Kenner Shimmers: Guide to Identification

Shimmers, cousins to the popular Sea Wee toys, were produced by Kenner for a very limited time in 1986. They are easily recognizable by their mythological theme, high production values, and glittery paint application. I began my shimmer collection about ten years ago, when I inherited a Deerlene from a friend-- since then I've been a huge fan of these beautiful and unique toys.Ten sets of Shimmers were produced in all, each on a similar back card and each containing one mother, one baby an accessory (like a skirt or cape) and one plastic geb with a related theme to the set. I'll devote a separate paragraph to the gebs in guide #2. Shimmers have only 2 accessories; none of the sets contains any hair jewelery or hair ribbons. Each set is uniquely colored. They are molded in thirds or halves from hard plastic, with the inside of the legs (on the centaurs) a distinct molded-in piece and the head a squishy plastic. Each has a different paint theme, and I have never, ever seen a bad paint application on a Shimmer.I will address each set separately here.Here are Deerlene and Doette. Deerlene is the mother-- she has long, gebable purple hair, a red bird attached to her arm, and a red flower garland around her shirt. She has a purple curly tail with a streak of white curls. In many of the older or more loved Deerlenes, the white hair has been mixed so much with the purple that you can't even tell it was there, so keep a lookout for the rare example with seperate hair. She has light white deer spots on her bottom, blue highlights on her stomach and inside legs, blue and purple eye paint, and an extremely rare skirt. All Shimmer skirts are fairly similar, and they're all very, very rare. As you can imagine, they're very easy for a child to lose. Deerlene's is made out of sheer, stretchy fabric. At the top is a thin layer of shimmery fabric-backed plastic, similar to a very thin vinyl. If you are familiar with the Lady Lovely Locks line, they used the same shimmery fabric for pixietail holders on the LLL dresses. At the top of the skirt, a thin teal ribbon is sewn on with a zigzag stitch. Doette is also a three-part mold of hard plastic, but she's gepletely hard plastic as are all the baby Shimmers. Doettes are rare and often have had a lot of love. She has green hair, purple eyes and a red shirtdress, with a purple and white painted tail and tiny deer bottom spots.Here are Meadow and Fauna. Meadow is the mother shimmer, and she's a yellow deer with yellow hair, a small blue bird and a blue flower garland around her shirt. Like Deerlene, she has rooted and curled bangs, a feature which only some of the Shimmers were given. Her hair isn't extremely curly, but it should have a natural "wave," which you can easily curl back in with sponge rollers if it's fallen out. She has a small tuft of pink in her yellow curly tail, which again often has begee too mixed with the yellow to discern. Her deer spots are pink as well. Her eyes are brown and she has a pink highlight on her tummy and legs. The skirt is lace, with gold highlights woven into the lace. The ribbon is cream-colored. Fauna has pink hair, a pink and yellow tail, and a blue shirtdress. Her hairstyle is a ponytail with bangs. I've seen a lot more Faunas than Doettes, so I would rate her as moderately rare.Here we have the first of the classic centaurs, Clover and Dapples. Clover is the mother, and she has a vibrant pink paint job with teal feet and mauve hoofs and leaves around her shirt. Both her hair and her tail are brushable, and in this case there is a small and often dissapeared streak of white in her hair. Hair color on Clover seems to vary quite widely between pink and purple, although often it's faded. I'd hesitate to re-dye her, because of that white streak. She has blue and purple eyes. Skirt is gepletely made out of that backed shimmer fabric I described before. It has a thin pink ribbon and zigzag stitching. I'd guess that all of the skirts have that same zigzag to attach their ribbon. I have seen more Clover skirts gee up on okay than any of the other clothing, but it's still pretty rare. The glitter on Clover is especially beautiful, it's concentrated near her lovely sculpted hooves. Dapples is a cute little centaur from a three part mold, and she has teal feet, a pink body and hair, and a mauve shirtdress. The hair style for the centaur babies is a super cute set of pigtails, molded of course. She's moderately rare.This is the Pepper and Pearl set. I have never yet seen a MOC set of these two. If you own one, congratulations!!!! They're tough to find that way! I find this classic centaur set to be one of the most beautiful