You Can't Judge a 'Box' By Its Cover...

That was the clever comment that I got back from Stacey of Flotsam & Jetsam a few weeks ago when I shared the story of how I found these 1919 Movy-Dols...

...inside this much newer 1960's Christmas cards box at recent estate sale.

I really didn't mean to keep this whole box of treasures to myself!  So I thought it was about time that I showed you a few more of the paper dolls that were inside.

Isn't this quartet sweet?

They aren't tiny paper dolls - they're ten adorable inches tall.

Flip them over and you can see that the dolls (and their clothes) were cut from what appears to be a movie magazine - perhaps an issue of Photoplay, as was the case with the Movy-Dols that I shared with you in my post a couple of weeks ago.

What I love about these paper dolls, and many of the others in the box, is that the previous owner gave a name to each of the dolls and wrote them out on the backs.  From left to right we have: Erleen Hodger, Marian Dahltop, John Marsh, and Sally Bingham.  But in previous lives, Erleen was both a Lorraine and a Donald...and Marian was a Margaret...John was a Eugene...and Sally was a Betty!

Here they are again - with some clothes on!

It was fairly easy to date these dolls. This little blurb about Gloria Swanson was on the back of the Sally Bingham doll: "La Marquise de la Falaise de la Coudraye, better known as Gloria Swanson, whose latest Paramount picture, Stage Struck, is acclaimed by many as her greatest work."

So...I googled Stage Struck and learned that Gloria's film came out in 1925.  Voila! - these are 1925 paper dolls.

Have you ever seen such soulful eyes? No question, Little Johnny Marsh broke a lot of hearts when he grew up. :-)

Lots more paper dolls to share! But I'm lazy about taking photos these days - so you'll have to be patient. 

Patience.  That reminds me of my fifth grade teacher, Sister Leann (yes, a Catholic nun), and the punishment she doled out to restless and misbehaving students.  It was a trip to the blackboard to write out 100 times...

Patience is a virtue I must practice. Patience is a virtue I must practice. Patience is a virtue I must practice...

Sister Leann would be happy to know that to this day those words pop into my head sometimes when life is crazy and my mind is going a mile a minute, and it causes me to pause... 

But thank God I didn't pause too long when I spotted the Christmas Cards box at that sale, or someone else would be blogging about my paper dolls instead of me!  Patience is definitely not a virtue when it comes to finding bargains at estate sales.  :-)