Clockwise, from top left: Dodo, Alice, Humpty Dumpty, Gryphon, Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter, Mock Turtle, White Rabbit.
I ran across eighteen Kaiyodo “Alice’s Adventures in Figureland” for display in the school library last night. I collect dodos – and have always coveted my late uncle’s larger Royal Doulton ceramic dodo, based on John Tenniel’s design, from the Lewis Carroll novels (“Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the looking glass”). This little dodo was hanging on the front of a peg in a favourite toy shop – and I loved the quality of these irresistible little figures. I accidentally picked the right Alice (out of four possibles), too; when I got her home, I realised she came with half of Humpty’s wall. Today, I glued them all to a wooden base and grassed it with model railway “grass”.
More “Alice” stuff on my other blog can be found HERE (Scroll down)
I drew this dodo in 1981:
I bought this beautiful ceramic one, by a local artist, in the early 80s:
Papo brand plastic dodo figurine:
And here’s my holy grail from Royal Doulton:
Hi Ian, how did you begin to collect Dodos? What inspired you?
G’day Tim,
I think my first moment o fascination came via a casual teacher we met as kids in 1968. She was from Mauritius and had some beautiful postage stamps with dodos on them.
Then I recall reading a book from my high school library, which turned out to be by science fiction novelist, Robert Silverberg: “The auk, the dodo, and the oryx: vanished and vanishing creatures book” (1967).
Seeing a dodo skeleton in 1984, at the Smithsonian, was pretty cool, too!