Under the cabbage leaf: Coleco preemie vs. Jakks Pacific newborn

I'm RagingMoon1987, and Christmas is just around the corner!!!  Both of the dolls I have today have been out of production awhile so they'll hardly do for Christmas gifts for some little kid, but they bring back some nice memories for me so I'm sharing them anyway.  Very late last August (the last day, actually) I got bitten by the Cabbage Patch bug, an occurrence that happens about once a year and usually involves at least one purchase of some item that I don't need.  I've spoken occasionally of my formerly three-member Patch in the past, but I haven't given them much thought in between posts.  From left, my girls' names are Valencia Rose ("Val"), Poppy Elizabeth, and Andrea Doria.

I never meant to be a hardcore Cabbage Patch Kid fan, but I wouldn't mind a little versatility in my own "patch."  Andrea and Valencia are both sixteen-inch Kids, while Poppy, being a soft-sculpture doll, is larger at twenty inches.  All white, all girls, all Kids, and that was all well and good until I got curious about the babies.  The babies come in three types:  preemie, newborn, and...well, BABY!!!  I was hoping to find a size comparison online, but...no.  Couldn't find one anywhere, though I admittedly didn't dig super-thoroughly, and indeed I'm not yet certain if there was even a size difference.  Hey, if you can't find what you're looking for, make it yourself, right?  I decided to make my own size comparison, and it...didn't really go the way I wanted it to.  It began when I stumbled across a cute Preemie during a search for a popcorn Cabbie.  She was well-dressed and reasonably priced I bought her.  Popcorns are proving extremely elusive, by the way...but never say never, right?  I've also been hoping for a bald doll, and my little Preemie is just that.

My new girl doesn't have her papers, so I renamed her Stella Rae.  Stella hails from the Coleco era, and her butt mark reveals the year she was made, 1985.  It's even blue like her clothes!  It looks purplish in the picture, but trust me on this!  It's blue.

Oh, this takes me back!  When we were kids my sister had a preemie Cabbie (a Christmas gift, wouldn't y'all know!), and I'll never forget marveling at how small he was next to my full-sized girl Honoria.  Of course I did not get pictures, and I'm saving the size comparison for last so y'all get no pictures either for the time being.  Sister's baby boy smelled like fresh talcum powder, one of my favorite smells, but since Stella has been out of the box awhile she doesn't smell like that anymore.  I can always change that if I wish, though there are some schools of thought that say this talcum powder smell had something to do with the formation of pox.  All Cabbies can get pox, but for some strange reason the scented babies seem to get it the worst.  But as usual, I digress.  Stella looks quite a bit like my sister's doll, being a bald baby like he was.  She is blue-eyed, gently loved, free of pox, with a #1 head (a head that I didn't yet own) and a tag that reads "OK."

Time for another tangent, though I do have a point to this one.  "OK" stands for "Kader" and refers to Kader Industrial Toy Company, the company responsible for the manufacture of many Cabbage Patch Kids.  One of their factories burned to the ground and killed between 180 and 210 workers in 1993, and until very recently when I'd see a Cabbie marked "OK" I'd wonder if it was made at that factory.  I began to highly doubt it after I learned the circumstances surrounding Kader before the fire.   For starters, the ill-fated factory was located in Thailand and Kader's Thai branch did not receive their license until 1989, after the Cabbage Patch Kid craze had ebbed, after Coleco announced their bankruptcy, and in this particular case LONG after Stella Rae was manufactured.  Plus, Kader's Coleco Cabbies were made in China and Hong Kong (back before Hong Kong was part of China), so Stella Rae is almost assuredly NOT from the fire factory.  Why do I bring this up???  Because I'm weird, and because I like disaster history, and because the Kader fire is poorly known to folks outside of Thailand.  Seriously, the only source I can find about this disaster is a friggin' communist site, and even they largely ignore the gory details that I'm so fascinated with, choosing instead to politicize the disaster and slander capitalism.  Anywho, here's another glimpse of Stella's tag; if I'd looked more closely at the reverse side of the tag I'd have seen the famous last words:  MADE IN CHINA.  LOL, I can be a tremendous doofus at times.

