Turn of The Century Antiques - Antique Doll Dealers, Buy Antique Dolls, Sell Antique Dolls

Turn of The Century Antiques - Antique Doll Dealers, Buy Antique Dolls, Sell Antique Dolls





Click this link for more on our upcoming,fantastic, Virtual Doll Convention! Check out our pins on our new boards,  Virtual Doll Convention on Pinterest and Turn of the Century Antiques, Denver Colorado, on Pinterest. Just in time for the holidays!!

Toy Elephant in Simi Valley Homeless Community Tent City

Toy Elephant in Simi Valley

 

Dolls as important as fossils or other artifacts of the landscape. As Amtrak carries me home to my family in San Jose, I see all kinds of tent cities and make shift homes along the highway.  Some have actual windows, and are bits and pieces of trailers and other small structures.  Others are just tarps over tents.  A few have lawn ornaments, and one had a blow mold snowman as a decoration.

 

The saddest, most poignant were the two with stuffed animals.  I couldn’t get a photo, but one was a toy stuffed elephant once pink, maybe.  It was positioned against the hill, near the top, as if it were climbing. The other was a velveteen Doberman dog, almost life-sized lying on its side next someone’s temporary camp.

 

There was a young girl sitting in front of one of the tent communities, around 30, wearing a parka, and lighting a cigarette.  It had been raining, which is rarer than we might think in California. 

 

How sad it is to see people living this way in a country that wants for nothing, and in communities like Los Angeles, Simi Valley and Santa Barbara, with its neighborhoods full of millionaires.  Yet, fate is what it is sometimes.

 

I guess my point is that while it's true things can be replaced, certain possessions define us and make our lives bearable. They are symbolic, like folk art, fine art, or beloved books are. Like fossils, they tell stories of those who came before us, or maybe like the artifacts archaeologists find, study, rescue and display.  To paraphrase Barbara Pym, even an ordinary persons things are interesting and tell a story.

 

Be well.

First Ever Virtual Doll Convention

 

In the words of our own "Doll Uncles" and Rachel Hoffman, the First ever Virtual Doll Convention is here!   We've proved that once and for all, it is a Small World where dolls are concerned! Take the opportunity to bond and connected with other like minded collectors and enjoy your favorite subject, amazing web fieldtrips, and much more, even if "the weather outside is frightful!!"

 

 

“It’s finally here. A VIRTUAL Doll Convention!

Join Doll and Teddy bear Enthusiast, Collecting Influencer, and Virtual Event Entrepreneur, Rachel Hoffman as she guides you and a group of like-minded individuals through a first-ever Virtual Doll Convention, with a side order of extra self-love and inspiration. With the support of experts across the country, you will enjoy four days of virtual seminars, special exhibits, doll care, and preservation workshops, AND shop a doll and Teddy bear virtual salesroom. We will also take you on two Virtual Museum Tours. On Sunday evening, we will participate in a cook along dinner with David Robinson. You’ll receive the ingredients list ahead of time and can tune in live to cook along with us, right from Michael and David’s home kitchen. Then we will eat together at our own virtual banquet. Your souvenir will consist of a beautiful piece of printable ephemera posted in the convention group each morning. The entire convention will take place in a private group on Facebook, open only to Conventioneers. All of the scheduled events will remain in the group for later viewing for those who can’t catch it live or want to watch it again. The content is created and streamed special for this convention, and will not be shared later. We hope you join us!”

 

Dates are: January 10-13, 2019.  Here is our website where you may sign up; do it soon, and there is a discount.  You could have all of our perks for only $20.00!!

Virtual Doll Convention: https://www.virtualdollconvention.com/

Via Doll Universe Facebook, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Private collection. 
Exhibition Jumeau

Guest Blogger: Dr. David Levy, Skyward

Once again, it is our pleasure to feature Dr. David Levy as our guest blogger.

Skyward

December 2018

 

 Inner Starlight

 

Photo by Dr. David Levy

 In 1994,  Star Trek:  The Next Generation was one of the most popular shows on television.  The episodes were so good that it was easy to tell that the cast was especially enjoying themselves.  One of the episodes that year was “The Inner Light.”  It was a beautiful story in which a strange probe approaches the Enterprise and attaches a beam to Captain Picard, who loses consciousness and has a dream in which he is living on a distant planet.  He enjoys  a full life there, with a wife, two children and a grandson, and he becomes politically active in his community.  He even outlives his wife.  One day his daughter asks him to watch a rocket launch.    He hesitates, but then his deceased wife and best friend appear.  The Captain then exclaims,  “It’s the probe that was sent for me!”

