Best present for your little Pirate fan? I suggest one or more of these 12 inch posable Cooperstown Collection "Honus Wagner" dolls. They are just like the big eleven-inch GI Joes of my early 1970s childhood--except they play ball. Do an ebay search for honus-wagner cooperstown-collection to find more.
They retailed in the mid-90s for $30. Many people bought them and stuffed them into their closet as "collector's items." For this reason, they are easy to find in a mint, unopened box. How cool is that? All hail crazed investing!
Rowdietta and Rowdy Jr. share about six of them. Cinderella and Pocahontas hang with "Hans," "George" (the Babe), "Ty" (Cobb), "Lou" (Gehrig), and their assorted "evil twins." The one and only Cy Young has been AWOL for many months; he's probably spelunking deep inside a sofa. You can see the whole set here.
Strip these guys down and they look like Gabe Kapler; they have what looks to me like the total mid-90s 'roid aesthetic. George, who comes in two versions (New York and Boston), has an extra layer of padding to make him fat. Rowdietta calls this his "onesie." They also come with baseballs, gloves, bats, and batting helmets which you can set aside if you worry about choking hazards. Again proving he's the greatest player of all time, Hans makes, easily, the most handsome of the dolls. FWIW, Lou's head is too big for his hat. Once you remove it, it never stays on again.
While I paid an average of about $10 for the dozen or so dolls I have collected to give to various children, I would go farther and recommend the mint ones at $25-$30 a pop. (I don't know any of those people now selling them on ebay, either, in case you wonder about that.) They are that cool to have lying around with your four-year-old's Cinderella and Barbie dolls. Hans looks good in the Barbie convertible. You should not have to pay that much, however, unless this post starts some kind of pre-holiday run on them. As you can tell by doing a "completed auctions" search, they often go unsold at any price. They rock. Get some. They make great Christmas presents for your young people.
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