The iconic phone box

I'm old. So old that I have plenty of memories of standing in a yellow "Telefonzelle" (literally "phone cell") for a phone call, either because I didn't want anyone to listen in at home - calls to my boyfriend - or because I was out and about. Yes, so old that I spent half of my life without a cell phone.
Not all of those memories were good ... like the time I called the ex to tell him I flunked my first driving test. Others were weird ... like the time I had a kind of party line effect and one person didn't understand that I had not even called them.

I remember the times when there were no telephone cards and you could only pay with coins, even those when a local call was really cheap even if you talked longer than a few minutes.
At the time, you could still see the coins you put in run down the chute behind a little window. Making an international call made your money disappear faster than ice in hot water.

That brings back memories
although my very first ones are
of black phones.

The wrong telephone model, but
the right phone box (on the right).
Picture by Juergen Rosskamp,
 CC BY-SA 2.0 DE 
via Wikimedia Commons

The title, however, may give you an idea of "the iconic phone box" (hint: not calling it phone booth) I really want to talk about.
It's of course the British phone box in red - the K series from K1 to K8 (K standing for kiosk).

K2 and K6 (the most common model) telephone
 boxes in Smithfield Market
Picture by Mike Quinn, CC BY-SA 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

As you can tell, however, it's not a Random Saturday post which is a sign that I'm not going to talk about its history in detail.
Instead I'm going to show you my latest Lego project.
I've had the set around since October 2025 and there's a reason why I had completely forgotten about it until now.
Now it was high time, however, to get the (Lego) box off the floor and the (phone) box on my shelf.
At least, I kept telling that myself for a few weeks. Until we had a partial power failure in the house. To distract myself during waiting for either a technician fixing it remotely or having to come to us to check it out, I finally grabbed the box and started.
Two days later, they found the problem hadn't been solved and turned the power off for repairs (actually the whole block had been affected). So cut off from everything (except contact via my 18 year old cell phone which was charged for a change), I managed to keep going. Silver linings, eh?

This phone box is based on the K2 kiosk.
There were telephone kiosks even before the K1 which was made from concrete with a teak door.
Only with the K2 which was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (like the cheaper K3 and later the K2 successor K6) and chosen by the GPO (Post Office) out of five models in 1925, phone boxes got their red color.
The first K2 was erected in Charing Cross Road 100 years ago - in March 1926 -, the others were set up mostly in London as it was a costly design.
Today, around 200 of them still exist and are listed Grade II (buildings etc. of special interest in a national context).
If you are interested in more details, check out the article cited below.

It almost took me 100 years to build the kiosk, at least it felt like it - all my own fault too as I had to bring in the wrecking ball more than once to fix a few very stupid mistakes. But hey, I have those inexplicable bouts of patience and determination, just ignore the bite marks in the bench and the tears on the phone box, please 😜

I love the fence, it reminds me of some in front of
houses in my old neighborhood which I loved even as a child.

Detail views

K2 interior for comparison
Picture by Murgatroyd49,
CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The phone box has a light brick. You press a button on top of the kiosk
and it lights up. It was hard to press the button and take a good picture
of the whole kiosk in the dark at the same time, but you get the idea.

It will look really good next to my London bus, don't you think?


Source and further reading (very interesting article):

Nigel Linge, Neil Johannessen, Andrew Hurley, Andy Simmons & Andy Sutton: Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s K2 Telephone Kiosk — A Design Classic. In: Industrial Archeology Review, 46, 2024, 2, pp. 87 - 98. DOI 10.1080/03090728.2024.2410137 (open access)

From my children's book cabinet - Dunkles Glas und Fisch in der Lampe

The German title of the book I have for you today translates to "Dark Glass and Fish in the Lamp".
It was published in 1963. Ingeborg Engelhardt, the author, wrote novels with the aim to make history accessible for children and young people. Instead of writing books about famous personalities of a certain time, country or region, though, her books told stories of ordinary people. For that, she also visited some of the places where her novels were set and did research, for example in archives.