Cabbies WERE made at the factory that burned, but they were from the Hasbro era rather than the Coleco era.  Regardless of which factory she came from Stella IS a Kader doll, and that pleases me since the dolls made by Kader seem to be a little nicer than the other Cabbies.  That is strictly my opinion of course, but for once I've backed my opinion up with evidence.  Kader dolls are known among collectors for their even skin tone, and while no vinyl-headed Cabbie is 100% immune to pox the vinyl used at Kader tends to resist the condition better than the vinyl used at other factories.  Popcorn girls from Kader had long hair and are held in high regard by collectors, and the dolls in general are well-stuffed, which I can confirm with Stella.  She's very firm, much more so than Poppy Elizabeth, who is a little understuffed and thus pleasantly squishy.  She's firm enough that she has relatively little trouble sitting on her own, even though she doesn't have a brick inside her like Andrea Doria does.  I do have to lean her forward to get her like this, but she makes up for it by not doing a face plant like Valencia Rose would've done.

Here's a closer look at Stella's face.  Aside from a few scuffs, her vinyl is clear and free of stains and pox.  Her right eyebrow is faded, but her eyes remain a vibrant shade of blue.

Stella's a nice doll.  Not that Val and Andrea and Poppy aren't, of course, but it pleases me to have a little more variety in my Patch (both Val and Andrea are KT dolls).  Speaking of KT, I mused a bit in my last CPK post about how Val is darker than Andrea.  See?

Not really a big deal since real people come in all shades, but at the time I conjectured that Val was just dirty.  Not so!  Well...okay, maybe that's part of it, but it turns out that KT dolls, manufactured at Kam Yeun Toy Factory, sometimes turn tan due to some sort of reaction in the vinyl.  The earlier dolls are more likely to discolor, thus explaining why Val is tan but Andrea is not (Val is the older doll).  This isn't that big a deal, really; to me it just looks like Val spent a little time in the sun.  I just thought it was interesting.  Note that I was able to get a binky for Val, by the way.

Thank you to Mountainaire Sundries for the binky AND for the ribbons!  Those were inside the package making everything nice and neat, but Val noticed that they also match her eyes perfectly.  To round things out Mountainaire Sundries also sent this cute little romper.

It's very small, too small for Val and Andrea and Poppy, so I'm hoping that either Stella or the other new baby can wear it.  Yes, the other new baby.  The newest member of my Patch also happens to be the youngest member...in terms of honest-to-God years, anyway.  Probably if these dolls were all real children they'd be fairly close in age.  Anywho, my most recent addition to the Patch is a Jakks Pacific Surprise Newborn, dating from 2012.  These mystery dolls come in singles or in twin sets, but I just need the one for comparison so I got a single.  He/she is out of the box, but all the surprises are intact.

Everything about this child is a surprise except for ethnicity and eye color.  Even though this doll is out of its box I don't know if it's a boy or a girl, if it has hair, when its birthday is, bellybutton shapes, nothing.  Oopie, I take that back:  the birthday IS visible, and it's an October birthday!!!

Talolili and I have soundly agreed several times in the past that October birthdays rock!  Fall birthdays are nice in general, but being an October baby myself I'm a little biased towards that month.  Everything else about this doll is a big mystery, though.  Even the little outfits are a mystery, though having seen Miss Emily's dolls I figure there will be at least one T-shirt in that box.  One can't have too many T-shirts!

I must say that I'm just a teensy bit tempted to leave him/her eternally dressed as a Brussels sprout.  As I said above, that cabbage snuggler is adorable!  Unfortunately, it also renders this baby unable to sit up.

Tempting as it may be to leave this doll clad in green velour, I'm dying to know if it'll be a girl or a boy and if it'll have hair.  I think I already know the answer to that second one, though.  It's easy to tell if the baby has hair or not before the hood of the romper is removed.  All you've gotta do is feel for lumps...and I don't see or feel any!

And sure enough...

