I do not include recently produced "dolls" like the CollectiCritters Lucy, Brainy Baby Lucy, and beanie-type Lucy bears. Any manufacturer can produce a pink bear and put a heart on it and sell it as a Lucy collectible; if that's your (bean) bag, so be it. The dolls I'm talking about here are genuine human replicas that are made to reflect the looks and/or personality of the person being replicated. That being said, I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball, and her co-stars have spawned many dolls, from paper to plastic, porcelain and cloth. In the 1950s, there was a very popular (but inexplicably blond) Little Ricky doll; it's scarce now and super hard to find but very worthy if you do. Lucy, Ricky and Little Ricky also figured in a series of paper dolls. Paper Dolls were also made of Lucy, Vivian Vance and the cast of The Lucy Show in the 1960s. Real dolls didn't come into play until near the end of Lucy's life, when Effanbee created a Lucy doll dressed in short-pant tux and tails, reminiscent of the animated Lucy in the opening credits of Here's Lucy. Then Lucille Ball died and the floodgates opened. Hamilton created a rubbery set of the four I Love Lucy principals in the late 1980s that has become a true collector's item (the Lucy doll is pictured at the top of this column). I managed to find a set for the relatively bargain price of $142 at a flea market near the Rhode Island/Massachusetts border; they've sold for much more individually ($125 per doll and up) and as a set ($500 or more) on eBay.The company followed that set with a series of single Lucy dolls, in porcelain and cloth, with Lucy in character from the show, as herself, or Queen of the Gypsies, etc. There was one Ricky doll in this set, I believe, and it is very rare to find it now. Madame Alexander has chimed in with a series of Lucy dolls in her unique tiny style. She also made a 21" Lucy doll exclusively for FAO Schwartz in 1996 that is very rare. A rare plastic/cloth Lucy giveaway doll was auctioned and sold for $610 (see photo, right) online several years ago. It was a promotional item made to celebrate Lucy's 1954 movie The Long Long Trailer, given out as a contest prize. It was the first time I'd seen it, but recently there was another one up for sale, and so far it's only at $152. The moral: keep your eyes and ear open, because you never know where this red-headed doll will show up.
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Oh, You Beautiful Doll!
Dolls are, to me, a very subjective kind of collectible. Some dolls are cute. Others are exquisite. And there are those that are, let's face it, downright scary. (I suppose the Chucky movies have a lot to do with that.) Still, dolls rate as a very popular collectible, and when you add the cachet of a star like Lucille Ball, they become even more collectible. 
Most recently, Mattel has taken its popular celebrity Barbie concept and begun a series of Lucy dolls which have included (so far) a set of Lucy and Ricky at the moment when she told him she was pregnant; Lucy performing her Vitameatvegamin spiel; Lucy stomping grapes; Lucy in her burlap Paris "couture" gown; and Lucy disguised to avoid William Holden after creaming him (literally, with pies) in L.A. [For a full update on the Mattel Lucy dolls released in the past few years, see my book, Lucy A to Z, and the entry "Dolls."] Some of the newer Mattel dolls are still available in stores. The others can (possibly) be found at flea markets or online, especially on eBay. Newer dolls also include a set of Lucy and Ricky "bobblehead" figures, based on the animated characetrs fromthe original opening of I Love Lucy.
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