I'm aware that you won't find an English version of this book - actually it's out of print here as well -, but I hope you'll be able to enjoy hearing about it anyway, just as I like to discover what children in other countries got to read.
I must have read this for the first time when I was about 11 because it was a recommendation by my Latin teacher who very much believed in children learning not through mere facts, but also stories and pictures (she and her husband traveled a lot and in every last class before vacations she would show us slides).
That fits well with her also being responsible for the small school library meant for the lower classes where my friend and I spent happy hours helping out. I remember how delighted she was about my becoming a librarian.
Mrs. Evler, this post is for you.

Germania inferior (red) within the Roman Empire
around the time of the book,
picture by ArdadN (public domain) on Wikipedia

We are in Germania inferior ("Lower Germania") towards the end of the first century AD, in Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, to be precise, the province's capital and military headquarters from which the city of Cologne developed.

Römerturm in Cologne (the only surviving
of 19 Roman towers which were part of
the city walls), picture by Mediatus,
CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

During a stormy night, three travelers look for shelter at an inn, a young boy and his two Egyptian slaves. They ask for a glassmaker called Timon whom they visit the next day.

The young boy is Lysander, son of the famous glassmaker Ennion of Aquileia who has been executed by Emperor Domitian, allegedly for inventing unbreakable glass which would have upset the economical balance.
After fleeing from Aquileia to escape the wrath of the Emperor who had also confiscated his inheritance, all Lysander has left are the slaves Nemo and his brother Mutus who worked with his father.
Now he wants to work for Ennion's old friend Timon until he can return home. Timon has been about to close down his workshop because he can't compete with glassmakers from other Roman provinces. His daughter Fides, called Fugilo ("little bird"), however, convinces him to give Lysander a chance although it might prove dangerous for them to host a wanted man.
Lysander, on the other hand, who lives with them at first is shocked to find a fish scratched into their oil lamp and thus learn that Timon and Fugilo are Christians.

Roman perfume bottle
(around 1st to 3rd century),
 picture by Hermann
 Junghans, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

With their beautiful glass, Lysander, Nemo, and Mutus get the attention of a big merchant who makes a deal with them to sell it to rich people outside of the province.
Therefore, the workshop's reputation spreads until a Gothic king and his daughter arrive to have Lysander replicate a glass that's important for a wedding ritual. The experienced Nemo takes on that task, but Lysander holds back the finished glass having fallen in love with the beautiful Svanadis and not wanting her to return home.
He also finds out that Nemo is actually the one who has invented the unbreakable glass and kept experimenting. Nemo offers to share the secret with his master in exchange for his and Mutus's freedom.
Everything changes, however, when the workshop goes up in flames.

Roman glass in the shape of a
Secutor's gladiator helmet, picture
by BS Thurner Hof, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons 

It's still fascinating to me that the Romans used to be here, not just in Cologne, but also in my own town (which was part of Germania superior ("Upper Germania")). When our oldest church was renovated decades ago, archeologists found that in there had been a "villa rustica" in that spot, a farmhouse meant to provide soldiers with food.

Also I was already intrigued by glass even then (and of course loved the idea of unbreakable glass).
According to the Britannica, the Rhineland was one of the great glassmaking areas of the Roman world and there was decorated glass that was a speciality of the region.
The so-called "Schlangenfadengläser" (literally "snake thread glasses") were decorated with glass threads - clear or colored -  curling around the glass and pressed on. I couldn't find a picture I was allowed to share, but you can find one here that shows beautiful examples kept in Europen museums or in the banner of a page on the website of the Romano-Germanic Museum in Cologne which holds the worldwide largest collection of Roman glass.

We don't just get the story of Lysander, the glassmaker, though.
We also learn about him as a fugitive to a strange country so different from his own (snow!), as a son who wonders what the real reason was for his father's death and is afraid for his mother and sisters he had to leave behind (rightfully so as we find out at the end), as a young man falling in love with a princess from what's a Barbarian tribe to him who longs for home, as a master betrayed by his slave (from his point of view), and a man confronted with a faith other than his own.