...my mystery baby is bald as a cue ball, just like Stella is!  I said above that I'd been wanting a bald doll, and now I have two.  As a brief digression, I find it interesting that the commercial and the box art show these dolls with fiber hair, and yet every single doll I've seen with hair has had yarn tresses.  Not that I mind since Cabbies traditionally have yarn hair anyway, but it does make one wonder why Jakks Pacific changed their minds so late in the game...unless they didn't and there are fiber-haired dolls that I just haven't seen.  Anyway, hood off, bottom still on.  Under the bottom half of the green snuggler will be a diaper, and the color of the diaper will reveal what gender the doll is.

It's your stereotypical "pink for girls, blue for boys" thing, and the included accessories give no hints whatsoever.  The bottle is rendered in gender-neutral yellow, one of the few times gender neutrality comes in handy.

Oh, I hope my doll is a boy!  Girl dolls are usually the norm, and I don't have any boys in my Patch yet, so I really, really hope this is a little boy.  Both boy dolls and girl dolls can be bald, so the hairstyle (or lack thereof) gave away nothing.  The bottom half of the snuggler is cable-tied in place and also gives away nothing.

I'll need nail scissors to clip that, as tight as it is.  I don't want to risk cutting a hole in the doll's body, as holes would mean runs in this case.  When I cut the ties the doll was able to sit up straighter, and the snuggler continued to cover the lower half of its body.

I closed my eyes, slipped the rest of the snuggler down, opened my eyes, and found...

...a pink diaper.  It's a girl, Mrs. Walker, it's a girl.  A girl with a cute little outie bellybutton and a VERY cute lopsided grin.

It would've been nice to get a boy, but I won't cry over little girls.  The Cabbage Patch has plenty of little boys out there that need a home.  Plus, I won't have to brainstorm to come up with a name for this little gal, because unlike my other dolls she still has her papers.  Her name is...

...Taniyah Yasmin!  That's an interesting combo with a nice flow, not like some of the OTHER names that I've seen for Cabbage Patch Kids.  Anyway, little Taniyah has one last surprise up her sleeve...or she would if she had sleeves (LOL).  Luckily, she's about to!

Actually this was more of a surprise than I expected, as instead of T-shirts I got two little onesies.  Again, I can live with that since babies practically live in onesies for the first year or two of their lives.  I wonder what color these would've been if I'd gotten a boy, though?  Would they have been blue?  Yellow?  Green?  Anyway, these two onesies are the stereotypical colors for girls, pink and lavender.  I'm in a lavender mood right now (purple makes me think of my sister, whom I haven't seen since LAST Christmas and who should be home this weekend), so that's what Taniyah will be wearing, and since it's cooler outside I also tossed her back into the cabbage snuggler.  Notice that she can sit up much better now that those plastic ties have been released.

Now to the size comparison.  Miss Emily advised that the Surprise Newborns were smaller than your ordinary Cabbage Patch Kid, but I'm not sure if she was referring to her full-sized Kids or another baby of some stripe.  To complicate matters, sizes vary widely among the various makers.  2001's Toys R Us dolls were a little bigger than average, while Jakks Pacific's dolls tended to run smaller.  Even Coleco's preemies can vary in size, with early dolls like Stella Rae being fourteen inches and later preemies being smaller at twelve inches.  So Stella and Taniyah may haul off and surprise us by being the same size, or Stella might even be the bigger of the two!  Let's see.

Stella IS bigger than Taniyah by quite a hair, even though Stella is supposed to be a Preemie and Taniyah is supposed to be a full-term Newborn.  I knew that the Jakks Pacific dolls ran on the small side, but I never dreamed that Taniyah would be THIS small.  There have been a few other small changes made over the years, most noticeably in the way the hands are shaped.  Both Stella and Taniyah have wrist shaping, but Coleco hands are shaped around the palm.  Jakks Pacific hands are shaped around the wrist.  Call me a traitor to Coleco if you wish (LOL), but I like Taniyah's shaping better.

Fun fact:  both of these dolls came from Wisconsin.  Stella came from Burlington, and Taniyah came from Saukville.  The two towns are a little over an hour apart, on opposite sides of Milwaukee.  Just thought I'd throw that out there. 

