Monday, July 1, 2019

Who Mails a Doll in an Envelope?

A 23-inch doll wrapped in a sheet of thin foam was mailed to me inside two paper priority mail envelopes!

I was shocked that Keisha (doll #4 in my collection) arrived unscathed after seeing how the seller chose to package the doll, as illustrated above.  Thankfully, she made it without issues.  That was shock #2 on the date of delivery.  Shock #1 was a notification email sent from the United States Postal Service at 8:57 p.m. that a package had just been delivered.  It was almost 10 p.m. when I read the message and hurried to the front door to find the doll in the corner of the porch packaged as shown.

Here is Keisha as she was after I removed her from the envelopes and before wiping her face and body with a wet towel.

Close-up of Keisha after wiping her face and body off.
As illustrated in the second photo, Keisha arrived with bare feet wearing her original Kente-cloth-print dress, two yellow beaded necklaces, and a brass-tone bracelet.  Some of the inner portions of the bracelet were turning green, so I removed it.

I decided to make sandals for the doll using sheets of brown foam and cork.  A hot glue gun was used to glue the pieces together.


This is the first version of Keisha's completed sandals.

Keisha wears her new sandals in this full-view photo.  Her two yellow beaded necklaces were draped across her body and I added a black headband, which is better visible in the next picture.

In addition to the black headband, I added black rubber bands to the ends of her braids.

Keisha #4, whose historical character I am unsure about, was photographed with Cleopatra A Keisha, Cleopatra B Keisha, and Ashanti Keisha. 

The Third World series of dolls that Keisha is from were dressed as African American historical figures.  It is possible that Keisha #4 is another version of Ashanti Keisha.  Her dress is identical to Ashanti Keisha's dress.  She might be missing a headwrap and an additional cloth that would be worn over the dress.  Her complexion is also darker than Ashanti Keisha's.  In fact, of all four dolls, she has the deepest complexion.  Perhaps the company made a medium brown and a dark brown Ashanti Keisha.  Ashanti Keisha and Keisha #4 have the same hairstyle.

After Ashanti #2 (Keisha #4) was photographed with the other Keisha dolls, I decided to add a cutout design to her sandals similar to what was done for the sandals I made for Ashanti #1 and Cleopatra B.

Using pinking shears, I cut out two strips of brown foam and glued each to the forefoot area of each sandal.

The black headband was replaced with the orange one illustrated here.  Gold-tone round earrings were added.


A gold-tone beaded necklace was draped between the two yellow beaded necklaces that Keisha arrived wearing.  I created a replacement bracelet using a tan beaded necklace by wrapping it around her wrist several times.

Looking as good as she did in approximately 1984 when she entered the doll market, Ashanti Keisha posed for this final photograph prior to joining her sisters in the doll room.
Related Links:
Ashanti Keisha Joins Cleopatra A Keisha

Sandals for Ashanti Keisha

Cleopatra B Keisha Joins Ashanti and Cleopatra A

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10 comments:

  1. Your second Ashanti Keisha is as pretty as her sisters. You did a great job with the sandals and the earrings as wells the bracelets. I don't think she is missing an extra piece of cloth to put over her dress. The extra piece of cloth is already added to her dress. It is the same colour as the kente fabric of her dress. Her sister is wearing two different colour of kente fabric, that's why the wrapping piece of cloth is more noticeable.
    I agree with you, she is missing something on her head. Maybe you could add some jewellery into her hair as the Ashanti do for great events such as weddings ... My mother, being part of an ethnic group closed to the Ashanti, gave me some insights into this beautiful culture.

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    1. You're right, Arlette. The dress does have an extra flap that the other doll's dress does not have. I have beads that I could add to her hair and I might do that. I also want to replace the orange head band with a cloth headwrap and will do that as soon as I find one in the right colors.

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  2. Glad to see she arrived safely despite that crushed-looking envelope!

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  3. I've gotten a few in padded/bubble wrap envelopes, but just paper?! That's nuts!

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    1. A thin sheet of white foam was wrapped around the doll, but that was still not enough padding for shipping in a paper envelope.

      Nuts is right!

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  4. First of all, Keisha and her little friends are soooo adorable.
    You are REALLY lucky in terms of how your doll arrived, given how it was mailed. I once ordered a doll head. The sender put it in an envelope with no padding and it did not arrive here very well. It looked as if a truck had run over one side of the head!

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    1. Thank you, April.
      That must have been an awful experience to receive a head in the condition you described. Why someone would take a chance on mailing something unprotected remains a mystery to me.

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  5. Hi Debbie, I have just found another Keisha doll on eBay. It is the Queen of Sheba one. I thought that you might be interested: https://www.ebay.com/itm/KEISHA-Doll-Co-African-American-23-Makeda-Queen-of-Sheba-Vtg-HJS-1983-RETIRED/192948658776?hash=item2ceca2e258:g:HxkAAOSwpwBcO6tp
    By the way, I have ordered my Malia doll.

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    1. Hi Arlette,

      Thank you for thinking about me and for sharing the link to the Queen of Sheba Keisha. I saw that one when I found Ashanti II. I actually owned that one before, NRFB, but sold it several years ago. There was also a boy and girl pair on eBay at the time I purchased Ashanti II. They have the lightest complexion of all the Keisha dolls, which I believe were made in light, medium, and brown African American skin tones. I am going to pass on those three for now. I would eventually like to own one of the male dolls from the historical line. There is a Shaka Zulu and a few other male Keisha dolls that I am aware of. Thanks again for thinking about me.


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