Barbie Bench Mystery

 

What if I told you the much-coveted Barbie Susy Goose piano got reborn as a cake topper?  Would you believe me?  Well, it's true!

This whole blog entry started a few months ago.  I was assisting in cleaning out the house of a family friend.  This friend died, age 99 years old.  In a dirty old box full of flower pots in her garage, I found this:

   Huh.  A Barbie Susy Goose bench?  Sure looks like it.  But.. um.. it's a little weird.  One, my friend was 99 years old.  Two, she didn't have any daughters.  Three, no children had lived in the house for decades.  Four, no other Barbie stuff or even toys were in the house.  Also.. it just didn't look right.

When I got it home, I examined it next to known a Susy Goose bench.

Hum... well they look pretty similar, but look closer:

Same size.. same basic shape... the plastic feels different though...

Susy Goose Barbie bench has no marks.

The gold bench is marked "WILTON-CHICAGO 60643 W 808 MADE IN"  Note that it says "Hong Kong," but the "Hong Kong" appears to have been scratched out of the actual mold.

Well!  That got me really curious.  Wilton?  Like cakes?  Whut?

So I started Googling.

Turns out, Wilton made a piano-shaped cake topper.  Turns out, this cake topper was 100% made from the parts of the Susy Goose piano.  Don't believe me yet?  Keep reading!

Here are the two piano tops compared to each other.  Pretty much the same, though obviously different plastic and different levels of painting.

The piano legs are also very similar, though I can't 100% tell since I don't have one in person.

Here are the two pedal assemblies next to each other.  Again, they look pretty much the same, just with a different method of attaching to the piano itself.

Here's the detail of the Wilton bench's feet.

Here's a close up of the legit Susy Goose bench's feet.  The molding is much cleaner, but there is less gold detail.

Here they are together from the top.  If you ripped the fabric off of the Susy Goose bench, you would find a similar molded piece of plastic underneath, though it would be white.

Here is a close up of the differences in molding.  You can see the Wilton Cake Topper bench is much cheaper.  The plastic is also a much cheaper weight and feels more brittle.  It just feels "cheap."

Anyway, I have seen this gold bench being sold as a legit Susy Goose product, or even as the Susy Goose piano bench!  It is NOT!   If you buy this bench, please do not pay whatever you'd pay for a Susy Goose piano.  It is knock-off.

However, that being said, of course it displays perfectly fine with Barbie and is an excellent replacement.  Just don't pay a Susy Goose price for a Wilton product.

Here's what the Wilton cake topper looks like in full.  I think you used a Wilton piano-shaped cake pan and put it in-between the top and bottom of the plastic piano pieces?  I don't know.  I couldn't find any other pieces of it in my friend's garage.  The candle sticks look like they might resemble the Susy Goose ones as well.

ANYWAY, there you have it.... no matter how long you collect you're always going to find some new weird thing.

Lastly, I can't speculate as to how this happened.  This cake topper came out in the early-to-mid 1970s.  Susy Goose was out of business by then, I think.  They hadn't made furniture for Barbie for years at that point.  I don't know what happened to their molds, patents, files, or anything like that, or how it might have migrated to Wilton and whoever designed this thing.  Who knows?!  

If anyone out there can share more insight, please do!  Information on Susy Goose online is hard to come by, except that it was registered as a trademark in 1941 by someone named Paul Jones.  THIS ARTICLE says Susy Goose liquidated in 1970, so I'm guessing that would be exactly the time Wilton acquired the molds.  They apparently moved production to Ohio in 1967, shortly before going out of business.

Apparently the original Susy Goose factory was in Jonesville, Michigan, under the name of "Kiddie Brush & Toy Company," founded in 1927. (and HERE is the Wikipedia article about the building.)  I didn't know that Susy Goose products were made in the United States, I assumed they were made overseas like (most) Barbie dolls.  That also makes it more interesting that the Wilton bench was (probably?) made in Hong Kong.

Are the molds still out there somewhere?  Could some toy company make repro Barbie accessories?  Are they floating around?  Does Wilton have them?  Wilton, are you out there?  Can you make me a Susy Goose piano?

SO STRANGE.  Has anyone else ever noticed this, or am I the first one?  

Head Case

A recent find was this "Sweet 16" Barbie head on this "Ballerina" Barbie body.. or at least a body with "Ballerina" arms.

This head

This body

Of course, I've never seen a Sweet 16 Barbie head on a Ballerina body in any kind of a box or package, but they turn up often enough mated this way in the wild.

Sweet 16 Barbie had "Mexico" style arms, called that because they were mostly produced at Mattel's Mexico factory (as opposed to Japan or Taiwan or elsewhere.)  Sorry I don't have any quickly available right now for a picture (while I'm thinking about it, lol.)

These arms had small nubs holding them on and they fell off easily.  Heads were still fairly removable and shareable during this time period, so I can only imagine that plenty of Sweet 16 dolls lost their arms, and their heads were transferred to Ballerina bodies.

Remember, if you see a head on a body that seems unusual, there's a 99% chance this is a child being creative with their toys and not some rare prototype or special doll.  Unless it's sealed in a package, there is just no proof.

The Greening of Tutti (and Friends)

In 1966, Barbie doll got yet another sibling... or siblings!  Tutti doll and her twin brother Todd appeared on the scene.  Along with other similarly-sized dolls, like Tutti's friend Chris, these are some of the cutest collectibles in the vintage Barbie world.

Tutti and her friends were sized about 6.25" tall, with soft vinyl over a wire armature.  This clever design meant you could pose them in all kinds of ways, plus they were small enough to carry in a pocket or purse.

But, if you collect vintage Barbie & family dolls for any length of time at all, you're bound to see it... a lovely Tutti doll.. turning all green!

This is caused by Tutti's interior skeleton, made of a copper-coated wire that reacts with the soft vinyl, causing the dreaded green disease. However, not all Tutti dolls get this problem.  Is it storage conditions?   Wire breakage?  Something else?

Sometimes, even never removed from box Tutti dolls suffer from this defect, and even minty examples can be green as asparagus.

While cleaning up some junky Tutti dolls a few days ago, I made a discovery about Tutti.  Something that I certainly had never noticed before.  I don't think I've ever seen anybody mention this or write about it, so I'm going to do a little write-up here.

Here are some very green Tutti bodies.  They are in very good condition, but as you can see, terribly green.  The Tutti on the left was a standard blonde Tutti, while the Tutti on the left, was "Melody in Pink."

Here's another Tutti doll.  Though she's in rough shape, she's not green at all.  So, what's the difference?  I made a discovery when I took this Tutti's head off to wash her hair.

Her head was full of wire.. a LOT of wire.  I pulled on it.  I kept pulling.  It kept coming.  It soon became clear that ALL of the wire that went in Tutti's body was now shoved up into her head.  I was flummoxed.

All of this wire was shoved up into Tutti's head!  When it came out, the wire came free and the last end of it, which was still in her body, pulled out too.  Tutti had been "de-boned," that is... her skeleton came out!  Her arms and legs are floppy and don't have any wire left.  But do you notice anything weird about the wire?

I can only assume that this wire was once more body-shaped and either some kid pulled it out and shoved it into Tutti's head, or it just worked its way up there through normal playtime.  Anyway, look at this wire!  It's not very thick, it's definitely not copper, and it seems it would easily break if it was bent too many times.  Let's compare it to the green Tuttis' bodies...

Look at how much thicker the wire in this Tutti doll's body is!  It's copper looking, and it's very thick and somewhat difficult to bend.  It certainly wouldn't be pulling out of her body like the lighter wire did.  It's really strongly attached inside the body, whereas the lighter wire was kind of floating around in a hollow vinyl body.

The green-body Tutti dolls still hold a pose really well.  Their wires are still strong and solid.

None of their joints are broken, all of their limbs still pose.  They even bend at the hip and can sit down nicely, something that Tutti can't always do.

So what's the reason for this change between one doll and another?  I don't have any proof or documentation for any of this, but I do have some theories:

-  I believe the heavy wire dolls are likely from earlier in the run than later dolls.  Tutti was sold in the USA from 1966 to around 1971, but she continued being sold in Europe until around 1980.

-  I assume the heavy-wire dolls date from 1966 - 1968 or so, with perhaps the lighter wire dolls coming later...?

