Sassy Dolls

Sassy Dolls
By Euphrates

Recently, I bought a vintage doll collection to get the Dolly Darlings that
were included. After pawing through and identifying the remaining dolls, I
was left two 4 inch dolls made of rubber with rooted hair that were marked
Made in Korea. Both dolls were in sitting position and had funny expressions
on their freckled faces. One was sticking out her tongue and the other was
pouting angrily.

Initially, I found similar dolls with the following characteristics. In fact, they are
frequently found in sets of 3-4 dolls. This suggests that there were sold as a set, and
not individually. Here are the posing variations that I saw:

Sitting doll with blue dress and orange hair sticking out her tongue

Sitting doll with yellow dress and blonde hair pouting angrily - one eye closed

Sitting doll with orange dress and black hair looking contented (HTF)

Sitting doll with green dress laughing - eyes closed

Sitting doll with yellow dress and brown hair crying

Sitting doll with red dress and black hair looking angry (HTF)

Sitting Indian with green dress and black hair looking happy (HTF)

After months of accumulating these dolls I have seen the following variations:

Some of the figures are significanly taller, as much as 6-9 inches.
Some of the figures are just a little taller and made of a harder, darker and glossier material.
I have seen others that just have darker skin or different colored hair.
The dolls can be marked Anekona Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Korea.
The dolls can have the standard expressions but be painted to look like different races.
I have see aa HK 3-faced (laughing, crying, pouting) Eskimo doll with molded hair.

I have since learned that some of these dolls were manufactured in 1972, by the
Imperial Crown Toy Co. I have only seen a few of them with the Imperial markings so
if you are searching for them on a sales or auction site, you will
usually find them with search engines by looking for their expressions. I have found most
of mine by searching for snotty, sassy, bratty, cute or even ugly. During your searches
you will most likely stumble upon an unrelated line of 10-inch expressive dolls called My Pals.

If you can find a few of these dolls you will pay very little for them. I've picked up dozens of
lots of them all for well under $10 every time.