Coleco continued to produce Twin sets in 1986 wearing the original four outfits, but they also started to use twin sets as a dumping ground to get rid of overstock. At this time, it wasn’t unusual to find a variety of combinations in twin boxes, for example:
Twin outfits with Fun Furs overtop.Animal SleepersWorld Traveler outfitsWorld Traveler OutfitsOriginal 20 outfits (left over stock) Photo courtesy of Cheryle Alexander.Football Sports Outfit Courtesy of Andrea Crick Huckaba.Twins wearing Fun Furs, animal sleepers, and World Traveler outfits. I have confirmed that they used all 5 WT outfits on twins but only the Football of the Sports Collection.
Especially in the Canadian market, it wasn’t unusual for the dolls wearing these non-twin outfits to be Jesmar as it was at this time that Coleco was looking to rid themselves of the remaining stock from the recently closed foreign factories. (See Jesmars and J Clothing for details.)
Jesmar dolls wearing World Traveler outfits in twin boxes, or who came as twins.
The dolls used for twins in 1986 weren’t always P/OK factory and weren’t always the same factory. For example, there are records of sets being OK and PMI. (Ref #4, March 1988, p. 4) This was rare, but apparently, it did happen.
They also dumped twin outfits by putting them on individually boxed regular kids and Cornsilk kids in 1986 and 1987.
Courtesy of Christy Ho.
Finally, in a last-ditch effort to get rid of stock, twin outfits were sold packaged separately. Often these packages didn’t come with accessories like gloves or shoes.
Other Cabbage Patch Twins
> The Tsukuda factory is the only foreign factory that manufactured Twins (Ref #3, p. 247). Their twins wear regular 1983 outfits with the word “TWIN” silkscreened on them. These sets are very highly valued by collectors.
The first two photos are courtesy of Carolyn Dahl.
> Preemie twins were never produced, but prototypes are visible in catalogue pictures from 1986. (Ref #3, p. 178, 192)
Many prototype outfits can be seen in catalogues from 1986. The outfits aren’t exact, but they’re pretty close! It’s too bad the white dresses were never produced, they’re very pretty.
Official Cabbage Patch Kid twin sets wore special sets of beautiful clothing. At least, they did when they first came out!
Official Cabbage Patch Twins became available starting in 1985. They continued to be sold in 1986, but with some differences (see Twin Outfits, Part 2). They came with specially designed boxes, birth certificates, and hand tags. When they introduced Twins, they also introduced a few new hairstyles and hair colours.
Courtesy of Hall Walls.
Although called twins, the dolls were not always identical. They always had the same colour of hair and eyes, but the head moulds were often different. Most Twin dolls were made by the P factory, but there were some OK factory sets. Although billed as a Limited Edition, it quickly became apparent that they weren’t limited and that they weren’t selling very well.
Twin clothing consisted of four different outfits and had a separate coding matrix, T#. The great majority of twin clothing was manufactured by the P factory; however, at least a few were made at the KT factory. I’ve seen only one example of this.
There are between five and seven versions of each twin outfit. The two additional outfits appear to be caused by a change in fabric colour. In a few cases, there are two distinct colours associated with the same code. I theorize that they could no longer source the original colour and so carried on with the second (C2, E2). “It would seem that the rarest velvet to appear was burgundy, which appeared on only a few 1985 sets.” (Ref #5, p. 82)
T1 – Party Dresses
These dresses come in two versions, one made of a cotton damask fabric with a velveteen waist bow, and the other a shiny satin fabric. The structure is the same for both. I believe there are only three versions of the satin dress (yellow, light purple, vivid blue), although I do not know why.
Damask VersionSatin Version
These dresses came with fancy mesh gloves with line patterns, white lace tights, a regular diaper, and Mary Jane shoes. They came only on girl/girl twin sets, and the dresses were always the same colour.
