When I arrived at the doll sale, I went looking for black dolls, even though none were featured in the photos on the auction house web site.
I’ve started looking for black dolls these days as I’m in the midst of a series of blog posts on black dolls and their collectors. So, when a sale comes up – as two did in the past week or so – I’m on the prowl to see what’s out there, to be introduced to new dolls from the past.
As I approached the glass cases at the auction house, something other than dolls compelled me to stop:
There in one box were tiny replicas of items that humans would normally use: hot water bottles (I’m not sure if many people use them anymore), one embossed “Pleasant Dreams.” An intricately detailed vanity hand mirror with a cupid on the back. Metal cooking pans, molds and spoons. A brush and comb for grooming. Bottles and nipples. A sad iron.
They were so cute, but it was strange envisioning dolls with items that they could never use. But I oohed and aahed my way through the cases, asking to look at items that fit into the palm of my hand and being tickled at how delicate and fragile they were. They were in cut-open cardboard boxes dispersed among 8-inch Vogue Ginny and Madame Alexander dolls. Some even had the Ginny doll’s name imprinted on them.
I’d attended auctions here before – where antique dolls sell pretty high; in fact, a pair of Kathe Kruse dolls from the 1920s sold on this day for $6,000 – but I’d never seen so many doll accessories in one place. Most were in remarkably good condition, as if they were not bought for child’s play so many years ago.
Today, though, they’re the types of items that are bought by doll collectors or those who sell to collectors, certainly many of them among the auction-goers in this place.
On one table were toiletries for a “Little Lady,” which got me to wondering why a doll needed toiletries. So I Googled for a Little Lady doll and found that it referred to little girls, not the little doll on the booklet wearing a pink bow and Victorian shoes. The toiletries were made for a little girl to mimic her mother.
The Little Lady toiletries included soap, perfume, toilet water and a hand mitt for powder (It also included a mini bathtub that someone at the auction house apparently dropped in). A 1951 Christmas ad showed the items selling for $1 to $1.75. The lot also included a box of note cards and envelopes.
The Little Lady company backed a 1950s half-hour children’s radio show called “Little Lady Story Time” with host Ireene Wicker, who was known as the “Singing Lady.” Wicker recounted favorite children’s stories and acted out the parts, accompanied by piano. She was on radio starting in the 1930s – and she was said to be very popular – and then television, remaining on the air until 1975.
At the auction, most of the items sold as groupings for $50 to $60; the one with the hot water bottles went for considerably more, $150. A batch of straw hats sold for $90.
Here are some of the doll accessories sold at auction:
