davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2025

[davidd]

14 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

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Hazy Shade of Nuclear Winter

Nelly (Smart Doll Kanata) was disappointed that today was not a nuclear winter, but a regular plain ol' winter.

[Alliecat]

I am sick and tired of ANY kind of winter!!
Nice perspective. Everything looks in scale with her.

[TrueFan]

We have snow and winter and I'm on crutches! Which makes it a thousand times worse.

[davidd]

15 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

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Six Inch Schicklgruber

My nine-year old self compelled me to buy this... uhhh... 1/12-scale (six inch tall) Moe from the Three Stooges action figure. Back in the day, my elementary school friends and I went through a period during which we were obsessed with afternoon reruns of the "Hogan's Heroes" TV series set during the Second World War. No, we weren't political ideologues as kids; we were just boys who were intrigued by Jeeps and tanks and machine-guns and fighter planes and battleships and pretty much anything and everything having to do with WWII. If anyone had managed to acquire something like this he would have been the envy of us all.

We had GI Joe back then, but we certainly didn't have access to a... errr... Charlie Chaplin action figure like this! Of course, we had Aurora monster model kits, the Aurora Monster Scenes, and Aurora Prehistoric Scenes, and we had all manner of plastic model kits of battleships (like Bismarck and Tirpitz and Prinz Eugen) and panzer tanks and  the gloriously kitschy "Rommel's Rod" from Monogram – loads of awesomeness, but no realistic toy figures of... ahem... noted British thespian Sir Alec Guinness (before Star Wars).

The Aurora Monster Scenes didn't last long in the stores, and my mom refused to buy me any. I suspect she would have refused to buy me a detailed... Groucho Marx figure like this one, too. Years later, I have acquired a 1/12-scale Vampirella action figure, almost entirely because it reminded me of standing in the toy aisle at the local shopping mart reading every single word on the Monster Scenes boxes over and over again. Now I have another 1/12-scale (about 6 inches tall) figure to add to my collection, a "crossover" piece that will tie together two of my childhood obsessions, WWII and monsters.

I gotta go find for my Vampi fig and see how they look together. This figure is no Doctor Deadly, but it's definitely weird enough to pal around with some creatures of the night.

3R (DiD) TG80001 1/12-scale WWII military action figure

15 February - A Doll A Day 2025

[Alliecat]

Pretty good detail for a 6" figure.
The nice thing about being an adult collector is being able to get the stuff you wish you'd got when you were a kid and now there's nobody to tell you you can't.

[TrueFan]

I watched Hogan Heroes every day after school too. I even wrote lyrics to the theme song.

[davidd]

16 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

Devil Doll. Or Devil Dal. It's a Dal doll, part of the Pullip doll family,

so I guess it's a Devil Dal Doll

[Alliecat]

Oooh, spooky.

[davidd]

17 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

Yanking Rusty Staples out of a Doll Head

Yeah, I viciously ripped apart the last of those old nun dolls.

A couple of my insightful online contacts made a couple of insightful points.

One suggested that maybe the nun dolls weren't "loved" so much as kept out of a sense of obligation and that the connotations surrounding them were not positive but negative.

Another observed that using the dolls, or parts of the dolls, would offer a creative outlet, which is more use than the nun dolls have received for decades, and that either the original owners or the families of those owners no longer care about them.

Of course, one person agreed about keeping at least one of them in original condition and treasure it for what it is.

I decided to scavenge the costumes. This may have been a good move. The staples in the doll with the white costume were already quite rusty. The rust would eventually have stained the fabric. The staples were on the verge of rusting through and breaking, which would create sharp edges which might tear the fabric or rend flesh and present a tetanus hazard.

I will either donate the doll bodies to a local charity shop or list them for sale online. Perhaps somebody will crochet new outfits for them.

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18 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

Sister Gotha and Sister Taube of the Convent of the Sisters of Little Mercy

1/6-scale Nun Dolls
New heads and bodies with costumes and jewelry salvaged from circa 1950s-1960s nun dolls

[Alliecat]

At least you were able to do something creative with them. Kind of sad wondering what sort of lives secondhand dolls had – did someone love them once, and then what happened? I was recently in an antique shop where there were whole bins of old dolls and parts; couldn’t find any in good enough shape to rescue.

[davidd]

At least you were able to do something creative with them.

Purchasing the little crosses and chains and beads can easily cost more than I paid for the nun dolls. There are a lot of old nun dolls for sale on eBay. Unfortunately, shipping costs have made purchasing them to use as "raw materials" less financially tenable than it was even a few years ago.

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19 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

Sister Pfalz, Sister Gotha, and Sister Taube of the Convent of the Sisters of Little Mercy.

1/6-scale action figures.

The heads and bodies are new. The costumes were salvaged from circa 1950s - 1960s religious souvenir dolls.

[Alliecat]

Shipping costs have made purchasing pretty much anything on eBay less appealing these days. Maybe you could find some of the little accessories on AliEx.press – or are there tariffs on those shipments now?

[davidd]

Maybe you could find some of the little accessories on AliEx.press – or are there tariffs on those shipments now? 

I'm not sure when the tariffs on goods from China kick in, or what that will do to prices. One popular China-based online retailer, Giantoy, appears to have raised prices on some items and lowered prices on others and ermigaaahhhddd I should not have looked at the Giantoy site because I see something I want WANT NEEEEEEEEEEED right NAO!!!!

I think the tariffs on Canadian goods have been temporarily postponed pending negotiations.

 'Kay, back in a second, I gotta go buy something........

. . .

. . .

Yeah, I... uhhh kinda prolly shouldn't'a done that. Anyway, discounted items and no tariff surcharge at checkout, so YAY! I hope this doesn't mean shipments from overseas will start getting hit with Customs fees like in some backwater countries with antiquated import rules. The USA did away with things like that back in 1776 -- fought a big war over it, even -- so I hope they don't bring it back.

Golly, these dolly forums are dangerous places!

Anywhoooo.... where wuz I? Oh, right:

20 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

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Oldish and Newish

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I ran across a list of toy and doll photography prompts on the Tumblr blogging website the other day.

To be completely accurate, I encountered a mention of the Tumblr photography prompts on a doll and action figure website (Figurvore, a virtually dormant forum site which manages to roll over and breathe once in a while), and then I looked for the actual list on Tumblr.

"1. Introduce your newest toy (or doll) to the one you’ve had longest."

Here's Pinky:st PK005 Kokoro, my first acquisition as an "adult toy collector" back in 2005, with my latest acquisition, a new Bratz Goin' Out Jade doll I purchased in January 2025.

I guess Bratz Jade won't hold on to her title of Newest Acquisition for long.

Ironically, the Tumblr toy prompts are designed to get people to appreciate the toys and dolls they have and to forego purchasing anything new for the duration of the 28 day challenge.

[Alliecat]

It’s true that sometimes acquisition becomes more of a goal than appreciating the dolls one has. Somebody on the J-doll group said that they hadn’t posted much lately because they’ve completed their collection so there wasn’t much to post. And I was like “um, duh, maybe take some pictures of them?”

What did you get???????

[davidd]

21 February - A Doll A Day 2025:

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The Convent of the Sisters of Little Mercy

L to R: Sister Gotha, Sister Pfalz, Reverend Mother Fokker, Sister Taube, and Sister Albatros

The Convent of the Sisters of Little Mercy is dedicated to the Veneration of St. Le Rhône

1/6-scale Action Nun figures

Heads and bodies: new 1/6-scale pieces

Costumes, crosses, and beads: circa 1950s and 1960s souvenir religious dolls