Fabric close up of the demask version
T2 – Knit Overalls
This outfit consists of a knit long sleeve shirt under a pair of knit coveralls and a matching knit hat. It came with a regular diaper and lace-up shoes. It was worn only by boy/boy twin sets.
These two outfits came on the only boy/girl twin combination that was produced but could also be found on boy/boy and girl/girl twin sets. Same-gender sets were much harder to find. (Toyland: What to Buy Report. Feb 4, 1986. p. 2)
Both outfits are made primarily of velveteen and come with a regular diaper and lace-up shoes. The girl’s outfit (T3) consists of a dress-like top, pants, and a matching tam, while the boy’s outfit (T4) consists of a white dress shirt, shortalls, a matching jacket, and a bowtie.
T3T4T4 pieces
Wacky Fact: T1 and T2 have rectangular-shaped tags, while T3 and T4 have square ones. I have no idea why, as they were all produced at the same factory!
Coleco kept your kid in step with the current fashions of the 80’s by offering gorgeous (and warm) fur outfits. Is yours a CPK original, or an aftermarket attempt?
If you have an ‘unidentified’ fur, there are four options:
It’s a CPK Coutour Kid fur.
It’s a CPK Fun Fur.
It’s an aftermarket fur made for CPK sized dolls, but not BY a Coleco authorized dealer.
It’s handmade.
1. Coutour Kids
This specialty line didn’t have different head moulds, hairstyles, gimmicks or anything else related to the doll that was different. The only difference was the fur outfit they wore over top of their ‘regular’ clothes and shoes.
Sold in late 1984 and into 1985, these kids were ONLY sold in Canada. They came standing up in a box with a blue liner, a regular Canadian birth certificate, and hand-tag. When they first came out, Coleco advertised them as ‘standing kids’, which they weren’t! Some collectors were rather upset at the deception. Although they sold well in the beginning, sales trailed off quickly which was ironic, as these fur outfits were one of the only truly limited edition items that Coleco ever produced! (Ref #5, p. 63) By Oct 1987, they were already considered rare by collectors. (Ref #4, p. 3)
These dolls had head moulds #1 to #5. (Ref #5, p. 83) and came wearing a regular 1983 series outfit and shoes; however, over top was a fur coat, fur booties, and either a fur headband or a fur hat. As the fur pieces are not tagged in ANY way, we have no idea which factory produced them, and they are easy to confuse with aftermarket or homemade fur outfits.
BeaverLynxSilver FoxTimber WolfWolf photo courtesy of Kristen Algiers; Beaver and Fox unknown.
The outfits also came separately packaged, but again, they were only sold in Canada.
Source unknown
Eventually, like the Fun Furs below, these were found on twins when Coleco was getting rid of inventory. However, this was very rare. You’re a lot more likely to find Fun Furs on a twin set than Coutour Furs. Visit The Perfect Mismatch (Matching Pt. 2) for more details. (Ref#3, p.103)
Fun Furs started showing up on store shelves in 1985 and, originally, only came separately packaged. They were made by the SW factory in Korea.
Picture sources unknown
These furs are easy to identify as they are lined with CPK Logo patterned silk and have a large label at the neck that says Fun Fur. Each outfit came with a coat and either a headband or earmuffs. These outfits were intended only for girls, none were designed for boys.
Source unknown
Although there are only six displayed on the back of the box, I think they produced more than that. I have recorded outfits that aren’t in the picture, and I can’t find the dark grey version that is in the picture. Here’s what I have recorded so far:
White with headbandLight grey with hatMedium brown with headbandBrown with ear muffsDark brown with hatWhite courtesy of Marco Woods, Dark brown courtesy of Gail Seligman, others unknown.
Eventually, like with so many other specialty outfits, in order to get rid of unsold inventory, Fun Furs were put on Twin sets. It is believed that most of them were sold on Canadian Twin sets. For more details on the inventory sell-off, visit The Perfect Mismatch (Matching Pt. 2).
