Theriault's Vive la France!!

To see the dolls in the June 1st auction, click here. Theriault's Rendezvous, Nights at the Auction, are conducted at Theriault's headquarters office in Annapolis, Maryland. Plan in advance, get registered, and when the auction is set to begin - 7 PM EDT - click the audio/video on button.

Join Theriault's for a fun and fast and fact-filled one-hour auction of great antique dolls. Just have fun and maybe bring home a doll. The dolls are all available for viewing and bidding online. You can leave pre-bids, you can absentee bid, or you can make a reservation to bid by telephone at the actual time of the auction. Or you can be there online when the fun begins and watch the live audio/video feed. For technical help with bidding live online call Proxibid toll free at Theriault's Premier Line at 855-264-8262.

Antique Doll Collector Magazine: How Antique Ball Jointed Bodies have Influenced Mo...

Antique Doll Collector Magazine: How Antique Ball Jointed Bodies have Influenced Mo...: Belinda,  Doll with Metal and Wooden Body, Including Steel Joints , She may be French.  I’ve always thought stringing doll ...

Wild Wedding,Courtesy Tonner.com!

Wilde Wedding and Bride Dolls

 

From Tonner.com” Since her debut, collectors have come to love Ellowyne Wilde; she has grown up with us, laughed, loved, and sorrowed with us.  The latest Tonner even features a “Wilde Wedding.”  Wild, indeed!

 

Forever Ghastly, Wilde Imagination, Courtesy Tonner.com

 

Below is an invitation to a Wilde Wedding:

 

Join us to celebrate the nuptials of Evangeline Katrina Aster Gwendoline Ghastly and Mortimer Hubert Aloysius Mort!

Ellowyne and Lizette will be there to join the festivities.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!!

Tuesday July 26 – at the Washington Hilton, 1919 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC

Doors open at 10am – Lunch at 11:30am – doors closing 3pm

There will be a sales room, raffles, lunch, and more!

Reserve your spot now -$75 per person – Limited to 120 attendees

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Brides and wedding dolls are special to collectors. Some collectors specialize in brides and wedding dolls from various countries.  I have looked for a Norwegian bride doll for years, but haven’t come up with one yet.  I childhood friend of mine had one, and I’ve wanted one ever since!

 

Still, I do have brides of all types, from all over the world.  They decorated the tables at my wedding reception. My fiancé, now husband, drew the line, though, when I wanted to include Corpse Bride dolls and the head of Dracula’s bride. Spoil sports, I say!  I also have cake toppers, some humorous, with brides chasing down grooms, and others vintage and sentimental, like the hugging wedding Kewpies that topped my babysitter’s wedding cake over 70 years ago. She gave them to me, to use for my wedding.

 

Special wedding dolls in my collection include those dressed in material from my mother’s and grandmother’s wedding dresses. My mother had a traditional, late 1950s dress with long veil and full skirt of tulle.  Her dress was rented; she kept only remnants and her shoes and veil.  My grandmother had a French silk, flapper style dress.  She and my grandfather married in Paris in 1927; she had a complete French trousseau.  Her dress melted over time,  but I salvaged most of it and dressed dolls for me, my mother and aunt.  I used even the scraps in clear plastic balls to make ornaments.

 

Wedding dolls are special, and international bride dolls are intricate and unusual.  They commemorate a happy time in a couples’ life, and are as beautiful and varied as the people and dolls that wear them.

 

Wilde Ellowyne, Wigged Out, Courtesy Tonner.com

Soiree by Theriault's May 14th! Doll Mastery at its Best!

Below, in their own words, is Theriault's description of their May 14th auction, Soiree. I think the Doll Masters have outdone themselves with this one!  These dolls could have stepped out of the pages of my first and favorite doll books, authored by Eleanor St. George, Helen Young, Janet Johl, and others.  The variety is astounding; the Edison doll is definitely on my bucket list!  The rare ethnic costumes intrigue me, and the automatons are right up my alley of research!  The many music boxes and musical pieces remind me of my dear friend Nomi, an avid collector. Read below, and feast your eyes on the wonderful photos in the catalog.
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Join the celebration at Theriault's Marquis auction "Soirée" this Saturday, May 14th in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Bellagio highlighted by important antique dolls, music boxes, and automata from the Ron and Mary Ellen Connor collection and featuring outstanding Martha Chase dolls from Carolyn Guise of Dayton, Ohio.

