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Tuesday, September 8, 2020
Smitty!
Digging around in a booth of old toys the other day and found a 1930 German bisque Smitty nodder hiding among some dolls. A nodder is like an early days bobble head, but with the separate head connected to the body by a small piece of hidden string inside, this way the head loosely swivels and “nods.” He’s lost some paint, and with bisque being somewhat fragile, he's still in surprisingly good condition considering he’s nearly a century old. Oh, and for those unfamiliar with him, he’s a character from the early 1920’s Walter Berndt cartoon strip, “Smitty and Herby“, which ran in syndication for 50+ years. Cool find, I need to get a Herby now too.
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5 comments:
You find the neatest stuff, Karswell.
Thanks JMR! :)
I love bisque figurines. When they are still in pretty good condition they have a really great surface feel, like clean teeth. This one is excellent, very well crafted to the model. All my old nodders are weighted with a rocker arm that you can set swinging to make the figure's head nod. Or is this design called something else? I'm not sure I've ever owned one with a string.
Which nodders do you have? Send me a pic
Well like I'm saying, I'm not sure they count. Most of what I have aren't figurines really, but things like kitsch salt and pepper shaker sets, using this technology, made to look like skulls or other kinds of heads nodding from art deco boxes. They are either old things or replicas of old things. I think I have decorative creamer from Europe, maybe France or Italy. They all have nodding heads, though. When I see them again I'll snap a photo.
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