Image from picclick.
3. Aftermarket
There were a large number of CPK sized fur outfits produced by other companies during the 80s and early 90s. Some even tried to duplicate the label inside the coat. Here are some examples.
Picture sources: jadesnewstuff (eBay), KatsVintageTreasures(Etsy), Mindy4220 (eBay), vonderhuevelauctioneers.com, and unknown.
4. Handmade
Talented seamstresses also tried their hand at creating these delightful additions to a CPK’s wardrobe. Many used Butterick pattern #374, which was later re-released as #6984.
Apparently, the tights come in a variety of patterns. I have found four patterns so far. I named and numbered them to make it easier to distinguish between them.
#1 LINES#2 SPARSE FLOWERS#3 TRILLIUM#4 THICK FLOWERS#5 MEDIUM FLOWERSPicture 5 courtesy of Kristi Prietos Sams.
Theories
I have several possible theories regarding why there are so many patterns.
They vary based on the factory of production.
They vary based on when the outfit was produced.
They vary based on the series they came in (somewhat related to the factory, but not quite).
What I Know
The 160s series was manufactured primarily by the KT factory, but a few outfits were produced by the OK factory. Most of the twin dresses were produced by the P factory, although a few were made by KT, and the 718-724 series was produced entirely by the KT factory.
The 160s Series and the twin outfits came out in 1985 and most likely stopped production in 1986. The 718-724 series came out in 1987 and most likely stopped being manufactured by 1988, if not before.
The Problem
I do not have enough data to even guess which theories (or another unconsidered one) are correct. Can you help?
If you have an outfit with lacy tights, and you know it came together as an outfit, can you please send me the following:
Which lace pattern it is (or a picture if it is a new pattern)
Factory of the outfit
The clothing code of the outfit (e.g. 162H)
If it is a twin outfit, did it comes on a set of twins, or an individually boxed kid?
If it is a twin outfit, is it the sateen version or the non-sateen version?
Extra Bit
One outfit comes with BLACK lacy tights, the Girl’s Spanish World Traveler. This outfit was made by two factories. Do you have an OK version to compare to this PMI version? It looks a lot like #3 Trillium above. Jump to: World Traveler Wear
A while ago, I noticed a BBB outfit that looked a lot like the knit twin outfit. Recently, I obtained tag information from Angel K. Freely and was gobsmacked!
Now, I knew the outfits looked similar, but I never thought they would be this similar! BBB outfits were ONLY produced by the SS and WS factories. I have no record of any BBB outfit being produced anywhere else, until this one. (Update: Made in Thailand)
The similarities are not difficult to see. Take a moment and compare.
What is difficult to see is the feet of the BBB outfits. The footies in a regular BBB outfit have an additional piece of circular fabric, like a sole. The twin BBB outfits just have a seam . . . It looks like they’ve just sewn the bottom of the pant legs together!
Jodi, from Jodi’s Punky Patch, helped me gather information and photographs for this post and observed that we only have evidence of this outfit coming on boxed kids. This means that they either sent the completed outfits from the P factory to the SS/WS factories to be put on kids or sent the kids and boxes to the P factory. Either way, this is the first evidence we have of cross-factory cooperation like this. It’s also the first exception to my statement that BBB’s always came in WS or SS clothes! Jump to: A match made in . . . the factory. Update: Second Exception
Courtesy unknown
The knit twin outfits were available in five different colours, and so is this outfit. I theorize that the factory had a lot of the knit material left over and needed to do something with it. At the time, no other clothing lines being produced would have welcomed an outfit made of knit fabric, except the BBB’s. I think that’s why they made a BBB outfit, instead of something that they could more easily put on P factory kids.
I still need tag pictures for the mint green (A), yellow (B), and medium blue (F). If you happen to have this outfit in any of those colours, I would greatly appreciate your help with tag photos. For details on taking the photos, visit HERE.
