Just what it says on the box. I found this at a Goodwill, surprisingly. It was in the glass case where they put all the good stuff, but was surprisingly inexpensive. I think they're from the 1960s, and I'm sure they were made in Czechoslovakia by a company called TOFA.
I did a quick Google and learned that my box of puppets originally just had the five animals pictured on the front of the box. The human figures came from a second, matching set.
The company seems to have used whatever fabric they had available, so similar sets will have different "clothing." Here are mine:
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...And here's someone else's set of humans, available for sale on etsy:
...and a different person's set of animals, for sale via ebay.uk.
The construction is pretty simple. The fabric is sewn into a cone, with the tip of the cone glued inside the wooden head. You could make a simple version with wood ball dowel caps. (That seems to be the right phrase for finding a round wooden thing that has a hole big enough for a fingertip to fit inside.)
If you want to read an exhaustive history of TOFA, the manufacturer of these dolls, visit dollhousespastandpresent. "TOFA" stood for "TOy FActory." Pleasingly literal!
xo
If you want to read an exhaustive history of TOFA, the manufacturer of these dolls, visit dollhousespastandpresent. "TOFA" stood for "TOy FActory." Pleasingly literal!
xo
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