One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong. ~ Ernie, Sesame Street
The 1983 series outfits that the PMI factory produced (letters S and T) were unique in several ways. One of them is the colour of the trim and thread used to accent the basic white shirt and the white blouse.
The White Shirt
The basic white shirt came with the elephant romper outfit (#7) and the corduroy suit (#5). Most of them came with a decorative navy-blue zigzag stitching around the sleeve hems and the neckline. Some factories can be identified by the characteristics of this zigzag stitch, but that is a different post!
The unique thing about PMI white shirts is the COLOUR of the decorative thread. Unlike the other factories, the colour of the thread matches the colour of the outfit itself.
The PMI factory created two versions of each 1983 outfit (that they made; they didn’t do all of them). So, there are four white shirts with decorative zigzag stitching that isn’t navy blue. I know of these two, do you know of the other two?
Also, if you have these outfits and know, can you provide complete codes for them? I don’t know if either is S or T.
The White Blouse
Like the thread on the white shirts, it’s the rick rack on the blouse in the ruffled overalls outfit that is a colour match. Once again, I have one of the two PMI outfits, but I don’t know the complete code. Do you have this outfit or the other PMI outfit? Can you send me pics?
Bonus Pics!
I am still looking for information on PMI versions of the following outfits. If you have them, please send tag pictures!
Koosas are a Cabbage Patch friend produced by Coleco from 1984 to 1985.
“According to the legend printed on the back of the Koosa Box, Colonel Casey saved the Koosas from a big flood in Wykoosa Valley. He delivered the frightened, shivering creatures to the Cabbage Patch where the Kids recognized them as a very special, loving breed that become friends to all in need and also bring good fortune. The Cabbage Patch Kids took the Koosas to Babyland General Hospital and devised a plan to find special friends for them.”
The first run was produced by the OK & KT factories. A second run that came out later in 1985 was produced by the SY factory. They are recognizable by their eye patches (Ref). Koosa’s come in cat (A-2), dog (A-3) and, lion (A-1) head moulds and in a variety of body fabrics and hair colours.
CatDog with maneDog with hair tuftLion
They came with a collar, and like the kids, you could send their adoption papers away to name your Koosa. They would send back completed ‘registration papers’ and a sticker with your chosen name, which you put on the collar.
In box with tagCollar exampleMail order box
Koosa Clothing Basics
There are four Koosa outfits, and each comes in 3-5 variations. They were made by the OK, KT, and SY factories and the doll factory matched the outfit factory. The outfit codes all start with P, and I have no idea why. Maybe it stands for Pet? The number represents the outfit style, and the letter represents the fabric/pattern/colour.
P1 – Shortalls
P2 – Terry cloth shirt with bear or cat patch
P3 – Shorts with rainbow suspenders
(Patches can vary but are generally as shown)
P4 – Cotton apron dress which ties at the back
Oddities
In late 1985 they came out with the second run of Koosa’s and outfits. For this run, the P1A and P1B had yellow footprints on them. They were made by the SY factory.
Photos courtesy of Alex Love.
> I have multiple examples of a white P3 outfit. They are real, but they’re bleached. The final proof was this example. You can still see the blue dye, and if you look closely, you’ll notice that the orange is bleached out of the ducky patch (Thank you, Lori Clark), and the thread is still blue. Unfortunately, bright colours like those used on this outfit will fade easily, so I can understand why so many might be bleached.
Photo courtesy of Tonya Swetman.
What I have and what I need
Here is the matrix that shows what I have recorded. For example, I have P1A OK, but I don’t have P1A KT. If you do, I need pictures! Do you have anything that doesn’t match the matrix or isn’t on the matrix? I’d love to hear about it if you do!
I am trying to find identifying features in the jackets. You can help by filling out a survey. Read for details.
The 1983 Windbreaker outfit (#10) is one of the hardest to record accurately. The only piece that is labelled is the shirt, so if the jacket and pants get separated, it’s hard to know which ones go back with which shirt. And if you’re me, you indiscriminately upgraded jackets over the years and have no idea which you did this to.
I am currently working to determine distinguishing characteristics between the jackets. This is where I need other collectors to help! If you have even one complete windbreaker outfit I really, need your help. Please read to the end and complete the survey.
The Logo
The following pictures show the difference between Coleco, Jesmar,Tsukuda, and 25th Anniversary jackets. However, there does not appear to be a visible difference between the Coleco factory jacket logos.
Jesmar vs. Coleco25th Ann. vs. ColecoLili Ledy (buttons missing)First pic courtesy of Gerri Dcyra-Lamphier. 3rd photo source unknown.
