Sunday, December 6, 2015

Today I felt like having a special day and not starting a new crew of babies. Finally all the things had arrived to fix the large broken doll in Bambi's collection. I had bought it for her in an antique shop in Hamburg for Christmas in 1973. I had great fun cleaning it up and making baby clothes for it. I made a christening dress drenched in lace with a matching cap. The hair was a bit the worse for wear so it was kind to cover it up. This was the first doll I had ever paid so much for and I was delighted with her.

I did an online search and found out the initials are for Schoenau & Hoffmeister who were in Berggrub area of Germany which was next to the center of doll making. There was another company, Simon & Halbig, who also made dolls and many doll heads for other companies in the same area both earlier and later but they did not use the star as part of their signature. As far as I can tell online, that '9' under the 'B' is earlier than any of the numbers they list. So this head could have been made before 1909. The head had been broken so the hair was gone  as well as the dress but someone saved the wig cap which has German words on the papers. Still the doll would only be worth $600 -700 without the broken head.

The story about that is in 1978 Bambi returned to the United States and took her collection of dolls with her. She felt the dolls had some value so she took them to the museum in Fresno, California for a special exhibit. I wish I had photos of that but there are none. Here is a photo inside the head showing how the eyes were affixed and yet made movable with that weight so they swung open and closed naturally.




While the dolls were on display a young boy, drinking from a can of soda pop, for some unknown reason, threw the can at this doll. He hit her in the forehead above the eyes with the can breaking her head, ruining her hair and the hemp cap in her skull. 


I never saw the doll in any of my trips to the states and it was only when Bambi decided this summer to let me keep her collection that I received all the parts. I do not know who tried to repair her but they cut the inner elastic cords that held her together. After wiping down every part and delighting in the cleaning of those real glass eyes (as good as I could without using anything stronger than warm water) I began to devise a method of running the elastic cord through the wire loops in her limbs. By noon she was able to sit on my work table in front of the mess of cords and rubber bands I took out of her body.


In the afternoon I decide to attach her head with a series of elastic bands instead or ordering, and then waiting, for the proper wire connection. My method worked very well and was soft and small enough to not hinder the swinging of the weight that open and closes her eyes.


With her head attached she suddenly had personality and I could love her again. Suddenly I was happier than I have been for days. Falling in love with a doll is such an amazing experience beyond any human connection. Here you can see the size of the hole in her head. Thank goodness someone had saved the chips so I laid her out and started to glue them in. I picked a new wig that has bangs so even the seams in the glued parts will not show.


It was so hard to see her naked so I put socks on her and laid a t-shirt on her. There on the arm you can see the brown stain where the pop ran down the body. Everything else was covered with clothes, thank goodness. I wanted to glue on the second big chip but forced myself to leave her alone and wait until the glue is good and dry.


I took all the babies off the middle shelf on the steel rack, took up the blankets and rolled out this section of poly-fill I had gotten when desperate for the econo-fill. Though I do not have Christmas clothes for everyone I at least gave everyone (even pup and pigs) a view of the tree.  Then I crocheted a diaper cover for the old new German baby (I don't think she ever had a name other than baby) until it got dark.

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