The 500s Series

Picture of 9 cabbage patch dolls wearing outfits from the 500s Series. They are sitting on a bed covered with a vintage CPK coverlet.

Jump to 500s Series Outfit Quick Links

There are 16 outfits in this series. This equates to between 140 and 150 different versions of the outfits. They came on regular kids from 1985/1986. They can also be found on later kids and in separate packages as Coleco got rid of overstock between 1987 – 89.
Photo courtesy of Rebecca Russell.

It’s believed that most of the 500s Series came out in 1985 but that some came out in late 1985 or 1986. It is interesting to note that the outfits believed to have come out in 1986 are also those considered harder to find. This makes sense as they were likely manufactured for a shorter period of time.

Possible 1986 outfits include:

Sailboat Dress (504)
Tri-heart dress (508)
Girls Ruffled Windbreaker Outfit (512)
Multicoloured Boys Windbreaker (516)

The Logo Dress, a secondary version of the Portrait Dress (511), is believed to have come out in 1987.

Production Factories & Outfit Codes

These outfits are #501 – #518. There was no #509 or #515 produced. It’s theorized that they were proposed but not approved for production.

For an explanation of the clothing codes (i.e. 511A) visit, What are Clothing Tag Codes?

Like other Series, certain letters seem to have been produced primarily by specific factories. I call these the Primary Factory for each letter. For example, I think the KT factory produced the letters A and B (if they produced the outfit). Other factories may have made them, but not always consistently.

To the right are my theorized primary factories.

It would appear that not every letter was created for every outfit. In fact, we are quite sure that one outfit only has four options while the largest number for one outfit seems to be between 10 and 14.

Spreadsheet showing the Primary Factory for each letter, and other factories I have found.

For some outfits, there’s more than one version of a code. This is generally caused by variations between factories. This is why it is vitally important to look at both the clothing code AND the description when determining if the outfit has been recorded. For example, the IC version and the KT version might look slightly different.

Taiwan factory outfits (e.g. IC, AX) have been recorded in the 500s Series; however, they are rather rare. At this time, the Taiwanese factories were more focused on producing specialty outfits.

The PMI factory only operated for one year, between 1984 and early 1985. As a result, it only produced 500s Series outfits for a short length of time. (Ref #3, p. 30) Consequently, PMI outfits in this series are the rarest to find. I am unsure how many 500s Series outfits the PMI factory produced. I have a record of only three, the Snowsuit, the Multi-coloured Jogging Suit, and the Aerobics Outfit.

Shoes

As for shoes, they were specific to the outfit. Certain outfits came with certain shoes, but there were only three options: Sneakers, Mary Jane’s, and lace-up shoes (sometimes called high tops).

For more details on the individual type of shoe, click the labels in the pictures above or jump to, Shoes – An Overview.

Like with the clothing, the shoe factory should match the doll’s factory. If the doll is KT, the shoes should be KT. For details visit A Match Made in . . . the Factory (Matching Pt. 1) .

Quick Links List

Note: The names I used for these outfits are either used extensively within the CPK Community I frequent or were created by myself where no consensus seemed to exist. If you have another possible name, please contact me.

(Links will be added as the posts are published.)

501 -Fancy PJ’s