After  enjoying this episode many times, I was reminded of another beautiful story.  Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1824, it is called The Great Stone Face and concerns a large natural face-like structure hanging near Franconia Notch, across some granite rocks in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.  The site was magnificent, at last until a few years ago when the face fell down in a big heap.  The cliffs are still there, but no more face.

The night sky is much like Star Trek, and much like Hawthorne.  We look at a group of stars, perhaps a constellation or two, and our brains begin to make connections.  On Star Trek we share the idea of travelling through space, even if all we have to warp through space with our two good eyes and a telescope.  Some of us may even remember chapter 12 of Hawthorne’s  masterpiece The Scarlet letter, in which the “A” is likened to a meteor crossing the sky at midnight:  “…before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere.  … And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two.”

       Was the meteor an interpretation of the scarlet A parading across the sky?  The night sky is full of messages, and only some of those messages come from astronomers.  The rest come from people like you and me, people who have innocently stood up a looked at the stars, and who have wondered.  The rest come from Shakespeare, and Tennyson, and perhaps even Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The next time you look at the stars, picture yourself not just watching them but reading them.   Learn the stories they tell, as interpreted by your favorite writers  whether they be Shakespeare, Tennyson,  Hawthorne, or even you.  What sparks your imagination can be something as simple as a story you have heard, seen read, or even written.  Even in our modern age,  the message could indeed be written in the stars.

Holiday Gift Guide for Doll and Teddy Bear Lovers - Ruby Lane Blog

Holiday Gift Guide for Doll and Teddy Bear Lovers - Ruby Lane Blog: The Holidays are here in full swing!  Do you know what to buy your doll and bear aficionado friends? Generally, we aren’t hard to please; most of us never met a doll or bear we didn’t like.  Yet, it can be hard to buy for the collector, or doll, who has everything, so here are... Read more »

What I've Learned from Dolls

Devoting yourself to a hobby helps you learn a whole subset of skills in areas you never thought you'd be good.

It dawned on my that I learned to bargain shop looking for dolls, good dolls that were usually much more expensive.   I carried those skills over to grocery stores and to a new awareness of coupons. After a while, it's second nature to hunt for bargains.


When I was about ten, my family and I used to spend Christmas in California.  We went to after Christmas sales at Pool, Patio, and Things, Sax, Bullock's, Emporium, and Macy's   I couldn't believe what I could find at 50% off.

Soon 75%  and 90% off became available.  Like my mom, I bought gifts for next year at the holiday sales.


If any of those bargains needed painting or sewing, I could easily fix it.  I learned these things and more repair and craft techniques from dolls.

When I taught contract law, I reviewed stories of how the big doll companies were built.  I learned the definition of merchant/expert from Article 2 of the UCC, or Uniform Commercial Code through studying antique stores and dealers.


Of course, I picked up on archaeology, sociology, history, literature, art, and music through dolls.  Even my cultural geography textbooks talked about costume doll and crafts, as well as textiles involving dolls and doll making.

Through dolls, I learned about display, management and organization.  Dolls and collecting earned a few lines in my dissertation, and in the intellectual property courses I taught.


Through the study of dolls, I learned a lot of life skills, but also to appreciate beautiful things, handmade crafts, and human expression.   I learned a lot about research of all types, and used that skill in all my jobs.  I learned social media because of dolls, and learned to observe carefully and to think outside the box.


Having the dolls to study and collect has saved my sanity o ore than one occasion. I suppose we all need a passion what Barbara Pym called something to love, what Woolf referred to as "a room of one's on."  Mine happens to be filled with dolls.

Unpacking the Dolls

As we move closer to getting a building for the American Doll & Toy Museum,  more and more dolls are being packed, unpacked, repacked, and moved.  It is a lot like Christmas everyday, and given the international nature of our mission, it's Christmas around the world.


Spoiler Alert:  If you are neat-freak, clutter phobic, doll phobic, grumpy, a doll snob, a doll diva, or very OCD [which I lean towards] Don't look!!


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Making Space and Making Room; the Doll Trek begins!




Small dolls on vintage acrylic shelves gleaned from our old Younker's Store

The Hills are Alive .. .

Italian porcelain miss dressed for travel.

Waiting their turn, cloth, vintage Halloween, vintage vinyl, bisque, antique and cloth

How will we ever gat packed ?

Tiny treasures wait patiently, if a little apprehensively.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall/ Who's the Fairest Doll of All

Angelic and cabinet sized

Native American Doll by Carlson Dolls, 60s-70s

I wonder if I'll have my own shelf?

Anyone need a ride?

The Storyteller is our bard; she tells of our journey.

Green Army Men, a gift from Marie T.

Family Portrait

So cute . . .

Is formal attire required?

A gift to the museum from Marie T.

And, we're just the drop in the bucket!! Look for more on the progress of our museum.