Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Steffie of the day: Miss America

Miss America by alington
Miss America, a photo by alington on Flickr.
Originally produced in 1973, Miss America is an early version of Steffie. There are many variations of this doll.

Walk Lively Miss America is shown above. You can find this doll with longer hair or short hair (mine above has short hair). Some include the walking stand, but others don't.

The following year, when the Walk Lively Miss America dolls had sold out--they were a special Kellogg's exclusive--they were replaced with Quick Curl Miss America, first as a brunette, and then as a blonde.

I find the brunette Quick Curl Miss America is the most difficult to find of the three.

The blonde dolls came with many variations:
  • short or tall crown (the short one is hard to find)
  • pale blonde or golden blonde hair
  • the dress has a textured bodice or lamé bodice
  • the dress has a silver lamé or gold lamé bodice (the silver is more rare)
  • the cape has an ermine border or a plain white border (the white is more rare)
  • the doll has intense facial screening or more natural facial screening (the intense facial screening is harder to find)
The Canadian-issued dolls, in the orange box, are harder to find than the American pink boxes.

You can have lots of fun collecting these dolls!

Regal Red

5 comments:

  1. Hi Alison - your blog has just come to my attention since joining "I Love Steffie" group on Facebook. I have enjoyed seeing your photos and reading your Steffie posts; but I am wondering about your comment above re: Australian packaging for Miss America? I am Australian and as far as I was aware Miss America was not released here. We DID have Walk Lively Barbie, Ken and Steffie in special packaging of plastic tubes - I have all three and can supply you a pic if you'd like!
    Cheers, Karen :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Karen, I think you're right. I'm pretty sure the doll I'd seen (and probably your photo) was a Walk Lively Steffie, rather than Miss America. I'll change the blogpost!

    ReplyDelete
  3. No worries Alison - would have been good if we DID get her in Australia; they could have even done a Miss Australia I guess, like they did the special Australian version of the Olympic dolls. Not sure how popular the Miss Australia Quest was here then though, we're not a very pageant-y nation. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I saw and saved a photo online (think it was on ebay) of a Mattel Australian buyer's catalogue from 1972 that had the Miss America repackaged as a 'Miss Australia!' Though the doll definitely looked like a prototype, as it looked a little different to the Miss America;- longer hair and darker eyes, I think. I also don't remember it being sold in Australia, but finding photos of that dealer's catalogue was interesting!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow--that would be something to see! I have heard of this before. I wonder if this actually was a Mattel doll. I'd love to see one in person.

      Delete

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