Soiree Catalog, Courtesy Theriault's

Edison Phonograph with Simon & Halbig Head

, Courtesy Theriault's

Saturday, May 14, 2016
Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas
All events are open to the general public
8:30 AM Demonstrations of Automata and Music Boxes by Noted Authority, Jere Ryder.
9:00 AM General Preview Opens.
11:00 AM The Auction "Soiree" Begins. 

Rare Black Chase Character, Courtesy Theriault

's

We hope you can attend for the most fun and excitement. Other bidding options are also available if you cannot attend: absentee bidding, live telephone bidding, or live bidding on the internet. click here to pre-register for internet bidding. Call 800-638-0422 with any questions, email info@theriaults.com or click here for more information about the auction. 

German Wooden Doll House Kitchen, Courtesy, Theriault's

To see all of the beautiful dolls in the auction, click here.
To see the auction catalog on ISSUU, click here.

 

Rare French Fashion with Lovely Dress, Courtesy, Theriault's

Rare Steiff Character, Courtesy, Theriault's

German Bisque Flapper Bride, Courtesy, Theriault's

Jumeau in Unusual Chinese Silk Costume

French Poupee in Turkish Presentation Costume

 

To receive notice of Theriault's auctions, go to theriaults.com and register to receive email notices. If you are planning on coming to the May 14-15 auctions in Las Vegas, Nevada or would like more information call Theriault's toll-free at 800-638-0422, internationally at 410-224-3655 or email info@theriaults.com.

Grapes of Wrath, A Child’s Doll, Toys, and Precious Objects; Profiting from Debt in the Depression

Grapes of Wrath, A Child’s Doll, Toys, and Precious Objects; Profiting from Debt in the Depression

The 30s were a great time to collect dolls.  A doll collection from 1937 was featured on one of that year’s “Hobbies” Magazine.  Shirley Temple dolls and other items were all the rage.  Many lovely composition dolls were on the market, as well as late porcelain dolls and pincushion dolls.  Dolls as souvenirs were popular, as were plush animals. The Dionne Quints were born, and dolls made in their image were popular as well.

Shirley Temple's doll "Jimmy" from Love, Shirley Temple Auction

, courtesy Theriault's

Unfortunately, many suffered from The Great Depression during this time.  My own grandmother remembered men coming to her door asking for food and work. She had them wait on the porch while she made them fried egg sandwiches and found them odd jobs to do.

Many cheap bisque dolls were important from Japan, including one piece “penny dolls” that often were sold in boxes of five or so.

Steinbeck contrasted the ideal of the American Dream with the harsh reality that some lived in his novel, using dolls, toys, and personal objects to make his point.

John Steinbeck wrote “Grapes of Wrath”  after witnessing first hand " the terrible living conditions in the migrant labor camps of Northern California."   The novel was published in 1939, the same year as “Gone with the Wind.”  It won as much praise as it did criticism, and one point being condemned, according to Mishah Berson as "an exaggerated communist tract.” Much of the praise GOW received centered on its being "a great work of muckraking.”   It won the 1940 Pulitzer price for fiction.  The plot tells the story of the Joads, a family suffering in the dust bowl of Oklahoma in the 30s.  After hardship that would rival the Dinner Party's, the Joads arrive in California, the golden Promised Land, ["California, Here I come,"] only to be bitterly abused and disappointed.  Families like the Joads "upped sticks for a mammoth cross-country pilgrimage ins each of work, still believing in this American dream, only to find themselves squaring up to a greedy and exploitative system. Neil Cooper, writing for the “Glasgow Herald” writes in "A Hard Life when the American Dream Turns Sour; Steinbeck’s Gritty Tale of Survival in the 1930s Depression has Parallels with Today," that Steinbeck’s novel is a "tale of financial collapse, property slump, migrant labor, and political awakening."   In fact, Jonathan Church staged a theater version in 2009 saying . . "this year, with everything that had occurred in the world with her recession if ever there was at time to do it, it was now or never."   It starred as Tom Joad, Christopher Timothy of “All Creatures Great and Small Fame.” The novel inspired a John Ford Academy Award winning film, 1940, and a folk song written by Woody Guthrie, "the Ballad of Tom Joad," supposedly written after Guthrie saw the film.  Berson writes:  "Though clearly a product of the political and economic tumult of the Great Depression, GOW remains powerful not only as an indictment of how the forces of greed prey on the weak, but also as an indelible portrait of an American family.”

