Before I kick off today's post, it's probably old news now that the 1980s American Girl Courtney Moore has leaked. I can count on one hand the number of important things that happened during the eighties, but Miss Courtney is too stinkin' cute. She has big eighties hair and brightly colored mix-'n'-match clothes, and she appears to be a fan of Pac-Man, Care Bears, and our old friend Molly McIntire. Perhaps I need to introduce her to Molly. LOL, I must admit that my decade of birth does fascinate me, mainly for silly reasons like toys and pop culture, and Courtney will eventually have to come home with me. I've seen some folks say that she looks too much like Maryellen, and I'll admit that I wish Courtney could've been a brunette or a redhead (or biracial, even!), but I still like her.
Of course there's no way that I can introduce Courtney to Molly today or anytime soon, so I'll just fill today's post with Patsy. Told y'all last fall that Patsyette would be popping in and out of the blog some, though granted she hasn't popped in and out as much as I thought she would. Apologies to those of y'all that don't like Patsyette much; I will NOT be offended if you decide to skip this post. Anyway, in addition to Patsyette, Alannah, and Patty I've scored two more from the Patsy family. The tall one is Patsy Joan, and the small one at her feet is Patsy Babyette (hereafter referred to as "Babyette").
No joke, Babyette's back is marked "Patsy Babyette." See?
As I noted back last fall, Effanbee's hugely popular Patsy doll came in a respectable number of sizes, ranging from five to thirty inches. My dolls mostly fall towards the smaller end of that category, with Babyette being nine inches like Patsyette.
Patsy Joan is much bigger. She's shorter than Crissy by about two inches, and shorter than Sasha by about one inch.
Just for grins, here's how they both compare to my sole other Effanbee doll, Bozena the Czech.
Not much family resemblance, is there? Granted, Bozena is not a member of the Patsy family, but there's still not a lot of resemblance here.
According to Doll Reference Patsy Babyette dolls date back to 1931, and that happens to be the ONLY year listed so I wonder how long this doll was in production. Babyette could apparently be either a boy or a girl and could come singly or in pairs of fraternal twins (these are reproductions, but they look the same as the old ones). Being an entity of the 1930s means that Babyette is made out of composition like Patsyette is, and that in turn means that she's sadly got some damage. Her feet are missing some paint (her left leg is particularly bad)...
Regarding jointing, Babyette is strung like most all-compo dolls are, but unlike Pansy and Patsyette she does not need to be restrung at all. I've semi-invented a rating scale for restringing, based on the U.S.'s DEFCON system:
*STRINGCON 1: Doll fell apart, is in danger of falling apart, or has loosely dangling appendages. Needs restringing stat.
*STRINGCON 2: Doll is in no immediate danger of falling apart, but cannot stand, sit, or hold any poses without a lot of work. Even his/her head will not stay up unless balanced on the neck joint...or if it's not strung at all, like an American Girl's neck.
*STRINGCON 3: Doll can hold some basic poses, but getting him/her into said poses is very difficult and may require some cussing.
*STRINGCON 4: Doll is a little floppy but can be posed with a little work. Trying to get him/her to stand unassisted is still risky if the doll in question is breakable.
*STRINGCON 5: Doll is fine. No action needed.
*STRINGCON 6: In this fairly rare scenario, the doll is too tight and damage to joints may result unless the strings are loosened. Ball-jointed dolls are most likely to achieve STRINGCON 6 status, though this can be a problem for Sasha dolls as well. Note that there is no level 6 on the DEFCON scale (LOL).
Most of Aunt Kathryn's dolls are at STRINGCON 1 or 2, Patsyette is a 3, and Babyette is a 5. In fact, she may be a 6 across the shoulders, since her arm joints have some visible damage.
Normally I'd segue into clothes here, but I've already talked about Patsyette's dress so I'm moving on to Patsy Joan. Patsy Joan differs from Patsyette and Babyette in that she's a more modern doll (she dates from 1994), and thus she's made of high-quality vinyl rather than composition. Other than that Patsy Joan is just like her little sisters. I don't know if Effanbee was still a separate entity in 1994, but that's the company stamped on Patsy Joan's back. Notice that it's spelled "EFFANDBEE," with a "D" in the middle.