Photo by Mina Meh on Unsplash

I devoured the book as a child and later kept looking for it on fleamarkets.
When the internet came along, I saw my chance, but didn't remember the author and wasn't sure about the title.
Finally, I posted on the "In search of" page of a used book site (the page doesn't exist anymore which is a pity as it was so interesting to read what others were looking for and also informative) and someone told me the title.
After getting it I luckily found I still enjoyed it as much as when I was 11.

Do you have books like that from your past?

Barbie's wardrobe - Shift Into Knit

I'm not a fashionista. I'm ... you could say... a wearer of clothing. I like my clothes to be comfortable and the right size and possibly not to have holes or spots (that part is not always easy if you have cats, just the other day I was shocked to find three in one of my dresses after my lady had a snuggle session on me).
There are features I love, like pockets in dresses or 3/4 sleeves, but beyond that, I'm fairly undemanding and not adventurous.
That doesn't mean I don't like to look at clothes at all, especially those that I would never be able to wear myself, due to money, my size, lack of occasion, etc. There are still ways to bring Haute Couture into my life, though. I mean Barbie and her friends.
I have always been fascinated by miniatures and Barbie's vintage outfits with their tiny zippers and buttons and buckles and accessories are incredible. This is my "fashion life", either through my own small collection or pictures.
(And yes, I do know Barbie's body isn't natural, I knew it as a child and I never strived to look like her ... if I had, something would have gone wrong).
Let me give you a glimpse in Barbie's wardrobe every, now and then.

You may wonder why instead of bringing you some light and airy outfit in this new heatwave I am, well, actually Barbie is "shifting into knit". No worries, you'll see.

Barbie has the same problem as me at the
moment, the fan constantly blowing hair
across her face. I should set them in
boiling water to keep them from straying, but
I can't be bothered in this weather.

I wanted to introduce you to a new model.
This is a Color Magic Barbie doll from 1966/67. Although she has the same face mold as the dolls before her, the difference is that there's nothing subtle about her with this bright hair.
Actually the Color Magic came in two different hair colors called Golden Blonde and Midnight Black.
The body was the same as that of an American Girl meaning she didn't have a twist and turn waist yet, but bendable legs.
Her face could either be "soft color" or "high color". Our model has a soft color face, the lipstick and rouge are lighter and the nostrils aren't painted.

What does Color Magic mean, though?
These beauties didn't just come with accessories like a headband matching their swimming suit, bobby pins, and ribbons, but also with two bottles of "Hair Color Changer A & B". A changed Golden Blonde to Scarlet Flame and Midnight Black to Ruby Red. It also changed the color of the swimsuit and outfits that were made especially for the Color Magic. B changed the color back. Or not. Too bad, but it didn't really work on the Midnight Black which makes dolls that still have black hair rarer. In fact, the black could change to red without even using the solution (a problem that the Julia doll has as well, you will meet her eventually).
There is also a rare platinum Color Magic. I have never seen her in person, but read that her hair didn't change at all.

A Midnight Black whose black hair has changed a little,
an ex-Midnight Black who has turned into a full Ruby Red,
and the Golden Blonde from this post.

Our Golden Blonde is wearing "Shift Into Knit".
 

I don't think Barbie will be sweating too much (another actual vintage doll problem, by the way) in this sleeveless knit mini dress which was manufactured from 1969 to 1970 as #1478.

It has a light red-orange top - which I think looks great with the hair - and a navy skirt. As accessories, there are a golden chain belt ending in a golden disk and a fringed scarf.
It was too hot to wrap it around the neck, I could even imagine Barbie to be using it as a headband during the day as she doesn't have her original one anymore.

The shoes that originally came with the outfit were chunky red pilgrim or red bow shoes. Unfortunately, I don't have either at the moment, so I gave Barbie some modern red high heels.
The scarf and belt are a little harder to find than the dress itself. Smaller accessories - like shoes! - just got lost much more easily.

