Bisque doll eyes

 

This is a very large doll whose eyes have fallen out.

She was made by Heubach Kopplesdorf in Germany. She likely dates to the 1920's.

She has sleeping glass eyes and one glass eye has broken off the rocker.

That red blob is actually a molded tongue.

Her wig is quite the matted mess.

A bit of time with a pick and the matted mess reveals that it was once a short, side-parted bob

This wig was not a higher quality wig. Higher quality wigs had the hair woven into wefts and then stiched onto a fabric wig cap.  Lower quality wigs were 'topknot wigs'. Which means they were made by stuffing a handful of mohair in a hole in the top of the head or pate....and then gluing down and styling the mohair. They were quick and cheap to make. It is common to see topknot wigs on small dolls. Less common to see them on a doll this big. It is a wonder it survived at all!

But back to the eyes.....

Sometimes, with a bit of fiddling, you can glue the eye mechanism back together while it is in place inside the head. That saves the original eye plasters.

These eyes took a couple of tries but success!

She is back together and waiting on her clothing to be cleaned.

Teddy repairs

 

This Teddy has arrived to get new eyes and paw pads. And, a smile recreated

His paw pads were made with Rexine or oilcloth.

This pad has been covered up....who knows how bad things are under it.

Teddy has a squeaker inside that no longer squeaks. To fix that one has to extract the squeaker.

Every stuffed toy has a final seam that was often hand stiched closed.

Teddy's final seam was in his back. It got opened.

After a bit of rummaging around in his wood-wool stuffing, the squeaker is extracted.

This is a typical squeaker problem....tears in the bellows cloth.

Here is the squeaker with new bellows cloth.

It works!

Teddy's one paw padcovering gets removed.

It is really not too bad!

His lower paws get recovered with an antique cotton that is then painted and waxed to mimic his original paw pad fabric.

Done.