How
do we know Hasbro was going to release dolls in 1988?
We have the Hasbro 1988 Pre-Toy Fair Catalog.
We have the characters and fashions added to the
show -- and pictures sent from Hasbro to Sunbow
to show them what the new dolls and fashions would
look like.
And we also have ebay.com - many of the prototype
fashions have been sold on ebay.
Recently
a lot of the Matching Medley prototypes have shown
up on ebay. Besides those fashions, there has been
many other 1988 Smashin' Fashions, 1988 On Stage Fashions,
a 1988 Music Is Magic Fashion, and even a New Pizzazz
fashion.
Below are image from the auctions. The fashion tags
and/or pictures sold with the fashions let us know
which fashions group each fashion should belong in.
There is usually a log number that is on the tags,
these numbers helped Hasbro keep track of which fashion
was which. It also gives us a date the fashion was
originally logged. Ex. 609128-01M is 6 09 12 8-01M.
The first number is the year - "6"=1986.
the 2nd two numbers are the month
- "09"=Sept.
4th and 5th number are the day - "12"=12th.
6th number is reference to the order the fashion
are put into the log for that day. - "8"
"-01M" is the version
The version number is usually low for the prototypes
that are in the design department, usually under 10.
Slightly higher number are from the Engineering Pilot
stage, when the fine details are worked out. Really
high numbers "-149M" should be prototypes
sent from the factory to get approved, or to make
changes.
I have included the sellers name as reference ...
seller may not be the original owner of fashions and
dolls. I put the date the auction ended, and the winning
amount for amusement. I am not including the winners
name, I would like to keep them anonymous.
This version of "609016-01M/03M" is
from Japan, the factory sent this sample back
to get approval -- that shows how far this Smashin'
Fashion got in production.