      The title is derived from Julia Ward Howe's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," suggested by his wife at the time. [Remember her relative made the Beecher Baby Dolls].  Steinbeck liked the title, because he liked the music.   He liked it "because it is a march and this book is a kind of march-because it is our own revolutionary tradition and because in reference to this book it has a large meaning."   An interesting piece of trivia is that the official publication date for “Grapes of Wrath”  was April. 14, 1939, the 4th anniversary of Black Sunday, the worst and most devastating of the Dust Bowl Storms.  The book has "entered both the American consciousness and its conscience. Few novels can make that claim. Furthermore, "If a literary classic can be defined as a book that speaks directly to readers' concerns in successive historical and cultural eras, no matter what their critical approaches, methods or preoccupations are, then surely, “The Grapes of Wrath” is such a work. Each generation of readers has found something new and relevant about it that speaks to its times"

      The novel is replete with descriptions of why objects, including dolls,  are important to people, and why the human identity is often marked and caught up in human possessions.  Really, no two people will possess the same items; a good visit to a couple of estate sales will confirm this.  [See, also, The Witching Hour, while Michael Curry can tell what a person is like and feel that person's pain and emotions by holding his or her object].

     

The following excerpt from “Grapes of Wrath” might be from an American Pickers Trailer; what we own is what defines us, or why the many reality shows obsessed with what people own:

      "In the little houses the tenant people sifted their belongings and the belongings of their fathers and of their grandfathers.  Picked over their possessions for the journey to the west.  The men were ruthless because the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days.” The men, Steinbeck writes, then go out to the barns and shed, their worlds.  The narrator describes a spirited haggling for farm equipment, as well as an inventory, similar tot hat in early bankruptcy codes of what a person can still have.  IN fact, early bankruptcy and current bankruptcy codes still have an inventory not unlike Steinbeck's that tell the debtor what he may keep, what will define him in the future: "harness, carts, seeders, little bundles o hoes. Bring 'm out..."Sell ';em for what you can get... No more use for anything.”

      "Fifty cents isn't enough to get for a good plow.  That seeder cost thirty-eight dollars.  Two dollars isn't enough . .. Well, take it, and  bitterness with it Take halters, collars, names, and guts.”

      "Junk piled up in a yard."

      And this last might be a dialog from American Pickers; "Can't sell a hand plow any more. Fifty cents for the weight of the metal. Disks and tractors, that's the stuff now."

      "Well, take it-all junk-and give em five dollars. You're not buying only junk, you're buying junked lives. And More-You'll see-you are buying bitterness.  Buying a plow to plow your own children under/"

      The narrator goes on to tell the stories of the fine bays matched, with braided manes and little red bows, done by the daughter of the former owner.  The stories of the objects come up, and they are anything but useless junk; "There's a premium goes with this pile of junk and they bay horse-so beautiful-a packet of bitterness to grow in your house and to flower, some day.  We could have saved you, but you cut us down, and soon you will be cut down and there'll been one of us to save you?”

“Dolls in The Grapes of Wrath:”

      "And the children came.

      If Mary takes that doll, that dirty rag doll, I got to take my Injun bow. I got to..."

      Clearly, the little girl’s doll is her most important possession. Too poor to own a composition or late bisque doll, she must be satisfied with a crude rag doll.

