Where Can I Buy Troll Dolls

The window display worked, and the store was flooded with requests from customers eager to purchase dolls of their own. Dam raced to fulfill the orders, selling out his entire stock by Christmas. But the original dolls were expensive to produce, requiring painstakingly handmade details and expensive springs.

where can i buy troll dolls

Ultimately, the 1994 Uruguay Round Amendment Act spelled the end of the saturated troll market. The legislation amended U.S. copyright law to bring it into alignment with a treaty called the Berne Convention. As a result, foreign companies and individuals whose intellectual property had previously been part of the public domain received copyright privileges once again. At last, in 1996, Dam Things managed to restore its troll doll copyright.

Denise Van Patten is a professional doll collecting expert and doll dealer with over two decades of experience. She has authored "The Official Price Guide to Dolls" and shares her extensive knowledge about modern, vintage, and antique dolls.

Troll dolls have always been about '60s nostalgia to me, even though I wasn't alive in the '60s. They're wrapped up in the peace and love era, with invented rumors about how rubbing a troll's hippie hair brings good luck. But I got to know them as '80s toys when they were having their first of many comebacks. They firmly established themselves as a nostalgic favorite through the '90s and, as everyone knows, were most recently rebranded with Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick as trolls for our children. Cue Amazon having an entire store for Dreamworks Troll merch.

So, these toys have serious staying power. But considering how quirky and strange the entire concept is, it begs the question: When did the obsession with troll dolls really begin? What fascinating secrets lie in the history of these wild-haired play creatures? Let's explore.

A Danish dude named Thomas Dam made the first troll dolls for his children in 1959, initially as weird wood carvings. They were eventually mass-produced out of plastic in the 1960s. A highlight of the '60s-era troll mania was President John F. Kennedy meeting a female pilot's troll-doll mascot. I love this picture of JFK greeting Betty Miller with her lucky troll named Dammit. (Get it? Named for the inventor!)

Let's just say the copyright for troll dolls was not totally nailed down. Though Thomas Dam's company was marketing them under the names Dam Trolls and Norfin Trolls, other companies made troll dolls too. Russ Berrie was a big troll-maker in the '80s and '90s, and many of the bug-eyed, ugly, smiling troll dolls from our youth were under the Russ label. I'm guessing that, like with Cabbage Patch dolls, the idea was that they were so ugly they circled around to being cute again. I am partial to this vintage punk-rock troll, which really places the doll in time. I feel like I definitely saw this in '80s-era Spencer Gifts.

Dam granted a Florida company, Royalty Design, an exclusive license to manufacture his trolls in the US, eliminating the need for imports, and sales soon hit $2m per year ($16.6m today).

The dolls, a huge fad in the 1960s that were revived through the 1990s, will be brought to life as a franchise for film and TV by American Girl doll veteran Shawn Dennis, the company said Thursday.

The Troll Doll was originally created in Denmark in 1959 by Thomas Dam, a fisherman and woodcutter who carved it for his little girl based on Scandinavian legend. The small plastic doll with a shock of brightly colored hair became a major toy fad in the U.S. in the 1960s and gained popularity from the 1970s through the 1990s, when there were video games and a TV show based on the dolls. A 30-minute DiC cartoon special called Magical Super Trolls even featured an evil troll named Craven.

"Troll Dolls" is the name given to a toy that is humanoid in design with long fluffy hair. They were popular in both the 1960s, then later again in the 1980s and 1990s, selling millions of dolls. They were a popular toy designed for children, but are also enjoyed by adult collectors. DreamWorks works closely with Dam Things in the continued production of the Trolls franchise.

According to old fairytales trolls have magic powers. They love to make you smile and be happy. Some people say that Trolls also bring good luck. But be careful: only the ORIGINAL Dam Troll has magic powers. Therfore...look for the Dam logo and thereby be certain that you have the

The Troll Dolls were originally made to look like human babies, and were loosely based on the mythical trolls. The first Troll doll was made by a woodworker and fisherman named Thomas Dam for his daughter, who was deeply upset at the time as a means to cheer her up. Therefore, the first Troll doll was a wooden carving. Dam later opened up a factory that sold the dolls during the 1960s; the dolls it produced were made of plastic.

