So you want to know how to identify an antique doll? Many people want to identify antique or vintage dolls so that they can sell the doll well according to its value. To learn its proper value in the current market one needs to first identify it as best as possible. If you are not an expert or experienced doll collector or reseller, you can still use what you know to find values. Different online resources can offer help even without paying a dime. In this post I will list tips and tricks that can help you better identify the dolls.
1) Join a Facebook Group
If you want to identify an antique doll, join a Facebook group like “Let’s Identify our Dolls (the original group)”, “Antique and Vintage Dolls Pre-1930”, or something similar. Show a clear picture of the doll’s face, body, hands, and back of head where you might find words. Someone in the group will know or give you useful information. They won’t tell you the value, but the information can help your search like rocket fuel. If it’s not an antique they will tell you, too!
2) Find the Markings
Most doll makers branded their dolls on the back of the head or neck and on back of the torso. Sometimes numbers and brand initials lie on the back of the thighs and under the upper arms. One may need to lift the wig of the doll to see the numbers and brand marks. Some important head mold numbers are hidden high up under the wig that can reveal numbers highly sought after by collectors. Many people who don’t know how to remove the wigs often miss out on better identification.
Recognize Maker Initials
Many antique dolls from France and Germany made in the late 1800s and turn of the century 1900s have initials of the brand names. J.D.K. stands for the famous German maker Kestner, many of which sold in the USA. The letters AM stand for the commonly found Armand Marseille dolls. Sometimes the names are spelled outright making them much easier to identify.
See some French doll marks here or German doll marks here.
Learn a Place of Origin
About 1891 import laws in Britain caused Germany to start putting the word “Germany” on the back of their doll heads. Many German dolls found in the USA stem from the Germany’s prosperous decade of the 1890s when they sold most of their dolls to North America. A German doll that does not have this mark indicates an earlier year and a harder to find doll. On the other hand, the Antique French dolls will not bear the word France until you get about the 1920s when SFBJ started using the words “UNIS FRANCE.”
Distinguish Mold Numbers from Size Numbers
French and German antique dolls usually have a unique face associated with a mold number. One mold number of a one doll maker may have very little value while another doll by the same maker with a different mold number has a much higher value due to its rarity, age, or appealing appearance. Mold numbers often sit high up on the back of the head or low on a shoulder plate. For example the value difference between a Kammer & Reinhardt 105 and a Kammer & Reinhardt 112 could be a difference of 100,000 dollars or more. Find the mold number!
Below a doll still wears it’s wig at the Cape Fear Museum in Wilmington, NC. The donated doll has a mold number hidden under the wig but the workers at the museum refuse to lift the wig wanting to preserve it in the condition to which it came to them. If you want to sell such an item, higher bidders would want this wig lifted to see the mold number, if it exists.
Above a doll’s brand “Simon & Halbig” had its information were hidden under the leather. Antique leather may tear if you pull too quickly. This doll has a mold number of 1080 with the size number of 7.
3) Identify the Material with Correct Terms
To better know how to identify an antique doll learn to recognize what’s it made of. Don’t make the mistake of calling the modern plastic doll a “porcelain” doll.
Porcelain
Porcelain doll parts will come from sources that create a rock like substance. Doll parts made of porcelain may be referred to as china, parian, bisque, or porcelain in the doll collector communities.
- China refers to glazed porcelain similar to that of your fine china dishes or flatware at home. Many early German dolls had china heads, arms, and lower legs. Their bodies, though, usually were stuffed cloth or stuffed leather. Most antique German china head dolls are identified by the style of the facial painting. If you don’t have a great resource for learning the differences, simply photograph a zoomed in picture of the face. Collectors will recognize it if they can see the eyes and lips well.
- Parian dolls have white unglazed porcelain, but may resemble the china head dolls in many other ways.
- Bisque usually refers to porcelain doll heads or small antique dolls made of only bisque. This porcelain is not glazed. It was baked, then painted, then baked again. One can recognize antique bisque by seeing how the paint is baked into the porcelain. Nail polish remover usually will not remove the paint.
- Many modern dolls are made of fragile porcelain that break or shatter more easily than the antiques.
Wood
- Many of the oldest antique dolls have wooden bodies and/ or heads.
- Some antique doll parts come from a compound mixture of paper, cardboard, and wood. They call this mixture composition or composite or papier mache.
- Cloth or leather stuffed dolls have sawdust or cork inside the doll.
- Learn about the early jointed wooden dolls known as dutch, pennywood, or grodnertal dolls here.
- Learn about the famous American made wood jointed Schoenhut dolls here.
Leather, Mohair, and Human Hair
- Kid Leather – Many antique dolls have stuffed bodies wrapped in a white toned kid leather.
