TLSM is proud to have so many sweet friends all over the world and FN Al Fayhani being one of them! She has done research about the 1985 Miss Sindy dolls and wanted to share her conclusion here:
“Miss Sindy was a range of dolls Pedigree had released in 1985 just before the introduction of the new face mold of 1986. Pedigree had produced the range to use up all the old stock Sindy dolls and fashions before the new change.
Miss Sindy dolls were released wearing previous seasons’ fashions, while the dolls are basics; blonde, brunette and auburn. Miss Sindy could also be found with left over Masquerade dolls from 1984, and these old stock Masquerade dolls do come with their original crimson colored earrings!
It could be that short haired dolls were also used for this range.
An active body was never used for Miss Sindy though, but we never know for sure with Pedigree! It is observed that all the 1985 Miss Sindy dolls seem to come without shoes, especially the dolls wearing 3 new fashions.
_Three New Fashions for Sindy worn by Old Stock Dolls _ It is very odd that Pedigree had not only issued “Miss Sindy” with past seasons’ fashions with the old stock dolls; but also there are 3 new fashions introduced that were never sold before with a doll or separately!
These 3 new uncatalogued fashions with older stock dolls seem to be the only ones that were photographed for the “Miss Sindy” boxes, as the boxes showcase these new fashions on the back.
Another odd thing is that there are some dolls form this range had come with complete covered boxes were the dolls can’t be seen inside without opening the box from top, unlike the regular 80s pink boxes with the cellophane front window of that time, but these covered boxes seem to be used ONLY for the new zebra striped fashion doll, and not the other 2 new fashions as far as we know. As this covered box has distinctive photograph on both sides of Sindy wearing the zebra striped fashion. Still till now no one reported or saw a covered box with the other 2 fashions however.
The black and white zebra fashion is also found in the regular non-covered box with the cellophane front window like the other 2 new fashions, plus whatever other old stock fashions Pedigree has used for Miss Sindy all seem to have come with this regular cellophane box. An image of 2 sold Miss Sindy dolls with the two different boxes is circulated on the internet, the image shows that the covered box is smaller in size compared to the other one.
The regular Miss Sindy boxes have the stock no. 42008, while the odd covered boxes have the stock no. 42009.
Theory While it’s obvious that Pedigree used Miss Sindy line to use up all old stock dolls and fashions; it’s unknown why 3 new fashions were issued with these sets of old dolls! And why all the Miss Sindy dolls – whether they are wearing one of the new fashions or other previous season sets – came with boxes that have images of these new fashions only; instead of introducing those 3 fashions the next year with the release of the new Sindy! It could be that “Miss Sindy” was supposed to be a range of dolls Pedigree was planning to release with only those 3 new fashions later in 1985 and thus this explains the boxes with images of them. Then the project was scrapped later as Pedigree was working on the new 1986 Sindy after the decline of sales, and had to use up whatever boxes they had to sell and get rid of old stock dolls and fashions from previous years. And since it will cost them to produce new plain boxes for the old stock; they had to use up whatever boxes they had at that time, and those must have been Miss Sindy boxes; and this could had led Pedigree to release the 3 new fashions among the old stock stuff since those boxes already have images of the new outfits, and therefore this could explain why Pedigree didn’t keep those fashions for a special doll later that year or to be released for the new Sindy range of 1986.”
Miss Sindy range was also produced in 1986; this time for the extra stock dolls and fashions of that year belonged to “smirky” Sindy, before the handover to Hasbro. For more information about them click here.
Information provided by: Sally Dixon
Images provided from Sally Dixon, extra images from Karen O’Reilly Baca
Other images are from Pinterest, Ebay, Worthpoint, and Google search.
Edited by FN Al Fayhani for The Little Sindy Museum
Thank you so much for helping TLSM with this interesting topic Noor, Sally and Karen!
While looking at the pictures, provided by FN Al Fayhani and co, I discovered that some of the Masquerade Miss Sindy dolls only had one earring… I think that is interesting as well and I add it here below. Some had two earrings but the pictures below are on those who don’t.
Another thing that I noticed is the colourful dress with one sleeve.
I found pictures with a sleeve on the left arm but also with a sleeve on the right arm.
To me this is odd and means that they must have made two patterns to cut from. It must have been an extra cost to the production and at first I thought that the photos could have been mirrored but since I also found pictures of dolls in boxes and the text is correct it must be evidence of the two types of dresses.
I have no idea why they did this!
TLSM are also working on a theory that outside of the UK there were Sindy dolls put in Trend Setter boxes and thus used up the stock in the similar way as with Miss Sindy.
Click here to see more about the uncatalogued Trend Setter Sindy.