Pink Saturday - Josef Originals

This lovely lady is a Josef Original for the month of May. Josef Originals was started by Muriel Joseph George from Southern California. Muriel, together with her husband Tom, started the company in 1946. When cheaper Japanese imports arrived in the USA Josef Originals sales started to suffer however this feisty woman took herself off to Japan to train Japanese workers so she could beat them at their own game. Unfortunately this meant that Josef Originals were no longer manufacturer in California. Muriel continued to work and design the figures for her company until 1981 when she retired.

The company was supposed to be named 'Joseph' Originals but the printers made an error and printed 'Josef' Originals on the first set of labels. As the orders were already in and need to be urgently filled there was no time to correct the mistake thus Josef Originals was born.

This lady has a small sliver off her hand which I why I was able to purchase her for a reasonable price; the Dolls of the Month series usually sell for £15 to £65 depending on how rare they are. I imagine they are much more simple to collect in the US as they probably appear at Car Boot sales reasonably often.

I only own one Josef Original so far but I may be able to get her a friend one of these days! Thankyou to Beverly of How Sweet the Sound for hosting another lovely Pink Saturday.