- Mohair – The fur from goats or other similar animals make up the hair in the doll wigs, otherwise known as mohair. Some early mohair doll wigs have kid leather caps underneath.
- Human Hair – Some antique dolls have human hair stuffing inside the cloth bodies rather than sawdust. Doll makers also used human hair for wigs.
Wax
As doll makers sought to make dolls less breakable than the fragile, china porcelain, many began to use wax for their doll heads. Sometimes wax coats the porcelain underneath.
Celluloid
Doll heads made of Celluloid began to appear in the late 1800s after John Hyatt and his brother patented the process of creating the substance in 1870.
4) Recognize Details of Structure
Sometimes describing certain features like joints and eyes helps narrow down eras especially if you can’t find brand names. Antique dolls like the milliner dolls may have a combination of things such as wood, papier mache, and leather stuffed bodies.
Eyes
Does it have eyes that move or painted eyes? Do the painted eyes have a smooth surface or a carved like molded surface (sometimes called “intaglio”)? “Fixed eyes” refers to glass eyes that do not close or move.
Head Joints
Can the doll move it’s arms or legs (jointed) or turn its head (swivel head)? Does the head stay still or does it swivel? Some fixed heads look like they have turned to the side slightly. “Turned Heads” have necks that don’t move but the face appears to glance off to the side.
Wrist Joints
Older antique dolls may have joints everywhere but not have joints at the wrists. Doll collectors call these “fixed wrists” or “straight wrists.”
The doll head on the left has no mold number. It does have the size number 1 and a red painted W on the rim of the head, which indicates she was a “Daisy” doll advertised in the Ladies Home Journal, a cherished collectible. The head in the center has the highly sought after 939 mold number worth much among SIMON & HALBIG dolls. The doll head on the right has a later mold number 550.
5) Use Online Resources
You can learn better how to identify an antique doll by studying the SOLD listings on eBay, Worthpoint, or Rubylane.
On Worthpoint you need a subscription only if you want to know how much an item sold for at auction. But if you only want to research for identification clues, you do not need a subscription.
Rubylane’s Helpful Policy
Rubylane has stricter requirements of its sellers when titling their antiques. Rubylane requires sellers to show the doll without its clothes so that all potential buyers can easily see brand marks and original condition. They should always show the back of the head where the markings are. The trusted shops with lots of experience, always show very clear photos of the doll markings.
To see sold values on Rubylane, you need to sign up. Click to message the seller about a sold item but don’t message. Instead click on “see more details.” The sold price will show up in the details.
Keywords in the Search Bar
If you can’t find a marking
All these details can help you identify your doll to those searching for it even if you don’t have a brand name. I suggest starting with the type of head the doll has. Some examples of ways to word a listing title for an online marketplace could be:
- antique jointed wooden doll
- antique bisque head doll with composition jointed body
- antique porcelain head doll with leather stuffed body
- antique china head doll with sawdust filled cloth body
- vintage composition swivel head doll with cloth stuffed body
If you do find a marking
If you find a brand name or marking search for more information like this:
In the search bar type in “antique doll.” Between these words put the letters or words you find on the doll like this “antique HH doll” or “antique AM doll” or “Antique 109 H Doll.” Your search results should fill with dolls also bearing the letters HH or AM but some of those listings will spell out the name that goes with HH or AM. If the doll says “Germany” on the head, then by all means type in the word GERMAN like this “Antique German AM Doll” or “Antique German Bisque Head Doll.” I suggest using the adjective form “German” and not the noun “Germany.”
Once you have found the letters you think correspond with the initials or numbers then you can do a more refined search, especially to find values. Type into the search bar your key words like this “Antique German Armand Marseille 390 Doll.” (Sometimes use the height, too, to sort through values.)
Book Resources
I use several great resource books to help me identify dolls that I suggest. (Note: I do not suggest the blue book for values. The blue book is an outdated source with values not accurate for today’s values. Most of today’s values are far less than they were in the blue book publication years.)
For German dolls in general the best book is the German Doll Encyclopedia by Jurgen and Marianne Cieslik.
For better identifying the older china head dolls that do not have brand names or mold numbers I suggest books by Mary Krombholz. She has great color photos that zoom into the facial features for learning about identifying the maker by the manner of facial feature painting on the doll heads.
- Identifying German Chinas 1840-1930s by Mary Krombholz (In this book she takes the reader through the decades and the hairstyles associated with specific decades of the 1800s.)
- Identifying German Parian Dolls by Mary Krombholz
- A Pictorial Reference Guide to German Chinas by by Mary Krombholz (this is a harder to find book which has many of the same pictures of the above two books, which takes the reader through each brand name and isolates photos of eyes and lips).
For French dolls a wonderfully detailed source with beautiful color images and history is the Encyclopedia of French Dolls (2 volumes) by Francois & Danielle Theimer, edited by Florence Theriault.