underneath. This doll was made during the time when Vogue was a subsidiary of the Tonka Corporation.
Ginny Baby Shower n’ Bath
Tbis 1978 set includes an 8″ doll with painted eyes and rooted hair, with a bathtub and accessories.
The Flintstones was an animated television show that ran in prime time from 1960 to 1966, and has been re-run almost continuously since then. It spawned several spinoff shows and movies. The show featured a stone-age family and their friends dealing with the everyday life and concerns of mid-20th century America. Pebbles, daughter of main characters Fred and Wilma Flintstone, was introduced in 1963, near the end of the third season. Originally, it was planned that Fred and Wilma would have a son, Fred Jr., but the head of marketing for the production company convinced the producers to change it to a girl, because “girl dolls sell a lot better than boy dolls.”
The Ideal Toy Corporation made several different versions of Pebbles, but this 14″ baby with vinyl head and limbs and peach-colored cloth body was the first. Pebbles has rooted red hair and painted features, with side-glancing gray eyes and an open/closed smiling mouth. Her left hand is bent backward. At the top of her head, Pebbles’ hair is rooted in a circular pattern, around a bald spot, and gathered into a ponytail holding her plastic bone in place.
Pebbles wears a cotton flannel diaper held on with safety pins (yes, we gave children sharp objects back then!) and a leopard-print dress with a small bow at the neck. She originally came wrapped in a yellow flannel blanket edged with leopard-print binding.
Pebbles was one of the last dolls sculpted by Bernard Lipfert, who designed many of the best-loved dolls of all time, including Ideal’s Shirley Temple, Toni and Patti Playpal.
In 1950, the Terri Lee Doll Company added a new member to their lineup of dolls. This was Terri’s baby sister, Linda Lee, a 10″ all vinyl baby with a slimmer, more realistic infant body, and an adorable face.
Linda had her own outfits and accessories, including this suitcase-style trunk. The trunk is made of wood, covered with paper, and has a plastic handle and metal hardware. It measures 11.25″ wide, about 8.25″ high and 4.25″ deep. It has a flocked design of an elephant hauling a cart with a duck in it. Linda Lee’s name is in the lower right corner, with the two Ls designed like pairs of diaper pins. Another version of the trunk had gray flocking instead of the dark blue on this one.
Very soon after she was released, Linda Lee’s name was changed to Linda Baby, and the trunks that had already been produced had a daisy glued over the “Lee.” These trunks are very hard to find now.
Sold on eBay for $49 plus shipping in January 2020.
