Ladies and gentleman... The Beatles!

 It is time to share some Becky lore...

Back in the day when I was very small, my family would frequently visit synagogues during major Jewish holidays.  One synagogue in particular had a play room with lots of toys that of course my siblings and I would hang out in often.  There were a lot of soft plushies, small play houses, cooking toys, anything to keep children distracted - you name it!  And amongst the toys they had was a vintage John Lennon doll that I guess someone donated to the play room.  

I'd always known of the Beatles growing up, and was familiar with the name John Lennon, so we were familiar with who and what the doll was.  However, being children, that didn't stop us from handling the doll without any extreme care. We didn't know the doll was vintage or anything - if it's in the play room, then it will be played with.  And that included being rough with the doll, handling it terribly, and one time, John Lennon kinda lost an arm...  It didn't take long that John Lennon was removed from the play room, never to be seen or heard from again.

Now we had no idea the doll was vintage or anything.  It wasn't until a good several years later that my older sister found out that these Beatles dolls, made by Applause, sell for ~$200 each, and finding a complete collection with all their instruments, doll stands, and in good condition will cost you a good fortune!  So looking back, we felt kinda bad that we allowed one of these dolls to die at our hands.  

My sister was a big fan of the Beatles, more so than I ever was, and we of course had a bit of a a rivalry of who is better - ABBA or the Beatles.  It shouldn't have been so serious, but out of spite I refused to listen to the Beatles, and there was a lot of strife between us when there never should have been in the first place! Like, why should it even matter who's music is "better" when maybe we should have just accepted that we have different music tastes and move on!  But you know, children will be dumb like that sometime, haha. (Btw, while I'm not solely to fault for this, I absolutely take some of the blame for perpetrating some of the arguing hahahahah.)

Regardless, my sister always wanted to have these Beatles dolls, but them being super expensive meant it was something that was very unlikely to happen.  So what happened instead was she decided she could make Beatles dolls herself!  She found a pattern, printed it out, sewed it, and made for herself a Ringo Starr doll, which as you are likely to know if you've followed all my blogs for a long time, that was the first well made homemade doll that any of us made.  (The first one was actually my own original character Linda Sanders that we sewed together, but we did a terrible job making her hahahahaha.)  My sister designed the doll to look similar to the original vintage Ringo Starr doll, seeing as that's what she originally wanted.

So of course, inspired by the fact that she just made 1/4 of the Beatles for herself, I wanted ABBA dolls as well!  I barely knew how to sew, so she helped me make Agnetha and Frida as dolls, but by the time Bjorn and Benny were made, I had figured out how to sew by myself!  

Unfortunately, the rest of the Beatles never got made (although for her birthday I did make her a miniature Paul and John, but they look like trash hahahahahahahahah), but this single event of my sister making her own Beatles doll is what sent me down the rabbit hole of recreating all of ABBA's outfits for my dolls and becoming the person that I am today.  Our fight about which band was better certainly had a lot to do with it, and while I am so ashamed that it resulted in so much rivalry and wish I could take back a lot of it, I have grown and become a much better person from it - as in I now know how not to act, haha.

Now, the desire to someday have the original Beatles dolls from Applause never went away, and looking for good deals is something my sister and I will always do, and earlier this year, for fun, my sister sent me a link she found to a listing of all four Beatles dolls selling for ~$150.  The price has gone down significantly, although it will still cost a good $500 to get the dolls in the best condition.  I couldn't pass up on this offer, considering she was wanted them for over a decade, and we are a lot more respectful of vintage dolls now haha.  Plus, I can sew and repair any breaks and tears that happen.  So I went ahead and bought them.

And here they are:

Here we have John, Paul, John, and George.  They all still had their tags when they arrived which I removed because they were falling apart, but only one doll stand. They are certainly not in the best condition with some staining, and also their jackets have faded a lot.  I already attempted to dye them once, but the dye did not stick for some reason.... whoops. 

Someday I'd like to try and dye their clothes again, but I have gone ahead and gotten doll stands for the rest of them.  I will say, their limbs are quite fragile, so it's no wonder the first John Lennon doll fell apart so easily.  

Now, although the Beatles dolls I bought had their instruments with them, Paul interestingly was missing his guitar.  And it bothered me tremendously to be missing such a key component.  I tried to look into other miniature guitars to give him, but they wouldn't be the right scale... and the only way to get the right guitar would be to get another doll with the guitar....

So now I have two Paul McCartney dolls. :'D 

 

Considering my sister has wanted since childhood, plus the fact these dolls are the direct inspiration for my ABBA dolls and consequently all of the rest of the totally random dolls I made, and ultimately the reason I started learning to sew, it feels really good to finally have these.

And for reference: I do not disdain the Beatles anymore.  They're music is not my personal taste, but I respect them so much for what they have done to change music history, and most importantly, my sister and I do not fight over these things anymore.  It feels really special to finally have these within the family as a part of my collection, and in many ways, it feels good to officially prove that there are no hard feelings.  :')  

So now, after over a decade, we finally have both ABBA and the Beatles as dolls, haha.