Antique Paper Doll Collecting - always a learning experience

I'm new to collecting Antique Paper Dolls and I've narrowed my focus to articulated dolls by L&B (Littauer & Boysen) and Dennison.  My main point of interest are the beautiful Actress and Royalty dolls from the late 1800's that I've talked about in previous posts but recently I've been looking into some jointed dolls that are of young girls like those listed below.

 One example of L&B doll parts assembled to make an articulated doll

Many L&B (Littauer & Boysen) doll parts were specifically made for the Dennison Company to be used with their special line of tissue/crepe paper so you could "dress" your finished doll. These doll parts could be purchased individually, as sets, in boxed kits and in enveloped kits. There were a variety of combinations in which you could purchase the dolls or parts of the dolls and some came in multiple size choices.

 6 Pretty Vintage Paper Doll Heads

Each head is @ 3 inches tall

L&B created these doll heads - part # 01943(a)

These are in Dennison's 1913 catalog.  

The Doll Outfit No. 31 boxed set - has 2 of the above dolls in it.
(notice the pin hole markers on these dolls -  this lets you know these are the heavy
embossed stock used to make articulated dolls.)

6 sets of Doll Legs

L&B created these doll legs - part #1943 (b)

These were in the 1905 - 1907 Dennison Catalog

  2 complete dolls using 2 pairs of the above legs were in the Doll Outfit No. 8 Box Set

 Torso pattern that work with this style of paper doll

I've been lucky enough to get some nice quality scans of these dolls that I can use to create funky artwork; however, I thought I would try and add the authentic originals to my vintage paper doll collection as well.   Unfortunately, I have not been able to find much reference material on the types of dolls I'm trying to collect so this experience is one big learning curve. I do know that L&B created a whole series of articulated doll parts for the Dennison Company that was located in Boston in late 1880's and 1890's. Many of the dolls I wish to have in my collection appeared in Dennison  Art & Decoration Catalogs from 1895 - 1907. 

So far I've discovered that this particular set of doll heads was made in at least 2 sizes and that some of the dolls are a high quality lithography embossed cardboard but not all are.  These were also made as embossed paper scraps, which are a much thinner paper not suitable for making a jointed paper doll.

I know this because I recently won an eBay auction for these doll heads.  Now I know that some of the articulated doll parts were also created as paper scraps and are not the heavy lithography pieces used to create the jointed paper dolls I'm adding to my collection. Luckily this was a fairly inexpensive mistake and a great teaching tool, since I never would have thought these same doll parts could be made out different thicknesses of material.

 These are the Paper Scrap Doll heads I recently purchased.

They are the embossed paper but about the thickness of newsprint.

Each doll head is @ 2 1/4 inches tall
These are item L&B #30679 where as the thicker ones used to make dolls are #1943

(After taking a close look at the paper scrap doll heads I purchased and the images I have of the thicker doll parts; I can see that the actual doll parts have a pinpoint marker where the hole and brad/eyelet should go to assemble the paper doll and my paper scraps don't have this registry marker on them.) This is the quick and easy way to tell if you are purchasing them from a photo.

L&B (Littauer & Boysen) founded in Berlin 1887 -  was one of Berlin's largest deluxe paper manufacturing operations with a wide variety of chromolithography and embossed stamped articles. They sold part of their operation to Z&M (Zoecke & Mittmeyer) and another part to MLP (Mamelok Press Limited) in 1920.

Here are a few more examples of L&B Doll Parts:

 L&B #3844 - Angel Heads - can be used to make a doll

L&B #3109

L&B - #3460

L&B #3980

L&B #30725

 L&B #30819

L&B #31014

This set of doll parts was actually made by Dennison

These are some Doll Parts - company Unknown

 

Grins and Giggles,

   Evelyn (EKDuncan)