It was like stepping into a used automotive parts room, but without the greasy mess. These parts were either rubber or plastic, and the room was open and clean.
They were arms, legs, torsos and heads of dolls that had been neglected. On this day, they were stacked in box after box on tables at an auction house I was visiting. There were also wigs, clothes, books, handmade doll ornaments, doll stands, faces and very expensive complete dolls.
The auction house was holding a doll sale, and dolls with names I had never heard of before were locked behind glass cases under bright lights while others were laid out on tables or in boxes. There were black dolls and white dolls, Japanese dolls and Chinese dolls, Hawaiian dolls and Skookum dolls. The auction house had obviously amassed the dolls of several people who were either weeding out their collections or giving them up altogether.
What I found intriguing were the body parts. There were so many of them. I had seen played-with-too-often dolls at auction before, but I’d never seen so many broken ones in one place – and certainly not wigs without heads attached to them. I’m not a doll collector, but I do find the different types of dolls and their makers – many of the early ones were German – fascinating. This was my first doll auction, and I was curious.
I had been at the Philadelphia International Black Doll Show and Sale last year and met some very interesting collectors and doll makers mostly from the East Coast. I also got a good lesson in collecting and even learned about a turn-of-the-20th-century black doll maker named Leo Moss, who hailed from my hometown of Macon, GA.
On this auction day, I got another lesson in dolls: body parts and repairs. There seems to be a whole industry within the industry of people who restore dolls in what some call doll hospitals. They are restored for many reasons, among them for sentimental value.
In Googling, I found page after page of listings of doll hospitals and restoration companies, along with articles and tips on collecting and restoring. One site posted its price lists (face and body cleaning – $55 to $100, replacement wig, $75 and up), and others showed before-and-after restoration photos.
Several sites offered ways to clean dolls without damaging them. Another recommended the Blue Book Dolls and Values or other doll reference books to help determine the maker and worth of a doll. Another urged care in restoration whether you get it done professionally or do it yourself.
If you’re one for fixing things yourself, you’ll find the Doll Doctor Association site interesting.
One member wrote about replacing the hair on a doll’s vinyl head: Take hair from an old human hair wig. Using a tool (which was actually a needle with the end cut off – ingenious!), plug the hair into the holes in the head of the doll. Curl the hair with large perm rollers and end papers, and then spritze it with water. The end result looked good.
Want to wash doll clothing? Another member had this suggestion: Put OxiClean in a mayonnaise jar of hot water, dissolve and let it cool to warm. Put in the clothes, swirl for a bit and let them sit for 15 minutes. Drain and rinse but don’t squeeze. You can also soak overnight. Rinse several times, squeeze water out gently or hang on a doll hanger or lay flat.
Better yet, take very good care of your dolls whether you’re a collector or not.
During my walk-through before the auction, I found some dolls that could use a doctor or hair stylist’s hand. And so did other auction-goers.
I overheard one woman say to another: “She’s having a bad hair day,” referring to a doll lying in a box. “Don’t hurt her feelings,” her friend remarked, soothingly rubbing the doll like she was comforting a child. This tall doll wearing a green slightly faded dress later sold for $45.
“She needs a dentist,” another woman noted of a small doll with a chipped tooth. A black bisque doll made in Germany, she sold for $200.
Most of the people buying that day were women, and they were likely both dealers and collectors.
One woman who got a large box of body parts had at least seven boxes of various items sitting on the floor next to her. Like several others, she was consulting a doll-price and collectors’ guide.
Some of the prices were not for the wimpy. They rose and ended in the hundreds of dollars for some of the parts and accessories (and even more for the dolls in the cases). The wigs sold for about $5 to $130 per box. Some clothes in very good condition went as high as $225 and as low as $5, singly and in boxes. Doll stands sold for around $5.
One lone bisque doll in a small box with parts arranged around her sold for $375. A box with two large and modern-looking heads went for $5. One box of body parts sold for $35.
