After winning this lovely old doll at an auction recently I decided to do some research and found that she is quite rare.
Introduced in December 1950, she was produced until 1953 at a time when Effanbee was owned by Noma. This model was quite expensive at the time, $24.00, or the equivalent of a weeks pay for an average family.
She measures 28″ tall and has a hard plastic head with molded hair. They were also produced with synthetic hair. Arms and legs are vinyl and have become darker and discolored over time. Her cloth body holds a pink plastic box which houses a tiny phonograph with metal needle and plays a 3 1/2″, 78rpm record with about 47 seconds of speech. She sings and talks. Most dolls found do not have operational phonographs, but to our delight when we replaced the 2 “D” size batteries she began to sing London Bridge. She does stutter a bit here and there, but with a good cleaning you never know – we will leave detailed cleaning to the new owners
Clothing is not original, but I did manage to find photos online of her original pink dress and bonnet, as well as her original box.
We are going to give her a quick cleaning and will be available for sale soon.
If you would like to see and hear her sing click on the link to visit Gypsy Wind Collectibles and click on videos.
Bear Crossing 