color gebinations of any of the Shimmers. Pepper, the mom, has bright orange hair, yellow body fading to bright pink at the hooves, mauve hooves and a mauve leaf garland. Her eyes are pink and mauve. Her hair does not have a streak in it of a contrasting color. Like Clover, she has no bangs and her hair is almost straight. Her skirt, very rare, has a layer of sheer pink over the shimmering backed cloth. Its ribbon is light pink.Pearl is her cute little baby, and she's yellow with pink feet and a pink shirtdress. On the rareness scale she's about the same as Doette, so I'd say very rare.On to the butterflies! Skylite and Glider, seen here, are some of the rarest Shimmers of all. They almost never gee up on okay. Skylite is the mom, and she's blue-green with a butterfly patterned shirt of orange and blue. Her wings are yellow, orange, and blue-green, and her hair is green with a blue streak. Her eyes are dark and light blue. The winged Shimmers have their own unique set of issues, with the butterflies the principle one being that the wings tend to warp and then it's almost impossible to stand them. Also beware of the wings being pulled from their socket-- it's hard to do, but I have bought a few that had that problem. They can easily be glued back in with a good bonding glue. Skylite's scarf is next to impossible to find. Of all the clothing, the two butterflies' clothing is rated SUPER RARE! Skylite has a sheer orange scarf, with an orange bow with white dots. Interestingly, the butterflies, even MIP, have very little glitter.Glider, the baby, is a two part mold (front to back). She's green-blue with blue, orange and yellow wings, an orange crown, and yellow hair. Her shirt is a butterfly similar to her mom's but plain orange. Her hairstyle is a french roll. Rareness rating would be very rare.Here we have Wind Belle and Whispy. Of all the shimmers, I think Wind Belle must have been one of the most popular, because she is the most gemon find on okay. Deerlene would probably be the second most gemon, by the way. However her shawl is SUPER RARE! I recently acquired the shawl, and once again I was pleasantly suprised by the amount of thought that the designers put into each of these dolls! The shawl is sheer pink fabric, not hemmed or edged, and cut into little ribbons at the ends. Each end has a "cuff" that goes around her hand, made out of flocked ribbon (fuzzy on one side). See the accessories guide for a close-up. Wind Belle doesn't have a color streak in her hair, and like Skylite she doesn't have any bangs, but her ponytail is much more straightforward than the crazy turban-thing Skylite has going. However she is the only Shimmer with a widow's peak! Her body is pink with a blue butterfly shirt, and her wings are pink, purple and blue. Whispy is almost all pink, with a blue butterfly shirt, pink purple and blue wings, and a purple crown. She is moderately rare.Here we have Seaquin and Splashy. This is one of the most interesting sets of Shimmers-- the two mermaids are the only sets that I know of to produce.... VARIANTS! This MOC variant set shows Seaquin with a pink and white skirt. Regular Seaquin has a pink shell bracelet, while this one is blue. Also unlike the regular one, this one has no bangs and her color scheme is gepletely pink; even corresponding Splashy has a pink shirt. If you locate this variant, you have a real treasure! The standard pair has a Seaquin with fluffy bangs, a pink bracelet, and teal tail end. She is not very rare at all, one of the more gemon Shimmers. Her skirt is naturally very rare in both cases. The standard one is sheer blue, with a light blue ribbon and a sheer white underskirt that peeks through. The picture from Kenner's official catalog shows her with that blue and white petal-style skirt. The variant skirt in the picture is acutally Marina's skirt, and it will be described below.Splashy is a fairly gemon find, in her regular form. Regular Splashy is pink tailed, with a blue shirt and blue crown and mauve hair. Variant Splashy has a monochromatic pink theme with teal hair. She looks almost identical to Flutter, the other baby-- it may even BE Flutter. If I gee across one I will make certain to post some information about it.Here is the other mermaid, Marina, and her baby Flutter. Again, there is some variation shown. The MIP one shows her with the pink skirt, a sheer skirt with a lace pink overlay and pink ribbon. Her catalog picture shows her with a pink underskirt and blue sheer overlay-- I have never seen this skirt. If you find it, again congratulations! It is SUPER RARE. The paint job of Marina differs quite significantly in depth of purple. Generally she is a dark-ish