How do you describe your collection?
I focus on mostly vintage Strawberry Shortcake stuff from the 1980s. Although, when they started releasing her again in 2003, I kind of went crazy and bought a bunch of stuff then.
I love the dolls, but some of the other items are really my favourites — the paper items such as greeting cards, gift wrap, stickers, and birthday supplies.
Licensing was massive in the 1980s and they slapped Strawberry Shortcake on everything — underwear, socks, all kinds of clothing items. One of my favourite things in my collection is a vitamin bottle. I remember as a kid wanting Strawberry Shortcake vitamins so badly. I don’t know why but I just really wanted them. The bottle was a strawberry shape with a little green cap with leaves. I had to look for that for years before I found it because who saves vitamins?
A couple of years ago, I bought a collection from a gal who grew up a block away from me. We didn’t go to the same school so we didn’t know each other but we were the same age. We met over Facebook Marketplace and got to talking. She basically sold me her entire Strawberry Shortcake collection over about a year — it was about 400 items. She had the vitamin bottle. In fact, she had a few things in her collection that I was really interested in getting, like jewelry. I really love the little jewelry — the earrings and the little adjustable rings and things like that. She had a ton of that, I only had a few pieces at that point. Now I have a huge collection of jewelry. It was always something that was interesting to me and it can be hard to find.
I have vinyl albums — they are really neat. Some of them I can’t even listen to because they’re just so scratched up. You know how kids are — they listen to the same thing over and over and over again. But, they are a lot of fun, the albums and the music they came up with. It’s always surprised me that they only ever did six 20-minute cartoons. They have so many books and stories and things that could have become a cartoon. I always wonder why. I recently met one of the creators of Strawberry Shortcake — Muriel Fahrion — and asked her about it. She said that there were plans for making a lot more in a whole series, but for whatever reason, it just didn’t happen. I think because she was so popular they felt like they didn’t have to put in the work.
When and why did you start your collection?
I was about four years old when Strawberry Shortcake came out in 1980, so I was the target audience at that time. I just loved everything about Strawberry Shortcake.
We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and so I only had a few things. Some of my earliest memories are going to the pharmacy with my mom where there was a rack of Strawberry Shortcake dolls — I would pick them up and play with all of them while we were at the store.
I have a memory of my kindergarten teacher who must have been a Strawberry Shortcake fan. She had posters up on the wall of the ABCs and 123s that were strawberry Shortcake-themed. She also wore an apron with a Strawberry Shortcake pattern and had Strawberry Shortcake and Huckleberry Pie dolls in the pockets of the apron. If you were the quietest boy or girl, you got to hold the dolls. I was intent on being the best and the quietest so I could hold them.
When I was in high school around 1991, my mom’s friend was a vendor at a flea market and she invited us to visit her. I walked by a booth while I was there and picked up a Strawberry Shortcake item that I saw. The lady saw how my face lit up and said I could have it. It was a little Strawberry Shortcake Christmas ornament. We went around the flea market and found a bunch more stuff. It was 1991 — not very long after Strawberry Shortcake first came out — so there was all kinds of stuff out there. I bought every single thing I saw.
That’s when my collection really started — when I was 15 or 16. I have at least a couple thousand items now.
How do you display and store your collection?
I have, over the years, become real creative about using every inch of wall and floor space. I actually have a Strawberry Shortcake bicycle hanging from the ceiling. It’s a child’s bike but it’s not real small. I actually did have that bicycle as a child. Our neighbour had it, grew out of it, and gave it to us. This isn’t my childhood one, but it is the same bike.
I have pretty much all of my childhood toys because my mom is a saver. We went in the attic and dug through things and pulled everything down. So, I still have my lunch box that has my second-grade teacher’s name on it. It was pretty exciting — I remember going up into the attic and digging through things and being amazed at what was still up there. My mom was a little bit “OCD”. At the end of the day when we went to bed, she would put all the little outfits back on the dolls and put everything away so things were clean and didn’t get lost.
I try to keep everything contained in one room and like to have it all on display.
I used to catalogue the collection but it’s been so long that it isn’t anywhere near accurate these days. I kind of see the YouTube videos as cataloguing it. I’ve done so many specific videos of the collection. It’s catalogued on the internet.
What do you consider to be the Holy Grail of your collection?
The vitamin bottle I mentioned earlier is one of my Holy Grails; I wanted it for so long.
Over the years, I’ve tried not to be too focused on finding any one specific thing. A lot of the things I want are available. I could go onto eBay and spend $800 on the Peach Blush Berrykin doll that I would really like, but I don’t do that.
I have a personal limit on any item — it’s $25. The reason for that is that years ago, I found the big Strawberry Shortcake dollhouse for $25. If I could find the dollhouse for $25, I can find anything at that same price. Not that I pay that much for most of the stuff. I go to garage sales, thrift stores and places like that where I pay a quarter or fifty cents for things. I’m not going to go online and pay $600 or $800 on something — I’ll wait and find it someday.
During the last year that Strawberry Shortcake was around, they came out with a line of dolls called Berrykins. They had long hair instead of shorter hair and came with little critters that were in the shape of fruit. Those have pretty much eluded me other than the Strawberry Shortcake one. I have never found the rest of them at garage sales or anywhere. They also had a Berry Princess doll. I always really wanted to find her but wondered if I would recognize her because she looked like Barbie. A year or two ago, I saw her sitting in a pile of Barbies at a sale. I recognized her dress and I finally got her.
You just never know what’s going to show up. There are collections that I’d like to complete — certain greeting cards I’d like to find — but I don’t try to find any one thing.
What advice would you give to someone interested in starting a Strawberry Shortcake collection?
For people who want to collect, join a Facebook group or similar community and see what other people have in their collections. See what interests you the most so you know where you want to start. Then scour the Earth from there.
I have saved searches for keywords on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, and Craigslist to see what pops up for sale.
And, definitely set a budget because any kind of collecting can get really expensive and sometimes people get really into it. You may find something you’ve been looking for and have your heart set on. You don’t want to spend your rent money on a collectible — keep yourself reined in. The $25 limit has definitely done that for me at times.
In going to garage sales and thrift stores, I see stuff that I know people collect. Once the internet became a thing, I would start picking up those items and trading them with people for the items that I wanted in my collection or selling stuff to cover the costs of my purchases. Reselling on the side has been good for covering the price of other acquisitions. And, it gives you a reason to be out there looking, too.
Visit Jody’s YouTube channel to see more of her Strawberry Shortcake collection.
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