The name "Effanbee" is an amalgam of the founders' initials, but usually the "and" in between was shortened to "AN" to form the company name. Interestingly, Patsy Joan does not have her name stamped on her back like Patsyette and Babyette do. Her name is engraved into her neck, along with a more modernized Effanbee logo and the copyright year.
Underneath her candy-striped bonnet Patsy Joan sports a brown bob. It has more molded details than Patsyette's bob does.
Her eyes are blue sleep eyes like Babyette's, though they're not as vividly blue as Babyette's eyes are. In fact under the glare of the camera they look silver rather than blue.
Attached to Patsy Joan's wrist is a paper tag, which I think is supposed to simulate the metal tags that the composition dolls came with. The metal tags that I've seen simply read either "EFFANBEE," or "EFFANBEE DURABLE DOLLS" like Patsyette's tag does...
...but Patsy Joan's tag talks a little about her posing as well.
The bonnet is a lot like a pioneer's sunbonnet, and it has an extra row of ruffles that frames Patsy Joan's face and looks very pretty.
The shoes snap shut and have ruffled treads on the bottom.
Movable LIMB??? LOL, Patsy Joan moves more than just one limb, and her head does indeed tilt. Sometimes it tilts when I don't want it to!
In all Patsy Joan has five joints like Patsyette and Babyette do, and like them she is strung. I rate her a 4 on the STRINGCON scale and she is thus using a stand, shoved uncomfortably underneath her dress.
The eBay seller was mildly concerned about Patsy Joan's stringing, suggesting that she might need to be restrung, but I don't think Patsy Joan will need that anytime soon. She can stand without a doll stand, albeit unsteadily, but to avoid any mishaps I leave her in a stand anyway. Her loose strings are the reason why her head sometimes tilts when I don't want it to, by the way.
Unlike Patsyette and Babyette, Patsy Joan is wearing her original outfit and it's a darn cute outfit. I'm just going to skim this since it's not the easiest to put back on, but I'll give y'all the gist of it. I suspect that this particular Patsy Joan was the most popular make, because eBay has a million of them in this exact same dress and bonnet. The fabric feels like it might be cotton, and I love the way it feels in my hands. The dress closes in back with snaps, and it also ties in the back. Getting this sash done up into a nice straight bow is a pain in the posterior.
Likewise, it's also a pain to properly tie the bonnet.
Oddly, I've run into some mild confusion as to how Patsy Joan should wear this bonnet. When she first came the brim was folded back a little bit. This is hard to show, but look close to where the brim joins the main body.
Since then I unfolded it and leave it at its full length, like so.
I mention this because folding the bonnet has an effect on how it looks from the front. It's a very subtle effect, but it's there. On the top the bonnet is folded, and on the bottom it is not.
I guess it's just a matter of preference. As an aside, I wonder why Patsy Joan's bonnet ties in the middle, but Addy, Caroline, and Kirsten all have bonnets that tie on the side (click on the links for an idea of what I mean). Even my Kirsten's Etsy bonnet ties on the side. Yeah, yeah, I know Patsy Joan is not an American Girl doll, but I also have porcelain dolls with bows to one side or the other. But then again, I also have other dolls with bows in the center. I just wonder why some bonnets are one way and others are the other way. Maybe it was another matter of preference back in the day.
Ah, I do love tangents. Both Patsy Joan's bonnet and dress are very nicely finished on the inside.
The only raggy area is right around the waist, where the petticoat and the skirt of the dress tie into the bodice. That's a lot of raw edges in one place so I can overlook the loose ends here. The hems and seams are impeccable everywhere else.
Back in the day Patsy Joan would've likely worn oilcloth shoes and flimsy gauze socks like Patsyette does, but since she's a relatively modern doll she has patent leather shoes and thick knitted socks.
Brief tangent. I keep the Patsy troupe stored on the shady end of my bearded dragon's cage, along with my Ichimatsu dolls Hitomi and Satomi. It's an odd crew, but I like them together so here they are.