      Throughout there is a sort of obsession with clothes and objects, first the narrator's universal obsession, then it hones in to Tom and the Joads, from Pa asking if tom paid for his new clothes (84), to Ma going through her stationary box of old letters and precious jewelry, deciding to take the jewelry and burn the rest,(108=109) looking at her empty home, where the bureau once stood, and where their things were.  Ultimately, they only get 18 dollars for all their possessions, even the horse and wagon, and they burn what they can't sell, and watch the dust hand in the air for a moment. 

      Of the "Pickers" in GOW, Pa explains, "when I was in the hardware store I talked to some men I know.  They say there's fellas comin in jus' to buy the stuff us fellas got to sell when we get out.  They say these new fellas is cleaning up. But there ain't nothing' we can do about it.  Maybe Tommy should of went.  Maybe he could of did better.”

 As Jones writes in "Property and Personhood Revisited," "[o]ne  may gauge the . . . significance of someone's relationship with an object by the kind of pain  that would be occasioned by its loss  Jones notes there is an important sentimental feeling certain cherished objects engender which is important to someone's personality and self image.  When older people voluntarily dispose of objects, they do so to pass on memories and cherished objects, hence the APS comments that they sometimes talk people out of selling family heirlooms to them.  Or the dealers on Antiques RS who give insurance values to people after telling them not to sell a cherished object passed down in their families.

Doll Castle News Features The Olympic Doll, that Survived the Holocaust, and Her Cousin Doll who Survived her Child

The Holocaust Doll

 The Olympic Doll that resides at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

 Two Schildkroet Dolls have Ties to The Holocaust and The Olympic Doll

Cousin to the Olympic Doll

Box from the cousin to the Olympic Doll

The history of a celluloid doll in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum is told this month in “Doll Castle News” May/June 2016, by author Stephanie Strunk Baker.  Artist Diana E. Vining has also done a paper doll tribute featuring the doll and her owner, Inge Auerbacher.  Auerbacher gave her doll to the museum in 1992.  The Schildkroet Doll Factory, who made the original doll, recently began creating limited editions of Inge’s doll, and has since given one to her as a remembrance.

Inge Auerbacher was born in southwest Germany, near the Black Forest, also known for dolls and woodcarving.  In August, 1942, Inge and her family were departed to Terezin, a NAZI concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.   Her doll, named Marlene for Marlene Dietrich [an actress who also had dolls], was a celluloid doll with blue eyes and molded blonde hair.

Somehow, Auerbacher held onto her doll throughout her family’s internment.  I have read accounts that puppet shows took place at Terezin, and that children could be born there.  It was not a death camp, but many, including a friend of Inge’s who had an identical doll to Auerbacher’s, were deported to Auschwitz and other death camps.

After the camp was liberated, and Inge traveled, she still kept Marlene.  She learned later that the brand name for this doll was “Inge”, a rare coincidence indeed. According to baker, Auerbacher’s grandmother may have bought the doll because it had the same name as her granddaughter.  The Inge doll was created as a type of mascot for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and is often called The Olympic Doll.  

That Olympics and The Olympic doll are important to my family, too.  My dad was a world class runner in Greece, and his coach ran in the famous race wear Jesse Owens beat a top NAZI athlete.  My parents and their families spent the war in occupied Greece.  They survived the Fascists, the NAZI’s, and later, the Communists during The Greek Civil War. 

My mother was an American; she and her family went on a vacation to Greece in 1938 that lasted eight years.  Her relatives in Illinois thought all of them were dead.  They nearly starved, and she nearly escaped being shot herself.  She witnessed the round-ups of innocent people being taken away to be shot, and she heard stories of what was happening in the concentration camps in Poland, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere.

My mother kept her favorite doll, a composition Shirley look alike, with her till she left for the US.  Then, she gave it to her cousin.  We found a doll like her, but if Cousin ReRe reads this post, we’d like the doll back if you have her.

As a result, my mom had very little of her possessions when she came home.  She had two, very early 7 inch dolls that she dressed in Greek costumes.  My mother used to dance and knew many of the traditional dances of Greece and Mexico.  Those two dolls are all I really have of her own childhood dolls.

The story of the Schildkroet doll does not end with Inge, however.

