PTP: Cabbage Patch Kid Pacifiers

I thought a post on pacifiers would be simple . . .I should have known!
Which dolls used which paci’s, which didn’t, and the colours they came in. It’s all here!

I thought this post would be short and simple. I was wrong.

Coleco used several different pacifiers for Cabbage Patch dolls, and many others were used by other companies who produced CPK’s after them. This is an overview of Coleco pacifiers and a few made by other companies.

Original Hard Yellow Pacifier

Hard yellow Cabbage Patch pacifier. The factory code is circled in purple.

These were produced from the very beginning in 1983. They have a factory code located in a small circle on the neck of the handle, close to the disk, on one side. They are used for HM#4 and HM#6. Originally many came with a cardboard disk between the doll’s face and the pacifier, which warns the pacifiers are not intended for use by children.

All of the ‘foreign factories’ had HM#4 kids, but none produced HM#6. Foreign pacifiers do not have factory information on the neck. (Ref#3, p. 456)

Designer Line kids were briefly produced with HM #4 (Ref#3, p. 170) and Cornsilk kids were briefly produced with HM#6, but none of these dolls came with a pacifier. They were considered ‘older’ and so did not need them. (Ref#3, p. 150) However, due to collector preference for pacifier kids, you will often find these kids with pacifiers that an owner has added.

Although common cabbie knowledge says that these pacifiers were also used with Toddlers, I haven’t been able to come up with one example/MIB picture where a kid came with one. Did your Toddler? I now believe they only came with the soft pacifiers (see below). (Ref#2, p. 98 – 101, Ref#3, p. 167-168),

These pacifiers can break, most often at the neck or the handle. Care should be taken when inserting and removing them from the doll’s mouth.

Soft Vinyl Pacifier

Soft yellow vinyl yellow Cabbage Patch Kid pacifier.

These pacifiers are used by Babies (aka BBBs) and Toddlers with HM#4 and HM#6 (same as above). Toddlers with pacifiers were not produced for very long. (Ref#3, p. 167) Although made of vinyl like the original pacifiers, these ones are made of soft vinyl and have an oval-shaped handle. The factory information is located on the middle right half of the disk, on the protuberance side.

Known factory codes are: F1, F2, WS1, and WS2.

As only the SS and WS factories made Babies (BBBs) (except for the VERY rare P factory BBB), I theorize that the F pacifiers were made for or by, the SS factory and that the WS factory made the WS pacifiers. Interestingly, F pacifiers say ‘Made in H.K.’, and WS pacifiers say ‘Made in China’. These pacifiers started production in 1986, long after Coleco moved production out of Hong Kong, so maybe a factory in Hong Kong did produce F pacifiers. It’s an interesting mystery. To sum up, if this is true, F pacifiers go with SS kids, and WS pacifiers go with WS kids. No idea where the P factory pacifiers would come from. 🙂

Soft yellow vinyl yellow Cabbage Patch Kid pacifier. The "made in" and factory information are circled in purple.

Coloured soft vinyl pacifiers were used from 1988/9 to 1992ish when Hasbro produced them. Below are pictures of all the colours I have, and I’ve also seen red ones.

Unfortunately, these pacifiers, like anything vinyl, can develop vinyl discolouration (pox), but I have only seen this in the original transparent yellow ones. By the time they started making the coloured ones, they likely had this problem fixed. Unfortunately, unlike the dolls, I have been unsuccessful in treating this discolouration with zit cream.

Furskin Pacifier

Thistle Furskin came with a pacifier. As far as I am aware, she’s the only one that did. Her pacifiers look a lot like a BBB soft pacifier, except everything is larger, especially the protuberance.

Packaged Pacifiers

Hard pacifiers also came separately packaged, generally with a baby rattle. These pacifiers have the factory code “F” on them. Hmmm . . .  did the same factory make the F1 and F2 soft pacifiers? I wonder.

Packaged rattle and pacifier.

Other Information

There is a wonderful collector who makes and sells 3D printed cabbie pacifiers, along with a variety of other cabbie-related items. Click here to visit.

Picture of three Cabbage Patch girls all using 3D printed pacifiers.
The kids love them!

Hasbro Birthday kids don’t use pacifiers even though they look like they could. They use noisemakers.

Boxed Birthday Kid Cabbage Patch wearing a vest, shirt, and pants with saddle shoes. He has blonde hair and there is a hat and noisemaker attached to the box.
Courtesy of greywolf0505.

Owners would often drill holes into the mouth of a non-pacifier doll to ‘modify it’ for the use of a pacifier. This is not a recommended practice, but it still happens today.

Aftermarket and ‘homemade’ pacifiers are quite common. People have been improvising pacifiers for kids for decades! One of the most common is the ‘ring’ portion from a Ring Pop!

Courtesy of Cathi Timinski.
Translucent yellow aftermarket soft vinyl pacifier.
Courtesy of Jessica Hubbard.

Other Random Pacifiers

(not comprehensive)

Some Softies came with removable or non-removable pacifiers. For more information on this type of pacifier kid, you can visit the FB group, The Soft Face Place.

Brown hair, brown eyed softie with a pacifier.
Photo source unknown.