So that size comparison didn't go so hot!  I guess it was silly of me to assume that these dolls would stay the same size as time passed, since other dolls like Licca-chan did not.  Y'all do know what this means though, don't you???  It means that I need to find a vintage baby now, so I can show y'all how Coleco dolls compare in size!  That's what I wanted to do in the first place!!!  However, I'm pleased to report that my personal little Patch has increased to five, and new friendships have grown.  Stella insisted on sitting next to Val, and Andrea and Taniyah share a fondness for the color purple so they wanted to sit together.  This will also give y'all an idea of how my crew compares to one another in size.

Five is a good number to stay at for now, and my Patch is...well, it's a teensy bit more diverse, with new heads and new factories and a new ethnicity joining the crew.  I still don't have a little boy though, and I'd love to have one.  For now my obsession with these dolls has worn off (I take it in fits and starts), but I guarantee y'all that I WILL be bitten by the Cabbage Patch bug again, and when I do y'all will likely get another blog post.  I'm still keeping my eyes open for grails, some elusive and some not, and some of them happen to be boys.  Just for the fun of it, here's my wish list; it's grown a little since my last Cabbie post.
*A popcorn.  These are popular among Cabbie fans.  They are also unfortunately fairly elusive and don't usually go for under a hundred bucks, but I might get lucky at a junk shop somewhere.  My Poppy is supposedly a popcorn, but she doesn't look a thing like the other popcorns I've seen.  Popcorns are always girls.
*A fuzzy red boy.  These are tricky to find for some reason or another, and they tend to be cute.  Plus, BOY DOLL!!!
*A Tri-Ang Pedigree gaudy yellow.  That will likely be a VERY hard one to find since Tri-Ang is a South African crowd and gaudy yellow is the rarest color they used, but never say never.  Gaudy yellows can be boys or girls.
*A Jesmar.  These were made in Spain and tend to be darker in complexion than those from other factories.  Most of the ones I've seen have freckles, and...well, I just like Jesmars.  They come in both genders as well.
*A bean-butt baby.  Babies were introduced in 1986 and have "beans" in their rears, hence the nickname "bean-butt."   Like little Taniyah Yasmin, bean-butts are smaller than the original Preemies, at twelve inches in length.  They are particularly bad about getting pox, but I won't let that bother me since pox can sometimes be mended or concealed.  Both boys and girls can be bean-butts, and since most of the bean-butt dolls I've seen are bald I can make them either male or female!  Bean-butts are not that different from Stella Rae in appearance...but oh well.
*A Snacktime Kid, due to their bizarre history.  I didn't think those would be that hard to find, but to my shock eBay only rarely has Snacktime Kids.  Accessories, yes.  The dolls themselves?  Not so much.  Both boys and girls were Snacktime Kids, but most of the ones I've seen have been little girl dolls.  I did see one little boy at that antique mart that I'm always talking about, but of course I didn't get him and I wish now that I had.
*A Twinkle Toes Kid.  They have light-up shoes and colorful outfits that make my inner child squeal with delight.  All girls, but oh, so cute!
*An Oriental.  That will be easy, since dolls of all colors are available for "adoption" at the Kids' official site.  Etsy and eBay also occasionally have Oriental dolls, and wouldn't y'all know the one that I have my eye on is another girl.  She's adorable though, and she's affordable.  Always a plus.
*A #30 head.  Probably my all-time favorite head, and wouldn't y'all know it's another one that's tricky to find.  All of the #30 dolls I've seen have been female, and strangely most of them are little redheads like the ones in the link.

Hmmm...that list turned out to be longer than I intended, and Tri-Ang gaudy yellows are as hard to find as weapons of mass destruction.  Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead and just have fun with the dolls I've got.  Maybe I should kick my eccentricities up a few notches and take one of these dolls to the nearest playground.  Hey, that actually doesn't sound like a bad idea, to do that and take a few pictures.  Too bad it's WINTER!!!  Not that that would stop my Kids; like most of my other dolls they're up for anything.  I, on the other hand...I don't really fancy standing outside in twenty-degree weather with wind whipping my nose and hands raw just so I can take one goofy picture.  Fortunately for me this winter has been pretty mild so far, with only one brief patch of bitterly cold weather that I hated taking my dogs out in.  I can't say that I'd cry too loudly if the whole winter were mild.

Merry Christmas,
RagingMoon1987