Are you old enough to remember dresses like these?

For full disclosure, I edited the doll stand out of the pictures, but didn't change anything about the outfit.

Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel in any way.


Sources:

1. Sibyl DeWein and Joan Ashabraner: The Collector's Encyclopedia of Barbie Dolls and Collectibles. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1994
2. Sarah Sink Eames: Barbie Doll Fashion, Vol. II, 1968 - 1974. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1997
3. Color Magic Barbies 1966 - 1967. On: My Vintage Barbies
4. Iris Schmid: Color Magic Barbie #1150 1966, 1967. On: Vintage und Mod Barbies in Deutschland, Europa und weltweit 2 (in German, very informative post!)

Random Saturday - Postcards

Do you remember this post about a postcard which came back to the house where it came from? After almost 50 years?

Now you may think that is just another example of nostalgia, and part of it probably is, but to me it actually means learning more about our hometown and its history. Sometimes it takes a while to find info online, sometimes there's nothing to find.
And the backs of the cards - as in the above mentioned case - can be really interesting as well, but that may be a story for another time.

The other day, it came to me that I knew absolutely nothing about the history of the postcard itself. Another rabbit hole? Actually more of a whole burrow. There are so many pages out there, and while they agree on some things, they don't on others - doesn't that sound familiar ... Who was the first one to invent the "real" postcard? Which country was the first? What even is a "real" postcard? There are postcards and picture postcards. To be honest, my brain was overwhelmed trying to make sense of it all and especially to put it in a post shorter than a thesis and I failed miserably.
So let's just say that it really seems to have started in the 19th century (staying on the safe side here) and that most sources seem to agree on these Austrian "correspondence cards" to be the first "real" postcards even though there had been cards before.
Here's the history on the "World Postcard Day" page.

Correspondence card from 1869
Public domain via Wikipedia

When Heinrich von Stephan who reorganized the German postal service suggested something similar in 1865, the "open post sheet" which was meant to avoid an envelope by having pre-printed postage if you just wanted to send a short message, the idea wasn't well received.
What if servants read their employers' mail, for example? What about preserving public morals? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Sorry, that's a quote from "Ghostbusters".
Anyhow, after the Austrian card was such a huge success, postcards caught on in other countries as well, even in Germany. I couldn't find any information on the servant-employer crisis related to that 😉
Towards the end of the century, there were more and more picture postcards. Pictures could be lithographies, sometimes colorized, or photos. They showed individual buildings, streets, parks, but also persons.
For example, monarchy used postcards for propaganda, showing off their families as role models for their subjects and to shape a positive image of themselves - which may have worked for some people, but not others. Examples that come to mind are the Romanovs, Queen Victoria, Emperor Wilhelm II.

Early cards still looked different. Unlike the cards you probably know, one side was meant only for the address and the message was written above, below or around the picture, like in this panorama of Göppingen from 1903 made up of three postcards.
If it was just one card, the sender didn't manage to put much text on it.

Maybe that's why postcards changed later. The images took up one side completely and the back was divided in a space for the address and one for the message.
The address on this card from 1919 simply says "Umbrella shop" and the town.
Isn't the penmanship beautiful? As much as I like to look at writings in Sütterlin, it's not always easy for us today to decipher it, though.

I'm often surprised at what the senders have shared on postcards. Sometimes it's just a greeting from a short trip, a visit, a longer vacation, on occasion of a holiday, a thank you, but we have seen more than one that has been sent from a hospital and the news haven't always been very good.

Greetings for New Year's Eve. You might think the word and flowers are
drawn by hand, but they are printed on, probably after a hand drawn design.

I'm not very interested in cars in general, but look at these beauties!
I just love an nice old VW Bug. That restaurant is outside town, near an artificial lake. You just don't see VW Bugs there anymore now.
The other card shows our renaissance castle. If you look closely, you don't just see the old cars, but also - unfortunately blurry - a horse carriage in the background.