The Bottom Hem
A friend and I recently noticed that the bottom hem (that is elasticized) is finished differently around the zipper on various jackets. Unfortunately, I am unsure which pattern goes with which factory.
Examples
Zipper Pull Tabs
My friend and I also noticed that there were at least two different zipper manufacturers used for the Coleco jackets.
Most of the zippers in my patch are made by the KKK Company. This is an Indian company that opened in 1980 and is now a major producer of zippers. The second is the VKK company. I found little information on the company, but the initials appear on many items from the 50s and 60s which are described as ‘fakes’. I have no idea if this is the same supplier that CPK used. Currently, there is a zipper company based out of Manila with the name VKK Manufacturing Company.
At the moment, using my small sample to try and see a pattern, the P factory used VKK, while the other Coleco factories used KKK. If that is the case, we can at least match P jackets with P shirts.
The only Jesmar windbreaker outfit that I have has TREBOO on the zipper tab. The 25th Anniversary outfits have white plastic zippers with no label on the pull tab.
How you can help
If you have a complete windbreaker outfit (it all came together and you know it), please take this survey. (Done through Google Forms, but you don’t need it, to use it.)
The survey shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes. In fact, for those of you with kids in boxes, it will probably take you longer to get the liner out of the box! You can fill out the survey repeatedly for each outfit that you have. One outfit or ten, the more feedback I get, the more accurate my conclusions will be. Please, I need your help.
I have started creating some how-to videos for various CPK restoration topics. Yes, this is because I am lazy and do not like describing the process over and over. I also prefer to recommend my videos over others, as I have used all of these suggestions successfully and feel comfortable promoting them.
Currently I have four videos. More are planned, but I need a helper and social distancing is slowing down the process.
They can be found in the PAGES list on the left side of each blog page, near the top.
Your UT kids have more clothing options than you thought.
Thanks to the assistance of another collector, one of my many theories has been confirmed.
Most of the time, when a kid is mint-in-box, the outfit factory and the kid factory match. (For details visitHERE.) However, there are some exceptions.
Recently, we determined that AX factory clothing came on IC kids. For these kids, the outfit tag and the kid’s tag would not match.
There were several other factories in Taiwan, but the only one other produced dolls, the UT factory. I speculated that AX outfits may also have come on UT kids. However, until this past week, I had no proof.
Thanks to Melissa W., I now have that proof. She was able to confirm that her MIB UT kid did come with an AX outfit. This discovery was accidentally serendipitous!
So, we now have proof that AX outfits came packaged separately AND on IC and UT kids. This goes a long way to explaining why IC and UT clothing is so difficult to find.
Unfortunately, I do not think we have any way of knowing what percentage of IC and UT kids came with AX outfits.
Some of the other Taiwanese factories produced specialty outfits for the All Stars series (HRS), Sports Collection (CY, FD), and the Western Wear Kids (CY). Like the AX outfits, these outfits normally came on IC kids. Of the remaining Taiwan factories, the only other factory that may have provided outfits for boxed kids would be WW, but my gut says it did not. So far, there is no indication that WW outfits came on kids. Can you prove me wrong?
Update (April 2021)
I was proven wrong! (read above) I now have proof that regular CPK outfits from Taiwan factories other than IC and UT came on these kids. This includes AX, UT, WW, and HP. This goes a long way toward explaining why there are so few IC outfits and so many IC kids!
Buttons seem so small, so insignificant. However, sometimes they can be helpful.
How do you know which outfits came on 1983 kids? In most cases, it’s impossible to tell. Outfits with button accessories are one of the exceptions.
Apparently, for at least a portion of 1983, they used clear buttons. I am unsure exactly when they stopped, but they were no longer using them by 1984. (Ref#4, Vol. 3, Issue 8, p. 4)
This does not apply to the Sailor Romper because, although we call it a part of the 1983 outfit series, it didn’t actually come out until 1984. By this time, they were no longer using the clear buttons. I don’t think this outfit would look good with clear buttons anyway.
All 1983 Button ducky dresses will have clear buttons, but because the only ducky dresses with buttons came out in 1983, there are no ducky dresses with white buttons.
According to J. Mullin, Jesmar Ducky Dresses have buttons, and some of them are coloured.(Ref #3, p. 378)
Those little silk labels are holding a secret . . .
The little silk label that’s on most CPK outfits, hold a secret. Special thanks to Jodi Punki Patch and her amazing observational skills for catching this and making me look into it more.
Within the Coleco factories, you can use the silk label to figure out where the outfit was made, to a point. At this point, I have found that there are four different labels.