I have read before that Tutti was discontinued in the USA due to product safety concerns, meaning a child could chew on or cut Tutti, and maybe hurt themselves on the interior wire skeleton.

So perhaps Mattel changed the wire inside to make it less dangerous for children, less easy to break, and less "pokey" if it did break.

The heavy wire could definitely poke a wound into your skin if Tutti was broken or chewed, but I doubt that light wire could cut you (though I'd be more concerned about it breaking and becoming a choking hazard.)

I suppose it's also possible Mattel knew about the wire turning the vinyl green problem, though it doesn't often appear until years or decades later.

The dolls made in the 70s for the European market had a thicker type of vinyl.  It was less prone to breaking/chewing/tearing than the earlier dolls, and they did not hold a pose as nicely, and were not as "bendy."

ANYWAY.

What can be done about the green problem?  Sadly, not much. 

-  If you have a doll that is greening on the body around the neck, I recommend you remove the head.  The greening can (and will) spread to her head, and even her hair!  It will ruin a mint doll's face, you do not want that green touching anything if you can help it.

-  The greening can also cause a bleaching effect to the head.  The pink skin can turn white or yellowish.

-  I don't think I would open a NRFB doll to take it apart... but it probably will eventually be ruined.  So probably if the doll is so green her head is being damaged, the head should be removed to at least keep it mint.

-  Sometimes you see a Tutti with just a tiny spot of green somewhere on their body.  I can't say why some dolls turn totally green, and why some seem to only have a spot or two.  I can't say if ALL Tutti dolls with thick interior wires will eventually turn green. 

-  Perhaps it's possible a broken wire makes greening more likely, but the green dolls above definitely have solid wires that are not broken.

-  I DO recommend storing your dolls in a temperature and humidity controlled environment, to help prevent further damage, though I cannot promise any of this would help stop the greening.  It may help to keep them from humidity.

-  You should not store your green doll bodies near other dolls.  The green can migrate from one doll to another, or cause bleaching to a nearby doll.  A small spot of green you probably don't need to worry about, but if they are very green like the dolls above, don't just throw them in a box or a drawer with your other dolls.

-  The green CAN be treated with a product such as Remove-Zit, but as long as the wire skeleton remains inside, it will continue to turn green.  There's no way that I can tell to remove the thick-wire skeleton, short of surgery with an X-acto knife and totally ruining the doll. 

-  Restoration and preservation options may need to be considered as time goes by and more dolls turn green. 

-  I assume that dolls that have "floppy" limbs that no longer hold a pose have the lighter wire inside that has broken into pieces... or the wire has completely fallen out like my doll above.

Tutti is one of my favorite Barbie family dolls to collect.  They are so cute and you can have a lot of them in a small amount of space.  Their cheerful expressions always make me happy.

I found my first Tutti doll for 25 cents at a yard sale when I was a teenager, and I have been hooked ever since!

I hope to write more about Tutti in the future.  If you have any comments or information about Tutti turning green, let me know!

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Note:  Similar greening can be seen from earrings being left in Barbie's ears.. or the nearly-unavoidable greening of Dawn Doll's knees.. but that's another blog entry.

Travel With Dolls

Am I the only person out there who likes to take a few dolls along when she goes on a trip?  I simply can't leave everyone at home..

From my earliest days of having a Dawn doll in my pocket in the car, to now... I gotta have a doll along for the ride!

I like to use this little travel case made by Ponytail, which yes, did manufacture early Barbie cases and vinyl items... but also manufactured their own line of products, including cute kid-sized luggage like this "hatbox" design.  It's just the right size to hold a few dolls and their things, and the graphic is oh-so-cuuuute.

Of course, I'm not sure how well it would work on a plane, but since I'm strictly a road-tripper, it's a perfect little box to take some dollies with me.

Here's the lovely doll that usually comes with me... a pretty Skipper I snagged for $10 at a yard sale years ago, wearing the rare dress from the Perfectly Pretty gift set.. I imagine she is the doll from the gift set as well.  (Oh, if only they had the rest of the outfit!)

She's with a 1980s Barbie teddy bear, and vintage non-Mattel luggage.

A note about the luggage, it's part of a 4-piece set.  It included 3-sizes of suitcase in the Samsonite style, and a train case with a removable tray, which Skipper is sitting on.  It came in a multitude of colors, the most common being this teal color, and an off-white kind of ecru color.

