Troll Car

Here's one of the most rarely-seen vintage troll accessories: the Troll Car made by Irwin Toys in 1965.

The 10 inch long car, sized to fit a standard 3 inch troll, is made of molded plastic in a lovely "fake log" design. It originally had a gold foil "grill" sticker on the front of the hood, that read "Irwin Wishnik REG'D T.M. of Uneeda Doll Company Incorporated c. 1965 by Uneeda Doll Company Incorporated." (Whew!) This lengthy declaration was the only such identification on the car, and unfortunately, the stickers invariably fell off. When the troll car is found today, it is almost always missing the sticker. For this reason, remaining troll cars are often misidentified as Flintstones toys (there's an eBay search hint for you).

Box 'O Troll Goodies

I almost passed over this little box when I saw it: just a shabby 1960s stationery box that probably held small greeting cards...

but something compelled me to open it, and was I ever glad I did:

Inside were a 1960s troll and her lifetime's accumulation of accessories and clothes (some homemade), all carefully stored in the stationery box 

by their original young owner. 

Packages of outfits and related accessories were sold for trolls during the 1960s craze, and the items seen here (hair curler, telephone, rolling pin and cookbook, shoes, etc.) all came from such sets. 

The tiny "baby troll" was a gumball machine prize. 

Shortly after finding this lot, I came across a matching boy troll, and he happily moved in with the lady troll.
Her 40 years of single-parenthood are now over.

Hi! Trolls

Here are two of the sweetest vintage trolls in my collection. Measuring only 2 inches tall (not counting their hair), they have pins on their backs so you can wear them, and for some reason they have "HI" spelled out in felt letters on their fronts. They're a fashion accessory and a low-tech communication device rolled into one!

 

 

Here's one of the Hi! trolls with her friend, Kampy Kiddle, a 1960s Liddle Kiddle doll. They just looked like they belonged together when I got them, and now they're inseparable.

Marx Troll Village!

Only two days ago, I was here lamenting my lack of the fabulous 1965 Troll Village Playset made by the Marx Company. Well, the toy gods have smiled upon me: I just found my Troll Village, in the online antique shop of one of my favorite dealers, and my sweetie was prevailed upon to buy it for my birthday (which is three months away, but that's close enough, in my opinion).

Doublenik Trolls

Doubleniks, the two-headed Wishnik brand trolls, are much sought by troll collectors, and tend to be much disliked by everyone else. ("Please turn those around," my friends say when they visit. "It's like they're watching us...") Strange though they may seem, Doubleniks have strong folkloric roots: multi-headed trolls feature prominently in Scandinavian tales, although their toy counterparts are less frequently seen. Here are my three, or six, depending on how you count them, all made by Uneeda in the 1960s.

 

This is my favorite, a very high-color example, 

with premium "spiral eyes" and day-glo hair.

A trippy troll! 

These two feature cotton candy and vanilla mint color schemes. 

The girls on the left wear a vintage troll dress.

  

The Doubleniks at home. It's a bit crowded.