Posted 12 years ago
McSwainEst…
(14 items)
These are a new addition to our private collection. They came to us in damaged condition. While it is the "norm" in doll restoration to change as little as possible when working on a doll. Most feel that the doll should look as close to how was when first made as possible.
Having been in the toy collecting world for years, we have researched hundreds of dolls and companies. We learned that some companies as far back as the early 1900's were producing thousands of doll per day! That made us realize something we were not aware of. We were under the impression that these highly sought after dolls were made by an artist and he/her themselves hand painted the dolls and that was why people collected them like art.
So restoring them the way they first looked seemed important and made sense.
But learning there were thousands produced meant the dolls were airbrushed copies of an artist doll. Companies around the globe used heads by Simon & Halbig, Heubach, Kestner and many others and made their own dolls.
This changed our way of thinking, instead of restoring the dolls why not make the doll as the artist would have; given he had use of the supplies available today. Consider that in one's imagination we are only limited by the resources available. If the artist had what's available today they would have made the same doll But better. So in Not making a reproduction, or restoring an old doll instead using an old doll to show what the artist want the world to see of his work.
We have produced a line of dolls we call "Orie-Ann" (patent pending)
An Orie Ann doll is an Original Antique that was damaged in such a way that it required some form of repair. Shown above are a 1920 and 1921 model of the Effanbee Baby Dainty dolls that were both white, and ha major carzing and lifting as well as damaged heads. We repaired them both before our artist changed the facial features of one and made her African American.
These as all our private dolls are actual marked or identified dolls that are 90-100+ years old.