Toys R Us Memorial Day Sale

If you are in the United States from May 28 - May 31, you could go to a Toys R Us store and buy two Barbies and get one FREE Barbie, if the dolls cost $19.99 or less. The sale is also online at www.toysrus.com. If you live outside the United States, you can check to see if Toys R Us will allow you to buy from that website.

Fashionista body fans, time to shop!

Good luck getting those less expensive doll or dolls.

Philly Doll Show on May 29, 2010

The 21st International Black Doll Show presented by The Philadelphia Doll Museum
May 29, 2010
Philadelphia Convention Center
12th and Arch Streets
10 AM - 5 PM

Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for seniors or children (under 12 years old).

I'll post photos, etc.

Computer Internet Connection Problems

Argh! I am having Internet connection problems. So the fun posts I have stored cannot be uploaded - I can upload text at the Library, but not photos. So I have not abandoned this blog or my wonderful online pals. I'll be back as soon as I can.

Thanks for understanding.

Sincerely,
Dana

Mixis Houda in the Wind

I took Houda out today. I was not crazy-pleased with the photos I took; they could have been better. But there's this one shot where the wind played with her hair a little in this photo. It's my favorite from the ones taken.

Happy April, Houda.

New Mixis - Facebook Alert

Three new Mixis dolls are shown on the Mixis Living Facebook page. Two of the dolls resemble two of the mystery dolls shown in an earlier post. [Note: you will need to scroll to nearly the bottom of the "Future" link to see the Mixis dolls; they follow the too-pretty-to-eat-but-I'll-try food photos.] The other doll resembles a doll in an early Mixis doll photo: I am ecstatic to think that she will be PRODUCED for the doll-buying market.

Introduction to the New Philadelphia Doll Collecting Examiner - ME!

Uh ... the ME is Me as in Dana aka D7ana aka the voice of A Philly Collector of Playscale Dolls and Action Figures. Me.

I now write for Examiner.com -- yippee! Here is a link to my first article.

Progress? Oh, yes! I will maintain Philly Collector as my personal blog and online play pen, but the Examiner writing will cover local events and personalities. Wow. Imagine that.

Payment? Eventually. Philly Collector has been up for two years, and I have not received anything from the ads clicked here. (Not that ad income is or was my primary goal here.) I do want to earn from my writing, but I do not expect to become rich overnight. However, this writing assignment will help me improve my objective writing skills and productivity. I will need to be more socially active to meet the local association criteria. I will need to write more concisely. That's all payment of a different kind.

So join me at my Doll Collector spot on Examiner, too.

More Sindy and the Power of Words (Collect)

Late 1970s. I'm a teenaged doll collector. Everybody knew that I was "too old" to play dolls. Everybody meant my family and friends. Mercifully, Sibyl DeWein and Joan Ashabraner published Collectors Encyclopedia of Barbie Dolls & Collectibles in 1976 - yippee! I could continue my fun under another verb. Collect. A more mature verb. Collect. A socially more acceptable verb. Collect. And with this maturity and social acceptance came a new responsibility. As a collector, I was archivist of a plastic and vinyl world. Dolls I had once disdained, now I looked at in a new light. I might even have bought an Ideal Tammy doll were those dolls still available. They were not. Instead, a Pedigree Sindy - yes, British Sindy - in spite of her larger head - entered my collection.

Note, I said a Pedigree Sindy. The blond Marx Sindy and her Black Friend, Gayle, were not going to work. I doubt I ever saw Gayle to buy her. I might have, but I think I didn't. The Marx dolls reminded me of the early Tammys with their large, rounded heads. But when I saw the Funtime Sindy, well, she was brunette at a time when blond Barbies and blond Barbie-clones dominated the fashion doll world. Maybe the darker hair made this Sindy's head seem smaller. And this Sindy by Pedigree was a British doll; the Marx Sindy was American. Score two for diversification.

Now the Marx Sindy furniture was another matter altogether. I preferred the Marx Sindy furniture than the cold modular furniture available for Barbie. The Marx Sindy furniture had realistic colors like mustard yellow kitchen appliances and off white dining room and bedroom and wine armchairs. So the Sindy furniture went to my Barbies. (Made sense at the time; the best dolls with the best furniture.)

Moreover, Marx was so cool that they issued special giftsets for Sindy. Here's a link to a Sindy website, showing the furniture and giftsets. The giftsets were special order only. If you bought Sindy doll items, you could get doll accessory awards. Example for each Marx Sindy furniture piece, there would be some Sindy tokens on the outer box. The number of tokens was based on the price of the item bought; larger items provided more tokens. A correct amount of tokens, the order form on the booklet packed with the items, and fifty cents for shipping costs, would win you one of four giftsets. I clipped and hoarded those Sindy tokens until I had enough to get the three sets that I wanted:

Let's Style My Hair - 1286 included a "heated" hair curler unit, comb, brush, mirror

Let's Go To The Beach - 1291 included a bath towel, beach umbrella, plastic cooler

Let's Bar-B-Que - 1285 included a barbeque grill, meat, utensils, aprons

Here's a photo of my Pedigree Sindy using the beach set minus the original swimsuit - Sindy borrowed the swimsuit from 1726 Twiggy Turnouts. I am including a link to some of my other figures using the Sindy Bar-B-Que grill here.




Additional Sindy sites are Sindy.org and previous post.