My Own Baby (Hasbro 1991 – 92): These used coloured BBB pacifiers in red, blue, yellow, and purple. They were attached to their outfits with a ribbon. These kids came with head moulds B20, B22, B27, and B29. (Ref#1, p. 44-46)

Baby Blanket Surprise (Hasbro, 1994): They have their own heart-shaped pacifier, which came in various colours. These kids came in head moulds BX1 – 3. (Ref#1, p. 53).

Mattel Babies (Mattel, 1995 – 98): These dolls came with their own type of pacifier (Ref#1, p. 74-75). Often their mouth shape doesn’t actually accommodate the pacifier. They came in head mould CB4. (Eugelke, p. 17)

Mattel Newborn (Mattel, 1998): These dolls came with their own pacifier but it doesn’t actually stay in their mouth (Eugelke, p. 9A).

Babyland Exclusive Pacifiers (unknown dates)

Two Babyland Exclusive Preemies. They are AA kids. One has a pink dress and pink pacifier and the other has a blue romper and a blue pacifier.
Alexandra and Troy, Babyland Exclusive Preemies.

Play Along Babies (Play Along 2005/2006): These kids came with pacifiers that look like smaller versions of the BLE pacifiers and come in a variety of colours. (Eugelke, p. 12)

Messy Face kids (Play Along, 2007): These kids came with pacifiers that look like smaller versions of the BLE pacifiers and come in a variety of colours. (Eugelke , p. 15)

My First Steps (Play Along, 2007): These kids came with pacifiers that look like smaller versions of the BLE pacifiers and come in a variety of colours. (Eugelke , p. 16)

25th Anniversary Kids (Play Along, 2008): These kids come with a pacifier that is physically similar to the original hard pacifier but is a solid and brighter yellow colour.

Close up of a #4 25th Anniversary Cabbage Patch kid with a pacifier.

Other References (not linked to reference page)

Eugelke, Marie. The Pacifier Cabbage Patch Kids Through the Years 1983-2018. Handwritten. July 2020.

A milestone for me . . .#1000!

I can’t believe I reached 1000!!

I started this blog because of patterns I saw in my records. Records I was keeping on my Cabbage patch collection. I recorded each doll as they came into my hands, even those I adopted out again. I have done this since almost the very beginning.

It is because of this record I know that on June 11th, 2022, I found my 1000th kid! I would like to introduce Cataleya Aubrey. She’s a 1983 #2HM long-looped lemon blonde with blue eyes. She’s an OK factory with an HK body. She’s wearing a HTF white sleeper. Defuzzing her hair took me weeks, but it was worth it!

Picture of a CPK standing in front of a tree.  She's a 1983 #2HM long looped lemon blonde with blue eyes wearing a white HTF sleeper with teddy bear patch on it.

Obviously, she’s a special lady but she is looking for a forever family. If you’re interested you can find her details here.

PTP: A fabric fluke (updated)

They’re mistake gives us another opportunity see behind the scenes of outfit production.

A few months ago Stephania Blum found a rather unique and interesting outfit and I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to see it. Although Coleco outfits are generally well made using good materials, sometimes weird stuff crops up.

She figures they accidentally used the beginning or end of a fabric roll to make the blouse area of this Frilly dress (4L CC).

Another collector, Laura Fulton, ran it through Google Translate.

PIcture of the inside of a Frilly dress with gold text on the fabric. Overlaid are the highlighted words "Trueran White" and "Lixi, Shanghai, China".

After some research, the text seems to say the following:

Trueran – a type of poplin fabric; can be dyed
White: colour
Shanghai, China: location it was produced, perhaps? Shanghai is on the coast of the East China Sea and producers would have had easy access to the ports there. (Update Note: Google translate didn’t quite get it right, the word Lixi is not there. Special Thanks to Kylie Redfern for the new information)

This is a CC factory outfit so it never came on a kid. It’s just a fluke that they used the fabric in such as way that it was completely legible!

Thank you for sharing your find Stephania.

PTP: Cats get into odd places . . . (Updated)

This cat is lounging where it shouldn’t be! Any theories?

. . . and this one is VERY odd! (Update: Mystery solved below)

Has anyone ever seen a cat patch on a denim romper? This is a boxed 1983 OK factory kid in a 1983 denim romper (see Beneficial Buttons for more info) with a random cat patch on it. This outfit does NOT come with a patch on it! (See PTP: Plentiful Patches Pt. 1) The owner said she got him like this.

Update: Mystery mostly solved! This little man is Jesmar and that makes all the sense! Jesmar did some rather weird stuff with their outfits. For details, visit Jesmars and J Clothing . Now, why someone at the Jesmar factory decided to do it . . .who knows?

Special thanks to Amy London for bringing this kid to my attention and providing the picture.

Update Upheaval!

No posts lately but work is still being done! Take a look at what the cabbie community has helped me add to the research. Are any of the updates interesting to you?

I have spent quite a bit of time lately getting caught up on all the information everyone has sent me recently. It’s been amazing! I’ve been able to update so much and there are a bunch of posts still to come.

So, to let you know what’s changed here are the updates so far:

Proudly Canadian!

We are proudly Canadian!

The kids got dressed early today for the fireworks. They wanted to make sure there was enough for everyone. So, we did a photo shoot.
Aubrey Kaylyn offered to just wear a pin as her outfit was perfect to celebrate with anyway. They are all proud Canadians now, although some were born in other countries, some very far away.

Wherever you are, whoever you are,
Be Loud, Be Proud, Be Happy!