These dolls have a more "sculpted" look compared to all later licensed Trolls, with more realistic features and often more varied appearances and poses with a strickly more human-Esque design overall. Part of this was because these dolls were produced as mostly collectibles and therefore many dolls received much focus and individually to stand out from each other, compared to later dolls which were more for play. Originally, the dolls were made of rubber with wood shavings in, and their hair came from sheep skin. This switched to plastic when production increased in the 1960s as it was more endurable.[1] The dolls had the traditional tan skin and usually brown colored eyes along with single hair color, save the two-headed dolls (as each head had a different color hair). Although the doll's hair could be any color, the oldest series favored more natural colors (white, black and brown, etc) and tend to be the most realistic-like because of the use of sheep-skin for the hair. The later series also had other colored eyes (though Dam Things tended to favor natural human-like colors such as green). The dolls were of both humanoids and animals.[2]

These dolls often had the title of "Gonk Toys", "Gonk" referring to a type of egg-shaped doll that was covered in fuzz and became popular after World War II in European territories such as the United Kingdom. The term "gonk" itself refers to a type of goblin or fairy, which gonk toys draw their name from. They also went by the name of "Norfin Trolls" or in English "Gonk Trolls" or "Good Luck Trolls" (in later decades), or referred to as "Dam Trolls".

Dam never stopped making the dolls, and in the late 1980s, they saw a worldwide explosion of popularity. In the United States, the dolls were licensed under the name of "Russ" or "Russ Troll Dolls" by the company 'Russ Berrie and company Ltd'. Russ Berrie and company Ltd, were a successful gift company worth more the $100 million by 1983 and worked to sell "impulse buy" gifts. The production of Troll Dolls, one of its oldest products it had handled since the 1960s, lifted the company after the dolls suddenly saw a boost in popularity and by the end of their first year (1992) the company was worth more than $300 million, boosting the stock of the company which had seen a stock profit value loss for several years. Russ in turn handled the global distribution to other companies, and the dolls were distributed across Great Britain aEurope by other companies Russ had distribution agreements with.[4]

One of the most successful lines was the "Rainbow Trolls", which were Trolls with multicolored hair (traditionally, Troll hair was mono-colored). Between all of their variations, millions of Troll Dolls were sold, making them one of the most popular dolls of their era. During this era, Dam Things started to use the term "The Original Good Luck Trolls" to refer to their particular dolls, to note "They were the original Good Luck Trolls" and all others were fakes.

One of the most notable changes was to the size of the dolls, with these dolls being typically much smaller and having similar or near-identical looks. This gave rise to the standard "Troll Doll" appearance that became a familiarity within even the Trash Can Trolls card series, mocking them with a pair of "Generic Troll" cards: "28a GENERIC ERIC" and "28b NO FRILLS FRANK".

Due to the issue with copyright on "Trolls" in the 1990s, other companies decided to cash in on the popularity, there was also an issue with Russ Berrie and Company, Ltd itself, and the Dam Things company lost much of the profit from sales of Troll Dolls, despite the dolls selling millions of units. The situation also made identifying legit and illegit Troll Doll companies impossible at times for consumers.

This led to many Troll dolls by other companies during the craze in the 1990s as just about anyone could make a "Troll Doll" without Dam Things being able to halt the process. The counterfeits were attempts by the companies to cash in on the Troll Doll craze, since there was nothing stopping companies from producing toys and dolls with the "Troll" appearance. One such example is Ace Novelty, who also sold their version of the Troll Doll as "Treasure Trolls", they later produced a boy's Troll Doll called "Stone Protectors" since Troll Dolls tended to appeal to girls rather than boys.[5] Stephen Cosgrove also wrote a number of "Treasure Troll" books, as well as the Treasure Troll lore on their products".[6]

There was also an animated short based on two toylines called "Magic Trolls & the Troll Warriors", as well as a live-action show called "Trollies Radio Sing-a-long", both of which were created in 2012 to exploit the craze.[7] There was also "Super Trolls" and later a video game. At this point despite the number of counterfeits and animations, the craze was already dying with Russ having lost 37% of its earnings in 1993 from its previous year.[2] Among the animations over this early 90s period were the Norfin Adventures, which were made 1993-1994 and were direct to VHS. Due to the use of "Norfin", presumably these were official animations as "Norfin Trolls" is one of the copyrighted names on the Dam Things copyright for their Troll dolls. 041b061a72