Diane’s Doll:

About three year’s ago, one of my former literature professors was having Christmas dinner with my family and with the family of another of my old profs.   They used to have Christmas dinner at night, in their church hall.  My literature prof started telling me about his sister’s doll, kept carefully in his mother’s closet until his own mother died.  The doll, also a Schildkroet, could be a sister to Marlene, Inge Auerbacher’s doll.  Diane, my prof’s sister, passed away when she was 5.  She never got to play with the doll, which is dressed in a traditional Swedish outfit, and lies preserved in her original box.  I have pictured her in this post.

My professor asked me if I would like to see the doll, and if I would be interested in buying her.  Diane’s doll resided with me for a year; next Christmas, he asked me again.  Meanwhile, I had sent him all kinds of information about celluloid dolls and Schildkroet.  We agreed on a fair price.  My doll will become part of Dr. Ellen’s Doll Museum when we have our brick and mortar structure in place, and the money paid for her was donated to charity in Diane’s name.

For photos of Inge’s doll, please read Stephanie Stunk Baker’s excellent article in “Doll Castle News.”  My own doll is pictured here.

Even in horrific times, dolls comfort children.  Several years ago, “Doll Reader” featured a story about a doll that belonged to Ann Frank. Another of their articles once featured  toys allegedly made by children in concentration camps similar to Terezin.  Locally, there was a story in our paper about a little girl in Russia who kept her small doll with her and who made doll clothes out of scraps.  She suffered and nearly starved, but kept her doll as solace throughout. There are Holocaust documentaries that talk of little children, doomed to die in the gas chambers, who fashioned toys out of trash and played games, even when they knew they were going to die.

My own theory is that many of the German doll companies, which were run by Jewish families, were taken over by the NAZIs.  Doll maker Edith Samuel managed to flee and continued to make dolls in Israel.  Dina Vierny, whom I’ve written about before, managed to keep her fantastic dolls, and helped people to escape the NAZIS.  I would like more evidence on this theory of what happened to some of the German doll makers, and I would like to write more about them as a memorial to Inge, to my own family, and to Ann Frank and the millions of other innocent children who died in the concentration camps and during the horrors of The Second World War.

Two excellent books about dolls and the Holocaust include “The Doll with the Yellow Star” and “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.”  More books on the Holocaust comprise the Jeff Leibowitz collection, Western Illinois University.

Categories:  Assign to –

Antique Dolls

Dolls 1930s-1950s

Quick information for doll collectors

Books about dolls

Dolls by Type and Material

Links:

The Folk Toy Assignment:  Dolls Teach School:

http://collectdolls.about.com/od/antiquedolls1800s1920s/fl/The-Folk-Toy-Assignment.htm

Teaching with Dolls:  http://collectdolls.about.com/od/Calendars-Tutorials-Alphabets-Quick-Studies/fl/Teaching-with-Dolls.htm

Interesting Non Collectors in Doll Collecting: http://collectdolls.about.com/od/antiquedolls1800s1920s/fl/Interesting-Non-Collectors-in-Doll-Collecting.htm

Lesson Plans for a Doll Course:

http://collectdolls.about.com/od/dollmakingandcostuming/fl/Lesson-Plans-for-a-Doll-Course.htm

Dolls and Material Culture Studies:

http://collectdolls.about.com/od/dollmakingandcostuming/fl/Lesson-Plans-for-a-Doll-Course.htm

Definition of a Doll:  Thinking outside the Doll House: http://collectdolls.about.com/od/Calendars-Tutorials-Alphabets-Quick-Studies/fl/Definition-of-a-Doll.htm

Building a General Collection:

http://collectdolls.about.com/od/antiquedolls1800s1920s/fl/Building-a-General-Doll-Collection.htm

Dina Vierny: Artist Model Doll Collector

http://collectdolls.about.com/od/antiquedolls1800s1920s/fl/Dina-Vierny-Artist-Model-Doll-Collector.htm

Thoughts on Doll Value and the Future of Doll Collecting:

http://collectdolls.about.com/od/priceguides/fl/Thoughts-on-Doll-Value-and-the-Future-of-Doll-Collecting.htm