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American Character
1964 Tressy doll with grow hair
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Her hair
grows short, long or in between. Tressy's hair makes her a Queen!
American Character's Tressy doll is a 11 1/2" tall teenage fashion
doll with growing hair, painted facial
features, she's jointed at the neck, arms and legs. All Tressy dolls
have an identifying doll mark on the back of her head American Char. 1963 in a
circle. Other family dolls are; sister Cricket
called Toots in the European market and Tressy's friend Mary
Makeup.
Tressy's clothing line was called Budget Fashions, some of the names are;
Pink
Champagne, Campus Casual, Shaking the Night Away, Soda Pop Cutie, Car Coat, Chic Shift, Hootenanny, Evening Date on the Beach.
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The Palitoy, Bradgate division of England marketed a grow hair Tressy / Silky doll line in Europe as
did the Regal Toy Limited Company of Toronto, Canada in the Canadian market.
In 1967 the American Character company made a settlement with their creditors and then went out of business in 1968, several doll patents were sold to
creditors Ideal and Mattel, in the 1970s Ideal used the grow hair patent feature for their
Crissy and friends dolls. |
American Character Vintage Tressy Family of Dolls identified
1963-1967
American Character Tressy
Doll 11 1/2" tall
Tressy doll is shown on left in her original box with red knit sleeveless dress a white
soutache band around the arm holes and
neckline a white cord belt and white open toe shoes, and
her key to make her hair grow.
1964
Tressy
head close up, Later Issue (shown at top of page), the first issue Tressy dolls have heavier eye makeup in green eyeliner, later dolls have
gray eyeliner.
1965
Tressy Makeup Doll (not shown) - this doll has the grow hair feature along
with a waxy unshiny makeup face that you can use cosmetic's
to color the dolls face and change the hair color. These products
could only be used on these particular dolls.
A very coveted doll
is the Black Magic Makeup Tressy doll that is an black doll - Hi Fashion
Cosmetic doll. |
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1964-1965
Tressy,
Hi Fashion doll
# 70211
(shown left) This doll was sold by Regal Toy Limited of
Toronto, Canada, Patent 693746.
The box text is in both
English and French, you can see the key that was used to insert into the dolls
back, then push the button on her tummy to make her hair grow. |
1964-1967 American Character
Mary Makeup
doll
(shown left); The dolls in this time period all seem to have to do something, Mary's feature was that her face is
waxy, so a
child could apply makeup that later could be easily removed. She's the same size as Tressy
11 1/2" tall and can share her wardrobe.
She originally
came wearing the same red knit dress as Tressy. She does not have the
grow hair feature though.
Photo
courtesy Laney Cummings |
1965-1967 American Character Cricket doll, 9 1/2"
Cricket was introduced as
Tressy's little sister, she's about 9 1/2" tall, hard plastic
jointed body, vinyl head with rooted hair, painted facial features,
closed mouth, the first issued
doll had long straight hair and bangs, the later dolls have the grow
hair feature.
Cricket was called Toots in the
European market and was produced by the Palitoy Company of England. |
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