The following pictures are not postcards, but file copies which served as masters. They are actually just half the size of a card.
They were taken by a local photographer. Many of my cards were manufactured by local photographers, bookstores or stationery shops.

This is the square in front of the old train station with the post office on the right.

More old cars, but to me it was interesting to learn about the so-called "Kraftpost" (literally power post). These successors of stagecoaches were postbuses used in Germany (other countries had them as well) both for mail delivery and passenger transport. You can see a sign on the post office building. It's illegible here, but I also know a picture with a later sign that could be read easily.

Let's stop here or I might never stop again.
I hope I didn't bore you too much, but maybe you could get a idea of how postcards have illustrated history over years, no matter if you are just interested in that of your town or area or global history.
When was the last time you sent a card?

Nostalgia - Traveling Treff

This post is inspired by two topics.
The first one is my love to Steiff's Treff dog, the second one is the fascinating (and frustrating) world of parcel delivery, hence the title.

Let me tell you about Treff first.
From the very start of our Steiff collecting on, this bloodhound has had my heart. Although there are a lot of Steiff dogs I love, Treff has always been my favorite.
I couldn't even tell you why exactly. Is it the long ears, is it the cute nose? The color, the airbrushed details in the face, the eyes? I guess it's the whole package.

Over many years, a few of them made it into the collection, all of them sitting in different sizes from 4 to almost 20 inch (not in all nine sizes, though), in mohair and velvet. These are smaller ones, the big ones sit in the back of the cabinet and I'll admit I didn't want to move the animals in front of them.

Treff was a popular dog not just with me and therefore stayed in the Steiff lineup from 1928 to 1938, also standing up, as a ride animal, with a music box inside, on a pincushion -  and as a puppet on which I had had my eager eye on from the beginning.

I don't know if you have noticed it in the group photo, but their eyes don't all look the same.
The design was patented, the eyes are not just sewn on, but embedded and part of them is covered by the fabric for the distinctive bloodhound look.
As quoted by Steiff Gal, Steiff's US distributor Borgfeldt once wrote "the slanting, half-covered eyeball, which gives this dog’s face a particularly thoughtful, intelligent expression."
In fact, however, you see Treffs where the eyes don't look like that because the fabric has slipped behind the eye. I usually leave them like that because I don't want to mess with the eye and fabric to avoid tearing.

Can you see how the look changes?

I'm in love with the Steiff animal hand puppets and especially with the pre-war ones, and when a Treff finally turned up for sale after years, the ex got it for my birthday.
Probably only a collector will be able to imagine my excitement waiting for the parcel.

And that brings us to the wonders of postal services ...
Back then you didn't get emails and you didn't have live tracking. Delivery notices were still on cards being thrown in your mailbox telling you to pick the parcel up elsewhere although you had been home all day.
What was really disturbing in this case, though, was not getting a notice or a parcel, but then being told that the parcel had been delivered ...
What had they done to my Treff??

So I called the hotline. At least I didn't have to deal with a chatbot back then, but of course I still had to "number press" my way through to a human who then explained to me that I would have to call a sorting center in Munich.
I live 200 km from Munich. The parcel didn't go via Munich. "Doesn't matter, you have to call Munich". Once I finally had a person on the phone there ... you may have already guessed it ... "Why are you calling us?" "Heck if I know, the hotline said ..." "Yeah, you are wrong here, try the hotline again." With the help of a little whimpering and begging from me not to send me back there, they gave me at least the direct number to the right sorting center near us.

There I got to talk to a very nice man who had strange news for me. Yes, the parcel had been delivered today, yes, they had a signature from my husband. Stop, stop ... we always had both names on parcels because of our different names, but I had been home, not he.
I asked him what the name was and he didn't hesitate to tell me, so my next question was if it was difficult to read and he said not at all. I explained to him that it couldn't be my husband's signature for two reasons - he wasn't home and his signature was absolutely not readable because it didn't even have individual letters. He said he'd fax it to me (yes, it was that long ago) which only confirmed what I knew already.
WHO had MY Treff?