Ewwww, I apparently didn't get the flash right. Poor Satomi looks even yellower than she did in her own review. Here it's also easy to see that Babyette is quite a bit bigger than Hitomi, though her long dress partially hides that.
And that would've been it...except that while typing up the post on Aunt Kathryn's dolls I became enamored with Tam's Pansy doll and decided I wanted one for myself. I did find one (indeed, Pansy dolls are easy to find), but she doesn't look a thing like Tam's doll. Guess who she does look like?
She looks like an African-American Patsy doll! Black Patsy dolls are not unheard of, but they're rare enough that I've never seen one during my admittedly-short eBay browsings...take that back, I found a few reproductions that are freaking adorable. Debbie Behan Garrett also has a few on her blog, and they're plumb cute too (her Patsy Jr. has short little braids). Anyway, these Pansy dolls were made by Joann Fabrics and were intended to be "dress-me" dolls, but they're different from the dress-me dolls I'm familiar with by a country mile! Pansy's arms and legs rotate (many of the dress-me dolls I've seen have frozen legs)...
...and she's not made of crummy hollow plastic, though not all dress-me dolls are that cheaply made. No, Pansy is heavy enough that she could double as a club, a much more formidable one than the old Lalaloopsy dolls could. Her vinyl is thick and sturdy and has a matte finish, though it does have a fair amount of scuffs. I'll see if a Magic Eraser can't fix some of that (those are super-fine abrasives). Anyway, Pansy has molded and painted hair like most Patsy dolls, and her features are painted as well. She's a little taller than Patsy Joan.
I love this doll's expression! She arrived right back in late March, right as the coronavirus crisis was gathering steam in the Bootheel, and her face is a good representation of how I felt about the whole situation.
Daisy's heart is shaped like a lollipop, and it states that her favorite flavor is cherry. I prefer lime myself.
"OMG, when's it gonna stop???"
I don't know when it's gonna stop, Pansy. I really don't know. I treated the whole mess as a lark when I first heard of the virus, but it went from lark to annoyance to inconvenience to serious matter in the span of about a month, and things haven't gotten much better since. The 1918-19 flu pandemic lasted a couple'a years, so we may be dealing with this coronavirus crap for awhile yet. With that lovely thought...it isn't every day that I find a doll with a resting bitch face like mine! I think I'll pretend that Pansy is cheerful but misunderstood; the other dolls see her expression and assume she's in a bad mood, when she's really just lost in thought. That's happened to me on many occasions.
As a last little lark, I noticed a few similarities between Patsy and Kewpie.
As a last little lark, I noticed a few similarities between Patsy and Kewpie.
I don't think Patsyette trusts Jess any more than I do, by the way; remember last week that I thought Jess had a mischievous expression. I think my new Kewpie doll (another RoseArt girl) might be a better match.
I chose the name "Daisy" for obvious reasons. Let's disrobe Daisy and Patsyette and look at them side by side.
Side-glancing eyes? Check. Molded hair? Check. Chubby cheeks? Check. The dolls have similar builds too, with rounded little torsos and short arms that stick out to the sides. Overall I think Patsy and Kewpie have a few endearing similarities, though I can find nothing confirming or denying that Patsy was inspired by Kewpie. I doubt it somehow, but they have enough similarities to make a body wonder. Oh, by the way, Daisy has a secret heart on her chest like Rose does, but hers is quite different from Rose's heart.
And that, kids, is my small but loved Patsy crew! I know she's not everyone's cup of tea, but I've always been fond of this chubby-cheeked little doll and I'm glad to finally have a few in my midst. As with the Kewpie Krew, the Patsy Platoon will probably grow some. Miss Debbie's little girl with the braids is adorable, and I'd like to find another lookalike as well, maybe Averill's Peaches or Peggy, who was made by both Amberg and Horsman during the 1930's. I also wouldn't mind owning one of the Tonner dolls, just to show how much things changed during Effanbee's long existence. I'm not going to do any active searching right now, but I'll keep my eyes peeled, as I often do!
Love,
RagingMoon1987
Love,
RagingMoon1987
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