Twin Outfits, Part 1 : 1985
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:
Photo courtesy of Cheryle Alexander.
Courtesy of Andrea Crick Huckaba.
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.)
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.
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.
> Preemie twins were never produced, but prototypes are visible in catalogue pictures from 1986. (Ref #3, p. 178, 192)
Prototype Outfits
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.
Sewing Patterns
Butterick produced only one of the twin outfits as a sewing pattern. They are numbered #390 and #3564.
General References
Ref #3, p. 104 – 110
Ref #2, p. 71 – 72