I was worried and angry because after all we are not only talking a certain financial but also emotional value. This isn't something easily available for replacing.
He promised to send the parcel guy by our house to see if it helped him remember the parcel and where he had taken it to.
When he called me back, he let me know that my parcel had been delivered to a town three miles from here. To a different person in a street with a different name who had seen - of course because the address had been correct and readable - that it wasn't for him, but decided to keep the parcel "just in case". What case? That the actual owner wouldn't investigate?
Of course, they didn't tell me the name of the person, but does it sound to you as if that was an honest mistake? I didn't even believe that person had the same last name as my husband.
At any rate, the next day Treff traveled to the right house and here he has been ever since.

Nostalgia - Snails

"When Mr. Peter Knoppert began to make a hobby of snail-watching, he had no idea that his handful of specimens would become hundreds in no time. ... 'I never cared for nature before in my life,' Mr. Knoppert often remarked - he was a partner in a brokerage firm, a man who had devoted all his life to the science of finance - 'but snails have opened my eyes to the beauty of the animal world.'"
That's from the beginning of one of Patricia Highsmith's short stories about humans and snails, this one being "The Snail-Watcher", the other one "The Quest for Blank Claveringi" (both of which you can find here (although there are two versions for "The Quest")).

Highsmith loved snails and kept hundreds of them as pets. She took them along to parties sitting on lettuce in her handbag and she smuggled them into France in her bra because she didn't want to leave them behind in England.
I read both of her snail stories at a young age in an anthology, but "The Snail-Watcher" impressed me more, and the image my mind formed of the ending has its own little room in my head jumping out every time I see a snail.
If you know the stories, you can imagine why. Have I mentioned it being a horror anthology?

There are other snails in my childhood memories, like the freshwater snails in the ponds of the park near my home.

We used to walk around on the walls and look for snails (we always left them there in case you wonder). From what I remember, my guess is that they were great ramshorn and great pond snails. There were fewer of the ramshorns, and I was convinced that this made them the Queens of the Snails, so it was very exciting to see one of them.

Left: Great ramshorn snail
Right: Great pond snail
Picture by Se90 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Of course, we were also fascinated by land snails (not slugs, they creeped me out, especially after a big rain when the path up to the woods was covered with them, it looked like an invasion). The most common one you see here is the garden banded snail, but it was special to find escargots (which we call "Weinbergschnecken", literally "vineyard snails").
My friend and I once found two of them in the street and decided to put them in a safe spot in a garden, but the garden owner was outside and told us not to dare, so we left them on a wall (although they and other kinds of snails are no pests!). Afterwards, I worried a lot about their fate for quite some time, thinking we should have found a really safe spot. Sorry, little snails!
I would also like to apologize for being one of those annoying kids who sometimes poked your eyes to see you pull them in and for picking you up by your shell, we didn't know that it can hurt you.

Actually, I haven't seen any escargots in the wild in years, but snails kept inspiring me in my creative journey, in wire wrapping, needle felting, and bead embroidery.

And then there is Nelly of course.
Nelly came in two colors, blue and brown with spots, and a size of 10 cm. In the 60s, Steiff had a few designs that were only produced for a short time - 1961 to 1963 for Nelly - and were quite unusual for cuddle buddies.

Beside Nelly, there were for example bats and colorful spiders (and I could still cry over the story the lady from the toy store told us about not being able to sell them and throw them out instead of candy during the town's carnival parade, argh!).
When the ex and I got our first Steiff price guide, we immediately knew we wanted to have all of them, not for their rarity, but because we thought they were really cute (I still think that).

Nelly is made from cotton velvet with faux leather underneath and has a painted rubber shell and rubber tentacles/feelers whose ends were prone to break off as you can see on one of them.
Isn't this little pair adorable?

Did you notice something about them, though? With those shells they are no land snails and I never thought about that until today. I wonder why Steiff made that choice.