I believe it also came in a bright lime green color, a navy blue (?), bright yellow, a peachy tan, a brighter white, and red. Possibly more colors.

If you come across the set in any color other than teal or ecru, it is definitely rare.  If you find it in red, it is VERY sought after by collectors!  (My mom has the human-sized in Samsonite red!)

Red is scarce, and definitely the most prized.

The luggage was made by Payton Products of Brooklyn, NY.  Apparently they were founded around 1951, and defunct by 1980.  They also manufactured other dime-store type toys and games, toy cars, army men, farm animals, and the like.   I don't where this cute luggage set was sold.  But it turns up often enough that it must have been widely available.  Probably in dime and toy stores everywhere.

(Image above from This Ebay Auction, please check it out if you are interested, via This Ebay Seller)

Here it is new in package!  Note that it uses the actual trademarked Samsonite name.  I wonder if you could buy it at the airport gift shop?

Note the three suitcases have faux "wheels" on the bottom, while the train case has little nubby feet.  All of them are hinged and have faux closures at the top, looks just like real Samsonite!

Beyond being adorable, you can really use this luggage!

It can easily hold a few dresses for Skipper (and this isn't even the largest size.)

Here's the inside of the train case.

Here it is with the tray removed.

All of these cute little extras were able to fit in the train case... I seem to be missing a purple shoe..

Here's Skipper with her sleeping bag and footie PJs from 1974-1975, Get Ups N' Go #7713 - Sleep Set, which also came with a cute green sleep cap, which I've misplaced somewhere.

Getting ready for bed with Chris doll, who is wearing #3616 - Pinky PJs from 1968 - 1969.

Mattel of course, was never blind to the fact that kids want to travel with their dolls.  Oodles of doll cases were available over the years, perhaps the easiest vintage Barbie item to find in the history of ever, though of course some are rare or very rare.  

Barbie, Midge, Ken, Skipper, Francie, Tutti... they all had their own special doll cases.  Some cases have even been made specifically for collectors to keep their dolls safe and sound on the road.

I'll write more about traveling with your dolls at some other time, I just thought I'd give you this little glimpse of a collector on the go!

Occasionally, I've traveled with even more doll friends, haha!  (Picture from 2009)

Mod Ken - Part 2

Part 2 

Continuing the series on Ken's mod outfits, let's look at a few more of them, hmm?

In 1969, Ken got 4 new outfits, plus one gift set.  In 1970, he got 6 additional outfits.  He also got a new friend, Brad!  Brad was African American and known as Christie doll's boyfriend.  He came wearing his own unique outfits.  Brad was Mattel's first African American boy doll.

There seems to be some debate over whether Ken's mod PAK items were available during 1970 or only 1971.  Perhaps they came out late in the year for Christmas.  Since they seem kind of scarce, I'm thinking they weren't available for long.  I'll discuss them in a later article.

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Here's a list for you for 1969 - 1970 outfits:

Ken 1969:

-  Breakfast at 7 (#1428)  -  (1969 - 1970)  (See previous article)
-  Rally Gear (#1429)  -  (1969 - 1970)
-  Town Turtle (#1430)  -  (1969 -  1970)
-  Guruvy Formal (#1431)  -  (1969 only)
-  Fabulous Formal Gift Set (#1595)  -  (1969 only)  (Sears Exclusive with Barbie)
-  Talking Ken Original Outfit (#1111)  -  (1969 only)

Ken 1970:

-  Play It Cool! (#1433)  -  (1970 only)
-  Big Business (#1434)  -  (1970 only)
-  Shore Lines (#1435)  -  (1970 only)
-  Bold Gold (#1436)  -   (1970 only)
-  Casual All Stars (#1514)  -  (1970 only)  (Sears Exclusive)  (NOTE:  Some pieces came in several color variations.)
-  Talking Ken Original Outfit (#1111)  -  (1970 only)  (Same stock number as 1969, but different outfit.)
-  Bendleg Ken Original Outfit (#1124)  -  (1970 - 1971)
-  Bendleg  Brad Original Outfit (#1142)  -  (1970 - 1972)
-  Talking Brad Original Outfit (#1114)  -  (1970 - 1973)
-  Red, White, And Wild Gift Set (#1589)  - (1970 only)  (Sears Exclusive)  (NOTE:  Not to be confused with a later 1972 outfit that has the same name)

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ANYWAY:  I'm going to share pictures for as many outfits as I have in my collection!  I'm not going to go in any particular order, sorry.. just whatever outfit I felt like putting on Ken at the time, haha!

