Vintage High Quality Dolls Of American Character

Established in 1919, The American Character Doll and Toy Company manufactured its first batch of composition dolls. The company was also known as "Aceedeecee" or ACDC or American Miniature Doll Corp. which brought the famous Campbell kids, Tiny Tears, and Puggy. After several years of operations, they also ventured into making vinyl and hard plastic dolls. However in 1968, the company closed its business and sold some of their molds and doll grow hair feature to Ideal.

Here are some popular doll collectibles that American Character launched and these are categorized according to its materials:

A. Composition Dolls

1) Baby's Joy, Baby's Pal, and Baby's Playmate (1921) - It features a stuffed cloth body but with a composition head and arms.

2) Puggy (1928) - Puggy is a 13-inch tall boy doll and is made of all composition. He has a brown cap on his molded painted brown hair and wears green knitted long-sleeve upper clothing and khaki shorts.

3) Campbell Kid (1928) - This 12-inch doll designed by Grace Drayton is Puggy's girl pal and it is also made of all composition body and head. She has a short molded painted hair which is covered by a short hood and her design was patterned after the Drayton's paper doll named Dolly Dingle.

B. Hard Plastic

1) Tiny Tears (1950 to 1968) - This doll series comes in different sizes (11.5, 12.5, 16, 17, 20 and 21 inches tall). They had drink-wet features, rubber body, hard plastic head with either molded painted hair, caracul wig, or rooted hair in a skull cap.

2) Sweet Sue (1951 to 1961) - The sizes of these pre-teen version dolls for this series range from 15 to 31 inches. Most dolls had synthetic hair although there were earlier batches with mohair wigs. Some models are also fully jointed, had bendable knees, flex elbows and ankles, turning heads, and are also walkers.

3) Betsy McCall (1957 to 1959) - This all hard plastic or vinyl doll measures from 8 to 36 inches tall. It has sleep eyes, closed mouth, socket head, and rooted hair. Betsy also has a brother named Sandy McCall.

C. Vinyl Dolls

1) Life-size Sweet Sue (1954 to 1956) - She stands 31 inches tall and had a vinyl head and arms with torso and legs that are made of hard plastic. Her line also came with features such as peek-a-boo eyes and the Sweet Sue all vinyl toddler doll version.

2) Sweet Sue Sophisticate (1957) - This is a teenage version of Sweet Sue which stands 14, 20, or 25 inches. The doll had mature features and her feet are adorned with high-heeled shoes.

3) Whimsies and Tiny Whimsies (1960 to 1961) - These are novelty dolls that are made of vinyl and the line came with 17 styles which are marketed for teenage kids. Some characters that are part of the series are Trixie the Pixie, Freddy the Friar, and Annie the Astronaut.

If you would like to get started in collecting dolls, or introduce a loved one to the tradition of doll collecting it might be a good idea to start with dolls that interest them and are of relatively low cost. Our Generation Dolls are great for younger girls while Monster High Dolls might be better aimed at pre-teen and teenage young ladies.

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