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Another conversation with David Hearn, an Employee from Royal dolls.
Hi !
A friend sent me the link to your web site
about Royal Dolls. It is really well done. Royal is a doll company that has gotten lost and sadly forgotten in the world
of dolls. I meet Miss Elsa in 1981 when I opened a doll shop and fell in love with her and her beautiful dolls. Her
dolls became one of the best selling lines I carried. Over the years Miss Elsa and I became good friends . We both loved
pretty things. I had been a Costume Design major in collage and worked as a theater Costumer before opening a doll
shop and like Miss Elsa we both loved pretty fabrics. At Toy Fair we would sneak off toward the end of the week and
go to the garment district to shop fabric, trim and flowers. She could get into the places that were closed to the general
public. It was so much fun. In the late 1980's Miss Elsa ask me to come to New York to visit her in January and
help with the designing of the next years design. She was looking to replace the Opera Collection and I suggested
a line of Royalty theme dolls based on the Royal Houses of Europe. It seemed a natural given the name of the company. It
didn't take long for me to pack and off I went . I stayed with her and her family till Toy Fair in mid February
and had the best time of my life. We went fabric shopping and worked on the new doll and her sister taught me how to
cook German food and I gained 25 pounds. The dolls I worked on with her were the Royal Court Collection. The Queen
and Empresses of the Royal Houses of Europe. My favorite of all the dolls we worked on was the Empress Elizabeth
of Austria and The Empress Alexandra of Russia and Anastasia. I did these wonderful trips to design doll dresses
and eat good German food for about 4 years and then my mother passed away and I became involved with a local doll store and
was unable to go back and Miss Elsa was gradually going into retirement. She is a Beautiful Lady and the last of
the great lady doll designers. I am so glad to see the Royal Doll spot lighted so nicely. Warren was helping out
at the factory during this time and his letters brought back many wonderful memories.Have you ever talked to Miss Elsa?
She is a dear and so very friendly. Love your site, David
Hi Deanna, I have a few of the Royal International dolls by Miss Rose from the 1960.
I have a Grandmother in the coffee taffeta gown from the 50's. Most of mine are from the 80's . I have the
same collection of Catalogues that Warren talked about. My first year at Royal was at the original factory in NYC.
Then she moved the next year upstate. So, the flood and lost records happened before I came into the picture.
We used the Grandmother mold for Mrs. Santa Clause and then the mold maker lost the mold and so Mrs. Santa Clause was limited
to the left over heads from the grandmother doll the year before. So there are very few Mrs. Santa Clauses out there...maybe
less than 20 or so. The reason the re-issue of the Grandmother doll had flat feet was because Miss Elsa did hot have
the molds to make high heel shoes and also the mold maker couldn't find the leg molds. All the mold were stored out back of
the molders factory on metal shelves in a huge fenced in yard. He went out of business a few years later and each company
had to go and find their own molds. There were Alexander, Horseman, Effanbee, as well as Royal and many, many more.
