Betcha BUY golly, wow!

Pictured above are a pair of dolls which are described as "Steiff Limited Edition - Golly Kids".
Now, in this day and age I assumed that the buying and selling of 'Gollies' was treated similarly to buying and selling ivory items on Ebay.
If it's old/antique it's OK, if it's newly made for sale it's NO K.
But as it turns out there seems to still be a lot of interest in buying Gollies.

I can understand collectors wanting the old ones, because they are part of history and a symbol of a bygone age. In fact that's why it's good that people do collect them and preserve them, as they can serve as a reminder of attitudes past as well as for nostalgic reasons.

But it's these newly produced ones, like the picture above of the 'Golly Kids' that surprises me. I just didn't think people bothered with making them anymore. Surely this devalues the old ones slightly if new ones are being produced still today?
And from a purely business point of view; are brand new gollies popular enough to make enough money to make them worth producing?

Well, it would seem so. You can buy the Steiff Limited Edition - Golly Kids from Sue Pearson Dolls & Teddy Bears for £150.00.
You can buy someone like 'Mikey' here (on the left ) from The Bear Shop for £59.95. He is 10" (25cm) and is part of their "Ebony & Ivory collection 2007" by Robin Rive.
Also from the The Bear Shop's 'Ebony & Ivory collection is 'Miram' here (on the right). He stands at 17.5" (45cm) and he goes for £109.

Rosie Ross presents her "Unique Ready Made Gollys" [sic] at Rosie Ross Handmade Dolls. Where she describes Gollies as "a bygones favourite and often looked upon with great affection when remembering one’s own childhood."
Interestingly, you may notice that most of these sites selling these dolls refer to them as Gollies. But there are still a few other places producing dolls that aren't so interested in being PC.

This picture here, funnily enough is what caused me to end up making this post. I stumbled across it while Google image searching (I can't remember what for now, Doh!), clicked on it and it took me to a forum where a particularly antagonistic, racist person was using it to emphasize his point. So I checked out the site the picture originated from: Mary's Secret Garden.
On the site she displays her hand-made wares (bunnies, cats and bears, some of which are really nice) including these two dolls she calls "Henry and Maddie Golliwogg", that she is/was selling on Ebay.
Also, over on another site: Jane's Irish. She goes on to explain the origins of the name Gollywog. I'm not sure if the purpose of the explanation is to make you feel more comfortable or uncomfortable before parting with your cash and buying some of her golly dolls.

Here at BYEGOLLY, is the sort of thing I expected to find. It's targeted more at collectors. It has loads of collectables from the Robertson brand that used the Golly character on their jams and marmalades for 91 years. Stuff from the 90's, 80's, 70's, even pre war stuff.

And lastly here is a report from the BBC back in 2001 about Robertson's decision to ditch the Golly from their products.