Bobbleheads, or nodders, originated in Germany in the late 1800s. After a decline in popularity, they resurged in the 1920s and again in the 1960s as sports equipment companies began producing team-related nodders. Today, bobbleheads are popular collectibles of sports figures, politicians, celebrities, and historical figures. Prices vary widely, and the popularity of bobbleheads has spawned new businesses such as auction sites, magazines, books, and clubs.
While bobbleheads are hot collectibles now, they’re not a new phenomenon. Nodders, as bobbleheads are sometimes called, originated in Germany. Many collecting authorities believe that doll makers began making nodders in the late 1800s and called their ceramic dolls, nodders, after the spring that joins the body to the head, which generates the nodding or swing.
For a time, interest in nodders waned, and then in 1920, interest in nodders was reignited due to a rerun by a basketball player from the New York Knicks. Although its popularity was short-lived, and sniffers virtually disappeared after 1930, some manufacturers continued to manufacture them in limited numbers as purely new items. Then, in the early 1960s, the allure of nodders captured the public’s fancy once again as sports equipment companies began producing team-related nodders. To refresh the nodders’ image, companies have relabelled their products, bobbleheads.
Since then bobbleheads, which are normally made of plastic and are about 6cm tall, have become a hot commodity for collectors. Today’s bobbleheads are mostly replicas of individual sports personalities, not the kind of team mascot bobblehead that was produced during the 1915s craze. Advanced techniques of transferring likenesses from digital photographs and, in some cases, video footage, first onto sketches and then onto plastic molds, have created uncanny resemblances to the actual sports character.
But not only sports figures are transformed into bobbleheads. The sporting bobblehead’s popularity has extended to the production of bobbleheads of every type imaginable. The likenesses of politicians, celebrities, cartoon characters, and historical figures have all been made into bobbleheads.
Prices for bobbleheads vary widely: from a few dollars for a sports hero or local personality to several hundred dollars for antique or extremely rare bobbleheads. The huge popularity of bobbleheads among collectors has even spawned new business. Today there are thriving auction sites, magazines, books and price guides, websites and clubs dedicated exclusively to bobbleheads.
The time may come again when the popularity of bobbleheads or nodders falls out of favor, but for the unforeseen future, collecting bobbleheads will continue to be a favorite pastime of the buying public.
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