Thursday, May 10, 2012

Hasbro Nurse Kit

Last, and certainly not least, is the most bizarre of all, the Alice in Wonderland Nurse Kit.  Alice is ready to do her civic duty all decked out in Red Cross regalia (well, at least with a hat and new pinafore). 
Again we see very standard nurse kit fare, all from Hasbro's OTS kits.  My favorite is the *ahem* hot water bottle.  I don't know about you, but I'm not about to let my 7 year old use that thing on me!  Of the three kits, this has the strangest closure of all, just a single snap.  How weird is that?  And I dig the faux blue alligator box.
This toy eluded me for years, and I began to wonder if it even existed!  All I had to go on was an ad from an issue of Playthings Magazine from July 1951.  Since that issue was coincident with the release of the film, I felt fairly confident that the toys depicted in it would have been produced, but now I think otherwise.  I think that because the ad lists FOUR playsets, not three. 
The Make Up kit (item 1915), the Sewing kit (item 1545) , and the Nurse bag (?!) (item 1765) are all pictured, but the Nurse kit (item 1735) is only mentioned in a text blurb.
I don't think the Nurse bag was produced.  It seems odd that there would be two nursing playsets made, and it was three times as expensive as the Nurse kit.  It may have been made, but I've never seen one, and who knows how well that plastic material would have held up after all these years.  Still, fun to think about it and if it was made, I'm sure it will turn up someday!

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