Yesterday's post was for American Girls, and today's post is for Cabbage Patch Kids. At the end of Stella Rae's introductory post I shared my Cabbie wish list, but since that was five years ago, here's a recap:
*A popcorn. Dang these are expensive!!! LOL, spoiler alert.
*A fuzzy red boy.
*A Tri-Ang Pedigree gaudy yellow. I'm not holding my breath on one of these, but I still love 'em.
*A Jesmar. Again, expensive!
*A bean-butt baby. These are hard to find in good condition, because they get pox.
*A Snacktime Kid.
*A Twinkle Toes Kid.
*An Oriental.
*A #30 head. Like My Twinn's Ariel head and Mattel's Steffie head, I've taken a shine to #30. According to Diana's Patch, this is a popular mold and is thus enthusiastically collected and rare.
Jeez, I sure can pick 'em! Fuzzy reds are tricky, #30s are tricky, and as I insinuated above, I may as well rub Aladdin's lamp for a gaudy yellow. I hear that Tri-Ang Pedigree dolls have unstable face paint anyway, and their eyes are bad about getting sticky and/or smearing. Shame too, because the Tri-Ang dolls are cute. Some of the girls come with short loopy hair just like the boys do, but I digress. Luckily some of the others on that list are easy to find, and today I'm crossing one off the list. Meet Idalia Gale, a popcorn that I bought on the day of Hurricane Idalia's landfall, one of the ones that was on Sandy's lap the other day. Treesa, you saw the popcorn hair a mile away, so good for you! Since Idalia IS a popcorn I have a fair amount of information on her nitty-gritties, so buckle up. Here's how she looked when I busted her out of her shipper.
My joy at receiving Idalia in the mail was dampened quite a bit when I sideswiped my mailbox and did this to the family car. Mama wasn't thrilled, but she didn't freak out or demand that I pay for the damage. I, however, am still not happy that I did that.
After that I desperately needed a hug from a soft, cheerful dolly. As I said above, Idalia is a popcorn. A popcorn with no clothes and a pen mark on her cheek, but with a head mold, a hair color, and a factory that I do not yet have in my Patch. Her tag is marked "P," for some place in Hong Kong. Her bum mark is red and has "'86" in it, meaning that Idalia is about thirty-seven. It looks like it says "'88," but if Idalia were from 1988 her tushie mark would be dark purple and wouldn't have a number.
Some P dolls can get pox regardless of their year of production, but Idalia has dodged that bullet. So far, none of my dolls have pox. Granted, Idalia does have that pen mark, but better a pen mark on the far side of the face than pox...or worse, crayon all over the face like that one poor doll that I ran into. Now let's go back to this hairstyle that I wanted so bad. The P tag is significant here too, because the best popcorns are marked "OK." Popcorn girls from OK factories have lovely, full locks like this cream-haired pet does, but beggars can't be choosers. Even though P popcorns don't have the thickness that OK ones do, it's still very obvious that Idalia is a popcorn.
Some popcorns have two bunches of popcorn strands, and some have just one. The ones with two are called "double popcorns," and they fetch even higher prices. As it is, Idalia has a single popcorn bunch, and that's good enuff for me. If a double falls into my lap I'll happily adopt her, but Idalia is just fine. Here's a closeup of one of the popcorns; it looks intricate, but it turns out that popcorn locks are not that complicated to make. More on that at eleven.
Hmmm...looks like some little sh!t may have lopped off a pop. Drat these kids and their scissors!
She's also got a sandy brown shade of hair that I see a lot on Cabbies, including a handful of popcorns (examples here and here). It kinda gets overlooked in favor of lemon blonde tresses, of the redheads that I admit to loving, and especially of dolls with gold hair, but I've always had a soft spot for this understated sandy brown shade. If this pet had come to live with me during 2012 then I'd have had another Sandy living in the Moon House!
I'm basing the following information on Failbook posts so I make no claims about correctness, but apparently the hardest popcorn colors to find are cream (a pale yellow) and gold/champagne. The Failbook group's entry on auburn popcorns didn't have a lot of examples either. Admittedly the gold tone is a lovely one, sort of an intermediate between blonde and brown, but it's not THAT different from the tan that Idalia has got. Indeed, both tan and gold hair came in a lot of variations in shade, so there's kinda a continuum there. Regardless of the shade I like Idalia's hair just fine. Not many collectors seem to be scrambling for this hair color, so I figured it deserved a little love. Besides, it's what I could get, LOL! I saw someone on Failbook call this hair "wheat-colored," and Helen Blue fittingly calls the shade "sand." Since I've twice called this shade "sandy brown" myself, I'll call Idalia's hair sand-colored. Ooo, I love sand!