They were all mixed up. Most got sold off for scrape metal! Makes you sick to think what got melted down. Elsa finally got
the Grandmother head mold back, but by then she was almost closed down and not doing dolls any more. She also had a
25 inch version of the 1950's fashion doll (Revlon style).She wanted to use it in the line in the late 1980's as an a special
anniversary dolls, but once again the mold maker could not find all the body parts. That was a big disappointment...a 25 inch
Royal Fashion would have been so wonderful! David
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Hi Deanna, I have lots of experiences that come to mind during my stay with Miss Elsa
and her family and the fun we had at the factory. The most exciting part was seeing the actual production of a commercial
doll factory. Watching the parts come together to great a lovely play toy ( or collectable). The doll parts traveled
all over NYC before they arrived at the Royal Factory to be assembled. The Molder would send the arms, legs and bodies
directly to the factory and then the heads with painted features and inset eyes would be sent to the wiger. The wiger would
root the hair and then send it their in-house styling department . The hair was a nylon type material and had a memory
yarn quality and was quite sticky to the touch. The styled heads would be placed in a low oven and baked for about 30 minutes
to set the style and dry out the chemicals in the hair. The finished head would be placed in a plastic bag and
the open end of the bag twirled and pushed up inside the head and shipped to Royal. Once the parts were delivered to
Royal they were unboxed as need and placed on tall bakers carts on large cookie sheets and allowed to cure. This allowed the
gases to release from the vinyl. This usually took several weeks and was referred to a curing the parts. If this process
is skipped and the dolls are dressed too soon the gases interfere and interact with the chemicals in the fabric dyes of the
clothing and can cause staining on the dolls. The colors that were the biggest problems were black, red and green for staining
the dolls. Royal blue and navy were also sometimes a problem as well as deep purple. The gases from the vinyl
would also effect the fabric in light blue and turn it Lavender in spots, but did not stain the doll bodies. The
Oder the parts gave off was awful and the dolls were stored at the far end of the original factory away from the production
area. The doll shoes were produced by Premier and shipped in. Once the curing process was done they would run a production
on the style number and one end the sewing department would make the dresses with each row of sewers doing one step and tossing
the garment into a basket to the front of their machine and then the next sewer would reach behind them and get the garment
and do their part and tossed in on to the finish line where the final step was to bag the outfit with all parts and place
it on rolling racks and then taken the clothing to the dressing department where several workers set around a table
and one would do stockings, one underclothing and one dresses and one shoes and accessories and then the finished doll was
passed to boxing and then on to shipping and then the extras went to stock.
When Effanbee folded down and
eventually left the country the doll manufacturing industry NYC changed totally. Effanbee was about 70% of their business.
They were the low price mass marked dolls . Alexander was high quality and limited production and Royal was also limited
production smaller and the dolls more expensive than Effanbee , but more available than Alexander. So many doll companies
had folded or gone over seas by the late 1980 there was not enough business for the doll parts suppliers to survive
with just Royal and Alexander left in production in this country. Also most of the doll parts companies owners were
very old (70 plus years generally) ; most of them were immigrants from the German toy industry who had come to America
after World War II and were ready to retire. Since their business was being eroded by the move overseas by most
manufactures the doll parts suppliers' children were not interested in taking over the business from their parents ; so they
closed. This left Alexander and Royal who were both total American production at that time in a bit of a pinch.
They had to buy up the machinery used for wigging and shoe making and do the production in house. Alexander and
Royal each bought the production cut and mold cast to create their own items and hired the employees to go with machines .
There was a bidding war for the best employees. Eventually these employees would float between companies since there
was not enough work at either of the two doll companies to keep them busy full time.The mold maker found other sources of
income producing other vinyl products as well as dolls to stay in business.
Miss Elsa had to rent a second floor
at the original factory site in NYC and add on the extra employees to run the machines. Needless to say her production
was not large enough to keep a shoe maker and a wiger busy all day ; five days a week. The hair styler was another story,
Inez stayed busy all day and Miss Elsa could have used two of her. This caused Royal cost of production to more than
double and needless to say the cost of American made dolls jumped just as import doll prices went way down. There was
no way for an American company to survive. Miss Elsa moved her factory several time and with the help of friends managed to
survive for a few more years; but reaching retirement age and due to health problems she finally retired. With the passing
of the Madame and Miss Elsa's retirement it was truly the end of the golden age of American dolls that started with Horseman
and Effanbee during World War I.
As for the wigging machine ,
it is not a toy for collectors to play with. Warren knew how to operate it and so did Miss Elsa. I was afraid of it.
It was huge and complicated and the sharp nidles moved at lighting fast pace. It made noise and was very scary.
I treasured my fingers more than I needed to root a doll hair! You could select hair length, rooting direction and hair color.