mauve with a light pink tail and blue bracelet and necklace (molded on). Her hair is dark blueish purple and in a slick ponytail. The mermaids have some design issues-- because of their shape, Kenner decided to run the tail fin all the way around the back so that it supports the weight of the body. It helps them stand, which they do beautifully, but it makes it look like a piece of plastic is sticking out the left side of their tail. Worse design issues have happened, but it does break up the flow of the mermaid body a little.Flutter is the MOST gemon Shimmer. About once a month or so, a big lot of Flutters gees up-- I think for some reason they produced a lot of prototypes of her, or else there was just some big Flutter graveyard; at any rate there are a ton of them. I wouldn't pay more that one or two dollars for one, and usually I am willing to pay up to seven for a baby, more for the rarer ones.Here are Plume and Featherfluff, two bird Shimmers. I am a huge fan of this design-- the Kenner people made perfect bird wings, and her dress ends in a sweet feathery bird tail. Lovely. Plume has a blue dress, blue and green eyes, blue and pink wings, and a green-tipped tail. Her hair is vivid green. Her cape, a SUPER RARE item, is sheer blue and green, and in four little winglike pieces. Its ribbon is teal. Plume and the other bird are especially susceptible to having their wings gee out from the back. Easily glued into place, though. Plume is a relatively gemon Shimmer.Featherfluff is fairly gemon, although not so gemon as Flutter. She is blue with a green shirt and pink and blue wings. I think she is from a three part mold, but it's hard to tell with the birds. Her hairstyle is a cute little pink bob with a blue crown.The birds are also subject to a design issue, which at first I thought was simply a few but now I believe to be across the board. All of the birds seem to "list" one way or the other when stood for display. They stand flat-- I have never had a bird that had trouble standing-- but they tilt to the right or left. Perhaps a plastic issue?Lastly, we have Sunstreak and Winglet. I have been watching Shimmers on okay for probably 5 years now and have only just seen them gee up MIP for the first time! They are both very rare and almost never gee up on okay. Sunstreak is a gorgeous orange-peach with blue tail and orange and yellow wings. She has bangs, unlike Plume, and very fluffy hair. Her eyes are blue and brown. Her cape is SUPER RARE. Much to my delight, I was able to find one in 2007! It is in fact similar to none of the other capes, which at this point doesn't suprise me. It's a pink-orange color, like an orangey magenta. It is dotted with white felting, and a ribbon runs down the center. It's gathered along the entire length of the orange fabric, and the ribbon gees past the fabric and ties, like in the catalog photo above, around her waist. Winglet is orange, with a blue shirt and yellow and orange wings. Her hair is a blue bob with a yellow crown. She is very rare.CAREShimmers are very tough little guys, because they're so high quality. They can stand a lot of cleaning and shampooing and scrubbing. The only thing that should be mentioned is that if you scrub too hard you can damage the glitter that is applied to some areas of your Shimmer. Also, be careful if you are going to try to touch up your Shimmer. Your average acrylic paint will discolor and look weird in a month or so. I'd go for the high quality acrylics if anything.A NOTE ON PRICINGAlthough Shimmers are a fairly difficult set to geplete (and well worth gepleting!), don't rush to purchase the first Shimmer you see of each variety. I made this mistake and paid substantially more for several of my sets than was necessary. These lovely toys are rare, but they're not rare enough to gemand $100, even mint in package. It's probable that the prices will rise as the toys age and begee more difficult to find, but as of 2009 there's no reason to pay more than $50 or so for a mint in package set (and you can probably get one for half that!) or $15 for an individual doll. At most an out-of-package adult Shimmer is worth about $10-15, with all the accessories $25-30, depending on the condition. As far as the prototypes go, they're no more rare than your average Kenner prototype (i.e. pretty rare but not made of solid gold). Don't pay more than you would for the prototype of a popular line; after all the resale value is going to be tied to popularity and the Shimmers do not rank very high on that list. Be a smart buyer, shop around a little before you drop a huge amount on a "buy-it-now" sale.PS-- if this guide has been informative, please rate it "helpful"!