I think you’d have a struggle to find anyone who hasn’t seen the Disney movie Mary Poppins, released in 1964, about a magical nanny in London at the turn of the 20th century. Like most blockbuster movies of today, Mary Poppins had a host of film tie-in merchandise, including books, records and dolls. One of these dolls is a bit of mystery and I’ve been researching it for over a decade now, without much luck. But let’s start at the start and work our way through to the mystery doll.
Probably the most common of the vintage Mary Poppins dolls is the doll produced by the US firm Horsman Dolls. This doll was issued as a single 12” doll in two different fashions, her day fashion and Jolly Holiday dress, a gift-set in her day fashion with extra outfits or in a set with her little 8”charges, Jane and Michael. Jane and Michael were also sold separately in a two doll set. There was a re-issue of the single Mary Poppins doll and gift-set for a Horsman fiftieth anniversary in 1973. These Mary Poppins dolls have long brown hair tied in a bun at the nape of the neck. The dolls are usually marked with a H on the back of the head. The doll is most commonly found wearing the mauve and white day dress, blue coat, blue felt hat with flower trim, a carpet bag, a mauve umbrella, black stockings, and black shoes, but the extra outfits included a blue striped nursery dress and white apron with Mary Poppins logo on the bib and the white dress with red trim from the ‘Jolly Holiday’ movie scene, white stockings and white shoes. There are many variations of these fashions. These dolls and outfits are easily found on online auction sites.
The Horsman dolls and advertisement. Note: Mary’s hat is not original and Jane is missing her socks and original hair ribbon.
In Canada, the Reliable Toy Co. issued several Mary Poppins dolls all using a doll similar to their Tammy doll. Marked ‘Reliable’ in an oval cartouche and ‘Canada’, across the shoulders, these dolls have long black hair tied in a bun and beautiful high-colour faces. They were sold in several outfits including a red and white polka dot dress and a red dress, blue coat, white lace scarf, blue hat with red flowers and white lace trim, red bag and white ankle boots. They’re a little harder to locate, but still can be found on online auction sites.
The Sindy doll played Mary Poppins for the New Zealand market. Pedigree/Lines Bros produced the doll exclusively in New Zealand around 1965. The doll appeared in the 1965 Pedigree catalogue described as: ‘Mary Poppins doll, by arrangement with Walt Disney Productions Incorporated – the doll from the famous film.’ The doll was the basic Sindy doll with either blonde, brunette or coffee coloured hair in the usual bob style, often still with red Alice band, but with the hair tied up in such a way as to look like a bun. The doll came with a blue and white striped working dress, a white apron with Mary Poppins logo printed on the bib, black stockings, black shoes, a white and mauve day dress with pink tie with pearl stud, a blue flocked plastic hat with plastic floral trim, a blue coat and a carpet bag. Most of these items are identical to those of the first issue doll by Horsman with the exception of her shoes, hat which are similar to those issued for Sindy. Her box reads ‘Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins Complete with working dress and apron By Pedigree’ along the side and ‘Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins Sole N.Z. licensee Lines Bros. (N.Z.) Ltd. Panmure’ on the end. These dolls are quite hard to find and command a good price when they do come up for sale.
And that brings us to the mystery doll. This Sindy-style Mary Poppins doll has been found in Australia but as yet is unidentified. Quite different to both the New Zealand doll and the Horsman doll, the doll seems to use the Sindy doll head and body but with very long dark brunette hair. This doll has a hollow pink vinyl body marked ‘MADE IN HONG KONG’ in the small of the back. The head is smaller than the standard vintage Sindy head and is made from a very hard, creamy pink vinyl. The eyebrows and the lashes painted at the corner of her eyes are a very dark brown. The lips are a deep coral pink and all these dolls have very bright rosy cheek blush. The hair is almost black in colour and falls well down to the dolls buttocks, although it is rooted only around the sides of the head. On unplayed-with dolls, the hair is twisted into a bun at the nape of the doll’s neck. The doll’s outfit is very different to that of the other Mary Poppins dolls, an ankle length red and cream striped short sleeved dress with an umbrella logo and ‘Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins’ printed in red, on the length of a cream apron. She wears black stockings and black lace up shoes, the same as Sindy’s.
This Joy Toys trade ad shows dolls in outfits similar to the Mystery doll.
An old Joy Toys trade ad (see above) in the May 1965 issue of The Retailer, the toy industry magazine, shows a 20 inch doll with soft body and vinyl head wearing a similar red and white striped dress and an apron with the same logo as the mystery doll. The ad also states that the doll is available in a solid blue velveteen dress. Just to further confuse things it seems that the Gund company produced similar large dolls. The book ‘Collector’s Guide to Celebrity Dolls’ by David Spurgeon (Collector Books ISBN 1-57432-243-5) pictures a doll similar to that in the Joy Toys ad and wearing a red and white striped dress, but it’s listed as being 19 inches, with no markings and the maker unknown. This doll appears to be the Gund version and Laurie C-D has sent photos of her similar Gund doll, but in blue and white stripes. These large Joy Toys and Gund dolls can be differentiated by their eyelashes and the Mary Poppins logos; the Gund doll’s eyelashes are simpler and less ‘busy’, the Joy Toys version seeming to have heavier, straighter lashes, while the Gund Mary Poppins umbrella logo has added lines within the umbrella itself, the Joy Toys logo is simpler.
The large Gund Mary Poppins doll in blue and white stripes, courtesy Laurie C-D.
Joy Toys had a licensing agreement for the use of the Disney and Mary Poppins names, and as the mystery doll uses the same fabric colour/design and logo as the Joy Toys doll, it’s possible, maybe even probable, there is a link. Cyclops Lines Bros. Pty Ltd (Lines was Pedigree doll’s parent company) part owned Joy Toys at the time, and it is my theory that these dolls were a joint venture between Cyclops Lines/Pedigree and Joy Toys. Both Joy Toys and Cyclop Lines had factories located in Melbourne, and Sindy dolls were manufactured in Hong Kong, so perhaps these Mary Poppins Sindy dolls were produced in Hong Kong, through the Melbourne factory, exclusively for the Australian market. But without more information, it is only a theory. If anyone has any information on these mysterious Marys or a boxed example, please let me know via the Leave a Reply/Comments section below (your email and details will remain private) or by the contact form at the end of this blog.
An exciting update can be found here. And there’s a further update here.
Update: a new Mary Poppins doll page can be found at Our Sindy Museumhere:
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