Antique Dolls

"Recommended for all doll dealers and collectors" -- Model and Collectors Mart, July 2002. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Hazel Ulseth and Helen Shannon have written several doll dressmaking resource books over a number of years. Among their most popular are Costume Cameos 1 through 5, A Handbook for Doll Costumers, and Creating Fur Teddy Bears: Mink and Fake Fur. Ulseth and Shannon have contributed many doll and Teddy Bear costume and making project to Doll Reader and Teddy Bear and friends magazines. They frequently give workshops on doll costuming and teddy bear making at large toy and doll shows throughout the country.

Doll lovers will be enthralled by the numerous colorful photographs of unusual antique dolls and the informative text of Collecting Antique Dolls. Originally published in German as Puppen Raritaten, this English language version has been augmented with an eight page introduction containing a wealth of common sense tips to doll collectors. With the structure of the main chapters, fashion dolls, doll automata, exclusive dolls and doll curiosities, the collector gains an excellent perspective of the wide range of old bisque heard. The descriptions of important collectors' criteria are suitable enough to convey helpful decisions in buying a doll or with starting a collection. These established facts through intensive research, as well as the large numbers of unique photographs of rare and beautiful dolls are owed to the author's immense involvement. A complete gallery of exceptional Kestner dolls will fascinate the reader. Also, very beautiful fashion dolls and technically highly interesting doll automata round off this truly wonderful book.

Stacey Leigh Brooks, also the author of Diary of a Creepy-Ass Doll (coming Summer 2012), is a graphic designer, writer and freelance artist. The co-founder of G.H.O.S.T (Ghosts, Hauntings, and Other Strange Things) Paranormal Research Society, she lives in Michigan with her one-eyed black cat, Wyccan, and the feline gray menace, Bellatrix.

: Lyn Alexander began selling her original antique doll dress patterns in 1977. She is the designer, pattern maker, doll dressmaker, researcher and writer for Lyn Alexander Designs.

Her big dream as a student was to go to New York City and be a famous dress designer. She took every costume design, fashion, art, fashion illustration, pattern making, textile and sewing class that was offered in her curriculum. Her favorite classes were historic costume and flat pattern making.

One day at a doll auction she suddenly realized that all her love of costume, educational training and work experience could be concentrated on antique dolls. Thus, a new career in doll dressmaking began. When her and her husband moved to Denver, CO, in 1976, she decided to market her doll dress and accessory patterns.

Lyn's shoe patterns and shoemaking workshops were very popular and she recognized a need for a comprehensive book about doll shoemaking. The Doll's Shoemaker was written in1983 to meet that need. Now, it has been revised into two concise workbooks.

"We are privileged to share this insight" -- Galatea Magazine, Winter 2000. "The author knows his stuff. A rare read" -- Doll Magazine, April 2001.

The Handbook of Doll Repair and Restoration was a first when it was published in 1979. It is still a first--in its completeness and detail. This is a responsible book, subscribing to the view of true doll collectors: Do nothing to an antique doll that will compromise the authenticity and reduce its value. Whether a doll is a museum rarity, one of many common antique dolls, or a collectible, Marty Westfall's book will lead you through procedures to restore it. The exquisitely detailed step-by-step directions make it possible for collectors, dealers, even those who own just one or two treasured dolls, to make necessary repairs without reducing value.

The techniques that author Marty Westfall used from 1973 to 1979 and set down in this book are just as practical today. Her aim was to help the beginning restoration artist, and the information is just as valuable to even the most sophisticated collector. In easy-to-follow directions The Handbook describes how to set stationary and sleep eyes, restring compo bodies, refurbish old wigs and make new ones, repair ball-jointed bodies, clean and repair kid bodies, make cloth bodies, mend chips and cracks, replace missing fingers and toes, and cope with other damages. The Handbook encourages those who wish to learn the art by taking them by the hand and showing them how to get started. At the back of the book is an updated list of suppliers for those who lack ready access to sources of repair materials. Other helpful information includes a chapter on how to distinguish between a legitimate replica doll and a fake made with the intention to deceive and another on how to determine whether a doll has been mended, even if the repair is so skillfully done that it is not readily apparent.

Thousands who began using this book as a guide have gone on to develop profitable careers in the restoration field. The same procedures to restore dolls work in restoring other porcelain objet d'arts, such as figurines. Many who began as doll makers have combined their creative art with restoring antique dolls. By learning the techniques in The Handbook, they have improved their skills in creating the valuable antique dolls of tomorrow.

"Flora Jacobs has continued her scholarship in this fascinating field with her finest book yet." -- Antique Doll Collector

"Jacobs' passion for dolls' houses will live on for generations to come." -- Antique Week