Chinese factories use the regular label that we are all familiar with. Factories: OK, P, CC, FW, KT, LF, PMI, SS, WS
Two China labels, KT and OK. The right will be used for continued comparison.
Factories from Taiwan use a larger label is that is white in colour. Factories: AX, CY, EX, FD, IC, UT, WW, HRS
Taiwan (UT) Vs. China (OK)
Labels from the Korean factories (IJ, SY) look like the regular China labels, but they are slightly darker in colour.
Korea (IJ) Vs. China (OK)
Outfits from the USA factory are larger, white and made of a canvas-like material.
USA factory Vs. China (OK)
Jesmar outfits tend to have a slightly smaller tag, with a slightly darker green. I’ve also noticed that sometimes the stitching is done badly where it is sewn on. For more information on Jesmar outfits visit: Jesmars and J Clothing
Many outfits were made using the same fabrics, which can create confusion when trying to determine which pair of bloomers go with which dress. After all, the patterns look the same, why can’t we just match them up?
Courtesy of April Shaw
Courtesy of Gia Levato
It’s all about the frill! (Or lack thereof)
For almost 90% of the outfits I have recorded, the lace used around the sleeves is mirrored around the hem of the bloomer leg holes. If the sleeves don’t have any lace, then neither do the bloomers.
If they don’t match, they don’t go together!
Frilly style lace
Cotton style lace
No lace
Pink dress courtesy Jodi’s Punki Patch.
This holds true for all the original 1983 outfits and all the 1984 preemie dresses. Of the later outfits (#100+), most of them follow the same pattern. These are the exceptions that I am aware of:
162 – lace on bloomers, not on sleeves 164 – plain white instead of patterned 165 – lace doesn’t match at arm and leg, but the fabric patterns were not used for any other outfits 168 – lace on bloomers, not on sleeves 505 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves 656 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves 705 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves 726 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves 707 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves
Now that I had a clue that the other outfits might exist, I started to pay attention. Unfortunately, my next find was still an accident! I asked for tag information on a dress that had a CPK label but didn’t look familiar at all. I thought it might be homemade with the label added. What I got sent by Jamie H., was the following:
Photo courtesy of Jamie Henry.
Now, the CC factory only made two types of outfits: 1) letters L, M, and N in the first 20 outfits (and this outfit was NOT one of those) and 2) the Casual Wear Line (CWL). When I compared the tag pictures with the CWL tags, they matched.
Photos courtesy of Jamie Henry. Special thanks to Jamie for her patience with this process.
So, I asked around. Nobody recognized it. I now believe that this might be one of the forgotten Casual Wear Line outfits, the red and white checked dress. It looks exactly like the dress that is worn under Allie Cat’s apron.
Source unknown
I do not know if the CPK version came with an apron. I have since found a second dress that also did not have the apron with it. Another collector also sent me a picture of a dress that looks like a green and white checked version, but I was unable to see a CPK label and was not able to get any other information. Interestingly, there was an early version of Allie Cat’s dress that was a green and white check. (Jennifer Pelfrey, Feb. 24, 2021.)
Photo courtesy of Jennifer Pelfrey.
What I do not have, is a MIB version of the red and white check dress, which I need to prove that this is a Casual Wear Line outfit. Do you have this treasure in your collection?
Missing
Based on thesources quoted in Pt. 1, we are still missing two Casual Wear Line outfits.
The first, described as ‘green jogging shorts with white tee shirt’, may be referring to the green jogging outfit; however, the descriptions are not a good match.
Jodi Punki Patch and I speculate that it may be referring to the S.S. Happiness character, Jack the Rabbit, and his green jogging shorts. Unfortunately, the description does not match the sleeveless tee that normally accompanies it. However, they could have matched it with the white character shirt each of the S.S. Happiness Crew can also be found in. I have no idea what graphic they would have put on it.
As for the ‘blue romper’, we have no leads as we cannot find a character outfit that matches the description. I wonder if it looks something like the elephant romper. Do you have any ideas? UPDATE: We now have an idea! Fellow collector, Jennifer Pelfrey, speculates that it may be referring to Snoopy’s Lifeguard outfit. What do you think? Do you have any CPK outfits that are similar?
A similar situation would have occurred with the White Tux outfit, as we can find no character reference for it either, except that collectors were already aware that it is a Casual Wear Line outfit. UPDATE: We’ve found a match! The White suit outfit is very similar to the Snoopy Disco outfit. (Jennifer Pelfrey, Feb. 24, 2021)
