Antique Dolls

This last article in the doll series of posts is a quick primer on antique dolls.  Most of the dolls that little American girls played with in the late 19th century and early 20th century were made in France and Germany.  The first dolls from these countries had china and bisque heads and cloth bodies. (even though china and bisque are both porcelain, collectors call shiny, glazed dolls china and the unglazed porcelain dolls are called bisque.  Porcelain usually refers to contemporary dolls.)

China Doll

China Doll

Bisque Doll

German Bisque Doll

These dolls had pretty faces but the cloth bodies were not very realistic.  In the early 1850's, doll makers in Sonneberg, Germany mixed glue and sawdust to form moldable, paintable dolls.  They called this new concoction "composition".  The first composition dolls typically had a cloth torso and upper limbs with composition heads, hands and feet.  Eventually, entire dolls were made of composition resulting in much more realistic forms.  Soon, doll makers all used composition; it was inexpensive, easy to work with and it was more durable than bisque, which cracked easily.  Composition dolls survive today and can be easily identified by their crazing.  In the 1940's, composition gave way to plastic. 

Composition Doll

To help you identify genuine antique dolls, here are some of the marks you may see on these dolls. This page is a great resource for researching marks: Identifying Antique Doll Marks 

We also have a Pinterest board for antique dolls.  There are some pins with links to articles if you're interested.

Vogue Ginny Dolls

This post is another in the series we are doing on dolls...especially dolls that will be a part of our The Doll House Sale starting July 1, 2018.

One of the most beloved dolls of all time, the Vogue Ginny dolls were first introduced in 1951.  They were the brainchild of Jennie Adler Graves of Massachusetts.  Jennie had a shoppe, established in 1922 that sold dolls that she imported from Germany and dressed in her own creations.  That beginning grew into a company that began manufacturing their own dolls in the late 1940's. By 1951, demand for her dolls had grown to a point that allowed her to introduce Ginny, named for her daughter Virginia. 

One of the big attractions to Ginny dolls was the many beautiful outfits available for her.  Mrs. Graves insisted on using high quality fabrics like velveteen, taffeta, brocade and lace to make the splendid clothes and that attention to detail kept these dolls popular for many more years.  

There are many versions of Ginny, she began as a hard plastic doll and evolved into vinyl in the 1980's.  

The best thing about these pretty dolls is that we have some in our next auction!  Don't miss it! The Doll House Sale

There are some really good articles about all of the different Vogue dolls that you can access by going to our Pinterest board.
Enjoy!