A 19th century paper mache doll

 

This little doll needs several areas addressed.

She has a paper mache head on a cloth body. Her arms are paper mache and her lower legs are cloth.

She is missing the tip of her nose and her paint is quite worn.

There are cracks on her shoulder plate but they are superficial.

She is missing both hands.

Her lower legs are made of green fabric that is fragile and shredding....it is attached to oilcloth which was fashioned to look like boots. They even had leather soles.

Hand transplants.

These hands were salvaged from some parts that were made from a very similar material. They still need some paint to blend in.

Some of the dings get disguised on the head.

Then the lower legs get dismantled.

To address the one oilcloth boot that has missing sections, I glue the shreds to a piece of cotton.

Then I paint in the missing sections.

Hand transplants done. New calves and reconstructed boots/feet.

Her wool dress is shredding but original to her.

A Cissy doll gets a maintenance visit

 

This is a Madame Alexander Cissy doll.

She has arrived to address some typical vintage plastic doll problems.

Her facial paint is in very nice condition.

She even still has all her eyelashes.

Cissy dolls are quite prone to having missing eyelashes.

Many Cissys had earrings that were glued in. The glue yellows with age and looks unsightly if the earrings goes missing.

Cissy dolls and similar vintage plastic dolls are prone to splits along their seam lines And cracking of the plastic at pressure points.

Plastic is not an inert substance that lasts forever. It deteriorates with time. These splits and cracks are all symptoms of plastic degeneration. 

This Cissy has several splits here and there but they are fairly minor.

This is....well....it is a crotch split.

And a leg split.

A foot split.

Splits at the tops of each hip.

And a wee little crack under her chin.

The chin crack gets epoxied and then diguised with a wee bit of paint.

The same for that crotch split.

It is epoxied (glued) and painted. Being a seam line, it is more visible.

Ditto for the leg split.

Schoenhut doll repaint.

 This doll has arrived after a harrowing trip through Canada Customs.

She has had her head repainted in the past.

Much of the carved detail in the hair is lost.

Is it buried under the repaint?

There are some odd contours around her eyes.

A chunk is missing from her neck.

Someone has tried to remove her overpaint already. This reveals several different layers underneath and patches of bare wood.

The doll's body is in rough shape.

Likely the head is in equally rough shape under the overpaint.

Rusty hardware and a chunk of wood missing from one shoulder attest to a hard life.

The feet were painted brown during one of her previous pant jobs.

A partial pinkie amputation.

More evidence of a hard life......the hardware in her 'good' shoulder is shortened due to a fairly ingenious repair. These hardware bits can be hard to repair so whoever did this has my respect!

This is what is left of her original paint.

Her shoulder is getting rebuilt.

Rebuild done and arm re-installed.

And a new pinkie.

It was decided to leave her worn and well-loved body paint as is so her new pinkie gets a distressed paint job to blend in.

Here is her finished look.

Her carved braids.

Other side.

And her bow.

Interestingly this bow did not have much carved detail.

Teddy eyes and voice boxes

 

This teddy arrived with the huge bisque headed doll for a bit of sprucing up.

He is made of mohair and is stuffed with excelsior (wood wool).

He has plastic eyes that are replacements.

He almost certainly had glass eyes originally.

His torso shows hints of a voice box but he is silent.

Once I open him up, I find he once had a voice box but it has been removed and the cavity has beed stuffed with shredded foam.

This foam should be removed as foam does nasty things as it ages.

Now he has an empty spot.

That empty spot can be filled with wood wool and he can stay silent or he can get a replacement voice box.

He is petite Teddy and will need a petite voice box.

This vintage squeaker will fit.

Ready to go home.

Bisque doll eyes....again.

 

This little doll arrived for a simple restringing and a wig spruce up.

Sometimes, what was supposed to be simple, turns out not to be.

Someone has glued the head onto the body. It is supposed to swivel.

The head gets removed successfully.

The wig comes off next.....and out falls a metal doodad.This doodad is the metal part of an eye rocker. This doll once had sleep eyes.

The eyes have been glued into their sockets, probably after the eye rocker broke?

Why not try to get the rocker fixed so the eyes can sleep again?

Fortunately, the glue used was water soluable. So with some water applied, the eyes could get removed.

One of the eye plasters got dislodged during that process though.

After a few tries and a lot of fiddling, the eye rocker is back together.

Then the eye rocker gets installed into the head.

Next several hair extensions are added to her original wig.

She is ready to go home.