Pedigree-Type Walkers

Name: Head-Turning Pedigree-Type Walkers

Made by and When: Possibly made by Lines Brothers (Joy Toys Ltd), 1950s

Material: Hard plastic (cellulose acetate)

Marks: Made in NZ

Height: 21-1/2 inches

Hair/Eyes/Mouth: Black astrakhan wigs/dark gray flirty eyes (boy)*, brown flirty eyes (girl)/closed mouths with slightly exaggerated red-painted lips

Clothes: Redressed in period-appropriate clothes and shoes

Other: *The boy’s gray eyes might have originally been brown. These dolls are identical to Pedigree’s 1950s head-turning walkers, Dixie and Mandy Lou. Both dolls have vented chests for their voice boxes. They were possibly made by Lines Brothers of New Zealand (a subsidiary of Pedigree) in a New Zealand factory. In the Pedigree chapter of British Hard Plastic Dolls of the 1940s & 1950s (New Cavendish Books, London, 1998), page 65, Frances Baird writes, “During the 1950s, Lines Bros acquired many new factories, including ones in South Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as Joy Toys Ltd in New Zealand and factories in Canada, Australia and South Africa so that Pedigree dolls and toys were available around the world.”

1950s head-turning, hard plastic walkers appear identical to Pedigree’s Dixie and Mandy Lou.

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Published by DeeBeeGee

Doll collector, historian, co-founder of the first e-zine devoted to collecting black dolls; author of black-doll reference books, doll blogs, and doll magazine articles.

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