Now that hair is over, the face is also one I didn't have in my collection. This one is #11, with two little dimples and a protruding tongue. Idalia has nice coloring, I think; she's got a peachy face with rosy cheeks.
Hmmm, number eleven...I'm surprised Idalia doesn't have shaggy black hair and a smart-a$$ smirk on her face! LOL, I've got two Kids with the #1 head (Stella Rae and one y'all will soon meet), one with the #4 head (Valencia Rose), and one with the #9 head (Andrea Doria). So adding a new head was another benefit to splurging on Idalia. Like I noted above, she has a pen mark on her face (which I forgot to show)...
...poor Idalia, doesn't look like she was taken care of too well at one point! But she's free of pox and that's what matters to me. I've even gone over parts of her face with a moistened tissue and no discoloration resulted. Pox is not destructive to the doll, but it IS annoying and unsightly so I'm glad I've managed to avoid it. Pox and pen marks aside, I've seen A LOT of popcorn Kids with the #11 face. It isn't the only face that can have popcorn hair, of course, but I've seen a lot of #11 heads with this style of hair. According to a post I found on Failbook, dolls with a single popcorn fall and blue eyes can have heads numbered #5, #8, #10, #11 (like mine), #12, and #14-19. Tan doubles came with my favorite mold, #30. Cream-haired and red-haired doubles also can occasionally be found with the #30 head, but finding any popcorn with the #30 head is tricky. Heck, finding the #30 head is tricky!
When Idalia got here all she had to her name was her diaper and her satin hair bow, but she's got something nice to wear now. The child is dressed in...I think this was a Cornsilk Kid's stock outfit, but Idalia gives no flying burritos.
Since Idalia's bum mark says "'86" that probably means that she was an astronaut or a clown at some point. For some reason, popcorns from 1986 often got saddled with these costumes, which explains why I saw so many popcorns dressed up as clowns. The clown costume is cute, but I'm not a huge fan of clowns so I can live without it. As I implied above, Idalia is just glad to have something nice and new to wear (she still needs shoes). And now that I've manipulated her somewhat it looks like she doesn't have a damaged popcorn lock after all. Rather, she appears to have four shorter ones up front. Makes sense, I guess.
Before I wrap Idalia's segment up, Diana's Patch has a tutorial for customizing one's own popcorn Kid. I could've gone this route, but then again I already have Poppy Elizabeth with her custom curls and she wasn't really what I was looking for. Expensive or no, Idalia IS what I was looking for, with her factory-done 'do and her goofy little smile. If I get crafty I can customize my own Kid, maybe with RAINBOW popcorn locks! LOL, that might be fun! If I ever find a Kid with really beat-up hair I may try that. But for now Idalia whets my appetite for a popcorn Cabbie. I couldn't be happier with her.
My other new-to-me Cabbie, the other doll y'all saw on Sandy's lap, is nothing super-duper special, but her sale pictures were cute and she was cheap. She's a lot like my other Preemie Stella Rae, so I've chosen to make them twins. Y'all will have to take my word for it that she is NOT Stella Rae. Her name is Cara Raelean.
Now that both my girls are dressed, it's time for them to pose together. Instead of making Stella and Cara twins, I'll make them besties, and Idalia can be Cara's sis. Smile and say "cole slaw," kiddies!
Love and cole slaw,
RagingMoon1987
Would a Magic Eraser cleaning sponge or some acne cream help eliminate, or at least minimize, the pen mark? Or would that be too risky?
ReplyDeleteSigned, Treesa
P.S. I guess I'm going to have to brush up on my Cabbage Patch knowledge so that I can keep an eye out for you while I'm thrifting. You wouldn't be the first person I've done 'thrifting by proxy' for, and my dad says I have a good eye when it comes to spotting things. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that's turned up at the thrift stores I visit: collectible popcorn buckets from the Disney parks, Build A Bears that are worth the store's asking price for the clothing alone, vintage Barbie family dolls, even Tonner dolls.
Anyway, could you recommend a good website for a crash course in Cabbage Patch Kids?
Diana's Patch is good for starters. It has a basic rundown of head molds used during the Coleco era, and tags and butt marks. It's not comprehensive, but it helps. Here's a link: https://cpkdiana.blogspot.com/p/information.html
DeleteAs for Magic Eraser, I don't dare use that on the doll's face, lest I wreck her paint. The mark doesn't show too terribly, so I just ignore it. As I said above, I'm just thankful that I've eluded pox.