There you have it, my snail memories.
I spared you one when I inadvertently ste.... nah, let's forget about that.

Barbie's wardrobe - Orange Blossom

I'm not a fashionista. I'm ... you could say... a wearer of clothing. I like my clothes to be comfortable and the right size and possibly not to have holes or spots (that part is not always easy if you have cats, just the other day I was shocked to find three in one of my dresses after my lady had a snuggle session on me).
There are features I love, like pockets in dresses or 3/4 sleeves, but beyond that, I'm fairly undemanding and not adventurous.
That doesn't mean I don't like to look at clothes at all, especially those that I would never be able to wear myself, due to money, my size, lack of occasion, etc. There are still ways to bring Haute Couture into my life, though. I mean Barbie and her friends.
I have always been fascinated by miniatures (see my post from Sunday) and Barbie's vintage outfits with their tiny zippers and buttons and buckles and accessories are incredible. This is my "fashion life", either through my own small collection or pictures.
(And yes, I do know Barbie's body isn't natural, I knew it as a child and I never strived to look like her ... if I had, something would have gone wrong).
Let me give you a glimpse in Barbie's wardrobe every, now and then.

I know it has been over half a year that Barbie's wardrobe was open. That's literally because I didn't feel like opening it - the doll cabinet, I mean, not the wardrobe.
I always admire how many pictures others take of their dolls while I worry about knocking everything over, but here we are now, with a lovely classic outfit that is absolutely perfect for spring.
It's called "Orange Blossom", a very fitting name as you will see.

Let me introduce today's model first.
She's a Bubblecut from the early 60s and it's easy to see where the name comes from.
Bubblecut Barbies (1961 to 1967) are among my favorite models because they never look the same. They came in different hair colors, the bubble could be tighter or really big depending not only on the length of the hair but sometimes also how the hair was rooted. They could have different lipstick and nail polish or even eye color. Some of them have a rare hair color - like the brownette - or lipstick - like the White Ginger. There were even dolls with a side part (you can only tell for sure from the criss cross rooting if it's a "real" side part), they are sought after because they were only available in Europe and Canada. Some of those even had bendable legs unlike the standard Bubblecut.
The white lips on our model would hint at her being a platinum blonde. I know that sounds weird, but hair colors on Barbies could change due to oxidization (remember that I mentioned the discussion about titian TNTs?). As could lip colors. The pink lips on platinum blondes could change to white and their hair could become darker.

You may have noticed that her earrings are gone.
Although they are not the original ones that a 
Bubblecut came with, I didn't take chances to
avoid the green ear danger and removed them.

Now to "Orange Blossom".
You often see Barbie's friend Midge wearing it because it is a bridesmaid dress and we know Barbie had some beautiful wedding dresses (even before there was Ken!).
Well, in this case Barbie's the bridesmaid.

Barbie is wearing a yellow off shoulder sheath dress and a lovely white lace overdress with a flared skirt.
The white gloves came in two lengths depending on the year. Here Barbie chose the short ones.
Her shoes are white open-toed heels. 
The hat is a yellow headband with tulle.
No bridesmaid without a bouquet. This one has white and yellow streamers matching the outfit.

While the pearl necklace seems to be the perfect addition, it actually doesn't belong with the outfit. Do you remember that I wrote in the post about the "Midnight Blue" outfit "I'm quite sure that I have the necklace, but another doll is wearing it." Well, now we know who has it, don't we? She refused to give it back, too (meaning the hook wouldn't open and it was so late when I took these pictures that I didn't feel like fiddling around)!

On one page the writer wondered why the name for this outfit is "Orange Blossom" and not "Lemon Blossom".
I read on a garden page that lemon blossoms have purple on the back of the petals, but orange blossoms don't, so I actually think the name fits beautifully.

By Alexander Hardin - Own work, CC BY 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

 
There's a cute matching flower girl outfit for Skipper, by the way. Of course it was adapted for a girl, but it has the same yellow fabric and white lace.
I don't have that one, but you can have a look here.

