June Bride Ginger

I had a great plan last month. I had both Jill and Ginger dolls in the works and each had enough clothing, including a wedding gown, for a bridal trousseau. How cute, I thought, to do a "June Bride" series in June! Well, here we are halfway through July and only Ginger is finished. I don't know if Jill will even make it to be a July bride! Last week we had swim team practice every morning for two hours and then meets, extra practice and the awards ceremony from 5:30-10PM Tuesday-Friday. We aren't done yet, either. We have one more week of practice for two hours each morning and the Championship meets tomorrow and Wednesday nights. Tuesday and Thursday my oldest is teaching private swimming lessons and I have to attend the planning meetings for our neighborhood Amazing Race. As soon as swim team ends, marching band camp starts! Ugh! Isn't summer for relaxing in this awful heat? I dream of some future summer in which I can just walk on the beach every day!

I made a ribbon display board.

But anyway, eBay was having a listing sale last week and I tried as hard as I could to finish as much as possible and get it up for sale. I wasn't too successful, but did manage to finish stringing some Jacqueline Portrait dolls and restoring doll clothes for many different size dolls. I also threw together a cute display board for my daughter's swimming ribbons. She's been a natural swimmer since birth, pretty much, and was picked to represent the team swimming Butterfly in the Championships. Of course, once she had a board, all the kids wanted one. I saw a cute idea for a shelf that can display ribbons and trophies and my husband made those for the boys, but then our girl wanted one of those too. So now all three are getting shelves. Since our daughter's board is already pretty much full I guess she will need the space for the Championships and future seasons!

Ginger's wedding trousseau

In my last post I told you about my restoration of the Fab Walking 9 Inch Doll. That doll came in a lot with this Ginger doll. I'm pretty sure this unmarked Ginger is another Fab premium. As I've mentioned in the past, Cosmopolitan sold their popular Ginger type #4 doll molds and unmarked dolls to all sorts of other companies. These dolls were then marketed under different names, like Carol Sue and Jeanette, and sold by other companies. For this reason you see a wide range of quality levels with Ginger dolls and their clothing. The one constant is the big round Type 4 eyes almost always stick. This doll is no exception; her eyes can be worked manually but don't open and close on their own.

The Fab Picture Doll dress

The 1957 Fab Picture Doll

Extra outfits could be ordered with box tops.

The Fab Picture Doll Ginger is a well made example of a premium doll. The first Fab Walking doll was a very cheap 8 inch teenage walker with stapled-on clothing. It must not have done as well as the company wanted, because they started offering much nicer dolls as premiums. The Picture Doll and 9 Inch Doll are examples of the higher-end premiums. Based on the dress and outfits included with this doll I think this family remained loyal to Fab detergent and sent off for the 9 Inch doll, the Ginger Picture Doll, and several extra outfits for Ginger. Then they bought some tagged Ginger clothing and a trunk. This dress was also sold on Fortune's Jeanette doll, who uses the Type #4 Ginger mold, so it's also possible this is Jeanette. However, based on the bride dress and untagged copy of  Nancy Ann's Dude Ranch Days series (which I think might be extra premium outfits) and the fact that the doll came with another Fab doll I'm going ahead and calling this the Fab Picture Doll. You can see how difficult it is, though, to identify the specific manufacturer of a Type 4 Ginger without the original tag or box. They were even sold in pieces so girls could make their own doll!

I made Ginger a hat.

Ginger lost her picture hat somewhere along the way, so I gave her a new one. The Picture dress is pink taffeta trimmed with light blue looped braid. It was pretty stained so I cleaned it. You can still see some spots, but nothing major. Ginger wears taffeta panties with white looped braid under her dress.

The doll appears unused.

Just like her "sister", the Fab toddler doll, this Ginger doll appears to have been rarely, if ever, used as a play doll. Her hair is pristine and her body doesn't have a mark. Her paint is perfect; she even retains her light side eyelashes, which usually rub away during play. The only flaw, if you can call it that, is some glue residue near the side part of her wig, but that occurred at the factory. Her signature rolled hair is still in its perfect original set and her walker mechanism works well. She can sit and stand alone with balancing but she does come with a display stand.

I think the wedding gown was a Fab premium.

The untagged wedding gown and veil are nicely-made but not as detailed as the tagged Ginger outfits. I think this set was probably another Fab premium. The Fab outfits were 50 cents each plus box tops. I made a new bouquet for Ginger to hold, as the original was lost.

The doll can sit.

There is some glue residue in near her part.

The pink lace-trimmed taffeta dress is another untagged piece that might be a Fab premium or which could just be a generic doll outfit for the popular 8 inch dolls of the time.

This dress is untagged

I added the hat and boots to this outfit.

The blue and black dress has no tag but was certainly factory made. There is a tiny hole where the dress once had a factory snap that pulled through. Someone hand-sewed a snap over the area to close the dress. The Dude Ranch romper had no closure so I sewed on a hook and eye closure. I couldn't resist adding a pair of vintage Madame Alexander red boots and a straw cowboy hat to complete the set!

I gave the doll a hair net.

Ginger's beautiful blue dotted Swiss dress is tagged and very nicely made, with lace trim and an attached slip, details that rival the Ginny and Muffie clothing of the time. The blue headband is probably a Ginger piece, since the Vogue headbands usually are printed with Ginny's name.

This dress is tagged.

The Ginger tag

Ginger's flannel robe is also tagged. This is identical to a Vogue Ginny robe from the 1950s. It is missing its tie so I used grosgrain ribbon to close it.

The robe is tagged.

Ginger's green rubbery necklace is identical to one made by Vogue for Ginny, so it's possibly a Vogue piece. As we've seen, Cosmopolitan didn't worry at all about copying the Ginny and Muffie outfits, so it could also just be a knock off.

The necklace might be a Vogue piece.

Ginger makes a sweet make-believe bride and her trousseau includes about every outfit a girl could possibly need. The suitcase-style plaid trunk is not marked with a maker's name but it's a high quality piece. It's solid wood with a metal veneer. The surface has some denting and wear from use, but nothing major. You can find Ginger, the Fab 9 Inch doll, and many others in my Atelier Mandaline store, and right now all are on sale so I hope you'll check!