1977 Sindy: Active (Ballerina), 44657.
It’s always hard to set a rule of how the Sindy items looked exactly in each year and which precise design the box had. As we know, Pedigree liked to use up materials, body parts and also packages that they still had in their storage, so there can be a lot of variations! But TLSM has tried to find the most common type of it all and this is the conclusion.
In 1977 Sindy got a new dress style with a pink skirt, new pink rubber/plastic ballerina shoes with the fastening in the same material and a pink ribbon to match for her hair. She still has her white leotard and fishnet tights so she can be a gymnast or a dancer in rehearsals. Sadly the new skirt has Velcro fastening, which when taken off and put among Sindys other clothes has destroyed so many of her outfits. Mostly it has got stuck in the leotards and tights and it’s hard to find played with complete Ballerina outfits without damages.
1977 Active Sindy is made with new arms, without the rivets, each with a plastic hook that hooks on to each side of a rubber string that connects and holds the arms on place. Some dolls still have the double twist waist, some not, since Pedigree used up the dolls they still had.
The new arms have the same ball jointed hands, as before (so it’s hard to find a played-with ballerina, between 1974 and 1978, with both her hands still on the ball joint, since the plastic brakes really easy at the joints and the hands drops off). She has bending elbows, click-click knees and bending ankles.
Sindy can do split both sideways and back-/frontwards. Her head is very hard, with rich face colours and long eyelashes. Sindy has brunette, blond or auburn hair, in the typical Sindy styled pony tail, with a pink ribbon, matching her new shoes and skirt.
Sadly this new arms were not as good as the riveted ones. The 1977 and 1978 Active Sindys and the 1977 Super Star Sindys (some of the Super Stars were luckily made with riveted shoulder joints) often have melting plastic, feeling a bit like a hard but sticky chewing gum, were the rubber parts of the arms and legs have been in contact with the hard plastic. Probably it’s the softening chemicals in the rubber that starts to soften the hard plastic as well.
This Sindy doll (not the boxed one) is here at The Little Sindy Museum. She was purchased as an ‘used’ Sindy Active doll. TLSM is not 100% certain the head or body haven’t been switched but, as far as we can tell, it should be the correct doll on the photos below. Click on a photo to see it enlarged!
Thank you for sharing your photos Vectis Auctions Ltd!