"Orange Blossom" was manufactured from 1961 to 1964 under the number 987. It is not that hard to find although the hat can be missing. I know because I have it twice (worn by two Bubblecuts to give Midge a break from bridesmaid duty), once with the short gloves (1961/62) and once with the long ones (1963/64), but one hat is indeed missing and also one of the ladies is wearing closed-toe heels (which I think are so much more elegant than the open-toed ones).

Gundel wondered why I took those pictures in the
middle of the night when this screams spring or
summer wedding ...

For full disclosure, I edited the doll stand out of the pictures, but didn't change anything about the outfit.

Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel in any way.


Sources:

1. Sibyl DeWein and Joan Ashabraner: The Collector's Encyclopedia of Barbie Dolls and Collectibles. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1994
2. Sarah Sink Eames: Barbie Doll Fashion, Vol. I, 1959 - 1967. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1994
3. Vintage Barbie Orange Blossom. On: Fashion Doll Guide
4. Vintage Barbie Bubblecut Dolls. On: Fashion Doll Guide
5. Bubble Cut Barbies 1961 to 1967. On: My Vintage Barbies

Random Saturday - The small world

This time I'm not talking about finding out that your new friend is also a friend of your first cousin once removed whom you only learned about yesterday or something like that.
I'm talking about the world of miniatures.

As a child, I wanted a doll house so badly, but it was a matter of space and probably money, too. I was lucky, though, my friend had one. You know what's really weird? We didn't even play that much with it. We put the doll parents in bed to get them out of the way (some dolls have a hard time sitting up nicely, but you can never go wrong with making them have a nice nap) and the three children went off on adventure - which sounds much like the Famous Five or the Lockett children and all the others now that I'm thinking about it ...
My friend had a lot of space and we sent those kids out to the Wild West, on mountains and into caves and whatnot. What I loved most about the house (very 70s), by the way, was the white baby grand piano and the Christmas tree.

Then there were the antique miniature shops and the doll house at the "Storchen", our local museum. They are behind glass of course. Even now the toys are my favorites at the museum.

I got a doll house as a grown up, but it was neglected rather quickly as it had to be moved out of reach because of the cats. It was bad enough I had to pick up Steiffs off the floor ever so often, I didn't feel like having to search for tiny items. Eventually I gave the furniture away and only kept very few things, like the cat on the pillow (no surprise there).
That doesn't mean I don't love miniatures anymore, though. Not at all in fact! So when a family member told me she had been gifted some, I absolutely wanted to see them - and take pictures.

My favorite is the good old phone book, in this case
"Das Örtliche" for local businesses,
and by the way, the red book is handmade!

I love the tiny building bricks, but I love the thread spools even more!

1. Percolator and pot (maybe for breakfast eggs?)
2. The plates, napkin holder, tray, flower pot, and candle holders
are handmade very prettily
3. Various kitchen utensils
4. Two different kinds of flatware, so cute!

The scales work, but the weights are glued in (good idea!).
I love that fish pot, can you tell from the close-up?

Americans use Mason jars, Germans use jars made by Weck. 
That has even influenced one of the words we use for preserving
food - "einwecken". Weck jars are wide-mouthed and they have
heavy glass lids sitting on top of the jars. They are held in place by clips.
 The red rings are rubber gaskets used for extra sealing.
I also love the old-fashioned butter churn (which really works, I mean it
moves, I haven't tried to make butter with it) and the vintage style meat
grinder which we call a "Fleischwolf" = "meat wolf" here.

Christmas!! I absolutely love the shiny Christmas baubles.
They do hold a little secret. They have a hole at the bottom
which tells me that they are made from bead chains like they were
and are made in Gablonz (Jablonec nad Nisou), for example.
Beads could/can be cut off individually or in groups and then wired
together for elaborate ornaments like the ones you can find here.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip into the miniature world.
In case you are interested in the psychology behind loving tiny things, I picked two of the many articles available on the topic - here and here.