I bought the box of stuff at auction because of the dolls I could see on the top. Most were in need of care, but I was sure there were some doll repairers out there who’d love to revive some old broken-down Shirley Temples.
The box looked as if it would yield some other goodies hidden beneath the dolls. So I bid on it and got it, although another auction-goer wanted it just as bad as me.
When I got the box home, I dug inside and found a plastic Philadelphia Phillies bobblehead doll. I’ve had one bobblehead before – of former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, his figure standing tall in the middle of Veterans Stadium. I don’t get much into bobbleheads, so I don’t usually look for them.
This bobblehead was different. It didn’t look new: The haircut and uniform were dated, and it had the appearance of age. I turned it on the back and saw a small oval gold-leaf label stating that it was made in Hong Kong for Apsco Sports Enterprise of Brooklyn, NY.
It had the look of a 1950s toy, and that struck me as odd. When I mentioned the doll to my auction buddy Janet, she was just as surprised. We didn’t know that bobbleheads – or nodders, as they are also called – were that old. She recalled the nodding-head dogs that people used to place in the back windows of their cars.
Curious, I wanted to find out the origin of bobbleheads and a more precise date for this one.
Most of the bobbleheads I found on the web were for Major League Baseball teams, and they seemed to have the same boyish face and wide grin as the Phils’ nodder. Ebay sellers were listing them as 1960s bobbleheads. The dolls were apparently first mentioned in an 1842 Russian short story, according to all the historical accounts I read. They are similar to an Asian Indian cultural doll called a Thanjavur.
Bobbleheads in this country are rooted in sports. The first were produced by the New York Knicks in the 1920s, but they seemed to have fallen out of favor during the succeeding two decades. They were revived in the 1960s when Major League Baseball made them for its teams; most were lookalikes except for the team names and uniforms. Some individual players were also immortalized, including Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente and Roger Maris.
Lego of Japan made the first of the dolls, which in some cases featured a team’s logo as the nodder, according to Collectors Weekly. Now, you can get bobbleheads for not only sports but for just about anything else, including U.S. Supreme Court justices.
The 1960s bobbleheads were made of hand-painted papier-mache, then ceramics (1970s) and later plastic, according to several accounts. My auction bobblehead was hard plastic, and was likely an unofficial Major League doll made in the 1960s.
If you’re interested in collecting them – old or new – eBay offered a guide. The most valuable, according to Collectors Weekly, are from 1960 to 1962 with orange or white bases that are square and round. From 1962 to 1966 ballplayers stood atop green bases, and from 1967-1970, gold bases.
The bobblehead at auction has a green base with no team name on the front, so it’s probably not as collectible. Another writer noted that the white base series was made from 1961 to 1963 for 20 different teams, and sold for $1. I found several selling on eBay for up to $295. The dolls usually show some wear, just as mine with paint loss on its face and clothing.
You won’t find any generic African American team bobbleheads from 1960, but there was the Willie Mays doll in 1962. It came in two skin-tone colors, dark and light, because the manufacturer couldn’t seem to get it right, according to Collectors Weekly. So the darker Mays is considered the most valuable. Other teams with African American dolls from the 1960s that are highly collectible include the Phillies, Boston Red Sox and Houston Colt .45s, according to Collectors Weekly.
I was surprised to learn that the Phillies had a black nodder given its history with African American ballplayers. The team and its coach taunted Jackie Robinson mercilessly in the early years of his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and did not hire its first black player until 1957. Here are some more recent Phillies bobblehead giveaways.