Play It Cool! (#1433)

Here's Ken's lovely Play it Cool! (#1433) from 1970.  What a crazy pair of pants, huh?

The pants are made out of a very loose knit that is prone to threads pulling from the weave.  The shirt and socks are a soft knit that tends to get pilly and is also prone to tearing at the seams.  The shirt closes with snap in the back and has raglan sleeves.

The jacket is a very nice, high quality felt-like material which seems to hold up really well.  A really nice imitation of camel hair.

YKK zipper and knit-weave close-up.

The pants have a YKK zipper fly and a hook-and-loop closure.  Here you can see the loose knit close-up.  Mine are pulling a little around the top, probably from aggressive pulling by some kiddo of the past.  These are difficult to get onto Ken's sticky bend-legs, so remember that baby powder if they won't pull on, and avoid rips or damage to the fabric.

The coat is the only tagged piece.

The coat is the only tagged piece.  The little teeny threads that hold down the collar are often found snapped, actually, I accidentally snapped one while I was putting it on Ken doll.  Thankfully, it's a quick-and-easy repair, so don't worry too much about it.

Also, do you notice something above the tag?

Close-up of pull-string hole.

Some people think this is a hole or damage to the outfit, but it's not!  It's a hole for Talking Ken's pull string.  Most Ken outfits from this era have a hole in the back of at least one piece so that the pull-string can be easily accessed while Ken is wearing his clothes.  What a cool idea, huh?  They are very carefully put in, too.  So, if you see one, it's not a flaw.. it's the perfection of Mattel's design on this one. :)

Squishy-style JAPAN dress shoes.

The shoes are squishy-type (and fit nicely over the socks), and they are marked JAPAN. 

Outfit without coat.

Here's Ken wearing the outfit sans coat.  Those are some pants!  These pants were in my collection for a long time when I was a young collector and it took me a long time to identify them.  The print is so large, but trust me, guys really did wear pants like that.

Coat

Here it is with the coat, with my chopstick holding down the collar with the snapped thread.  (Oops!)

A really nice thing about this coat is that the sleeves are generously cut so that the sweater sleeves don't get all wrinkled and bunched-up when you put it on over top.

Play it Cool! as pictured in the Barbie booklets.

Next up, here's Rally Gear (#1429) from 1969 - 1970.

Rally Gear #1429

My outfit isn't in the best of shape.  The jacket is in pretty poor condition and the pants are stained.  The shirt seems to show up way more commonly than either the jacket or pants.

The jacket's collar is folded up, it should be folded down.  It's made out of a faux-leather-like material that doesn't hold up very well.  You can't really tell here, but it is double-breasted and has two rows of buttons.

The pants are a cotton-like fabric with a YKK zipper and hook-and-loop.  The shirt is a nice, crisp high-quality shirting-type fabric with three buttons.  It closes with hook-and-loops.

No socks were included.  The cowboy boots are squishy and should be marked JAPAN, though later boots are nearly identical and may be marked with other country names.  Uhm, I don't think mine are an actual pair since the color isn't the same.

Showing the tag and hole for talking string.

The shirt is the only tagged piece.  As you can see, it has a hole in the back of the neck to accommodate the talking string.  Remember, it's not a flaw, it's a clever design element!

Showing the slit for the talking string in the jacket.

Here's the slit in the back of the jacket for the talking string.  You might think this is a flaw, but it's supposed to be there.

It's a bit difficult to get the jacket over the sleeves of the shirt without wrinkling them something terrible, which is why I haven't put this on a doll for you. 

Booklet picture.

Here's Rally Gear in a Barbie booklet from the era.  See how the jacket is double-breasted with a fold-down collar.  The pockets are real, by the way.  Note the talking ring sticking out of the back.

I hope you enjoyed Part II!  I'll be back with more MOD KEN soon.

Click here for MOD KEN PART 1