There were large spools of doll hair in many colors on the side and you would select the color shade you wanted and it
would blind it perfectly every time to match. You could even do frosted hair. Quite wonderful and fun to watch....from
a distance! Warren was great at it and he also made great shoes. We had a lot of fun helping Miss Elsa and I meet a lot of wonderful people and got to see the end of an era in doll history. You
are welcome to share this and my other memories on your site. I did enjoy reading Warren memories. Your
site is great and I hope more collectors with Royal dolls will come forward and help to expand it so that it does not become
lost in time.
David
Hi Deanna, The fading is a combination of things. The fabrics are dyed with a
mixture of different color dyes to achieve the proper color the weavers want. Sometimes they are natural dyes and sometimes
man made. Most today are the latter. A formula is used to mix the dyes so they can have a consistency in quality
control color. But even then there is differences from one dye lot to the next. All manufacture bolts of fabric have
a dye lot number on them. This becomes important if you need lots of fabric, say for window treatments....don't need
the curtains to meet in the middle and not match. The same is true for clothing...people and dolls.
Doll dresses were always made from the same bolt of fabric to insure matching tops, skirts and sleeves. Most all fabrics
are a mixture of dye colors to create the final color. Some reds may be more orange than others and that means
an orange dye was added to change the shade of red. Shades of blue are the most unstable of all the fabrics.
They had a range of added colors to get to that rich deep blue and through time the weaker dyes will fade away and the stronger
colors remain. Satin and taffeta are the most common fabrics to fade. They go from a bright deep blue to a deep purple
and then to light lavender and then to a pale pink. This is natural aging and will happen no matter what is done
with the fabric or how it is stored. This natural process can be excel rated by many things, one de-oxidation
from the air, exposure to light, exposure to acid (such as boxes and tissue paper) and the biggest cause is gas heat (it effects
the dyes and accelerates the fading) The 10 inch Alexander Jacqueline in the sheath gown with stole from 1962 is a prime
example of this. It came originally in pink, lavender, deep blue and yellow. Most are now lavender or pink (except
the yellow) and the only way to tell the original color is to check the threads. If it is pale pink with deep blue threads
the original color was blue. Why the threads do not change is a mystery to me??? Even the threads expose to air and light
do not change as a general rule.
The chemicals in the fabric dyes
are generally not effected by the dolls if they are cured properly, but as the dolls grow older they begin to decompose and
once again release gases and they reject the dyes placed in vinyl to color them. So eventually this will effect
the clothing. Vinyl is a white gum like material and it is heated to a liquid state and colors (dyes)
are added to get the skin tone and then ejection molded and cooled. Then the finishing touches are added such as cheek
color, lips, eye lashes and brows. Then the doll is (usually) sprayed with a sealer to set the colors. Some manufactures
skip this process, mostly the cheep dolls. As the vinyl dolls age they become sticky ; the protolium oils
is being rejected by the vinyl. The vinyl dolls as they age will start to change colors gradually as the dyes used in
the vinyl begin to shift and be rejected. They will turn tan or orange or sometimes green. This can be easily
washed off with a white cloth. So as collectors we refer to these changes as Suntanned or porcelain look .
The life expecenty of vinyl can very due to the grade of the vinyl. Very cheep vinyl that is not finished properly can
begin to change quickly in 10 years or less , High grade vinyl that is properly finished can go 40 or 75 plus years before
we see major changes. Vinyl will eventually try to revert back to it original state and try and become a ball again.
So when we see a doll who has curved legs or fingers out of their original shape this is the aging process. This process
can be accelerated when the doll is store in an Attic and exposed to extreme heat. Remeamber, the vinyl was
heated to be liquefied and then molded into shape; so extreme heat will speed up the aging process and the reversal back to
the original state. Companies that store their data on vinyl products have to transfer their data before the expiration
date is up on the vinyl used to save their documents.
Hard plastic dolls have their
own problems with aging. The Hard plastic was developed in the 1940 for the war effort and was used for bomb casings.
It was strong and easy to shatter when the bomb went off. It is a powder base mixed with oils and then poured into molds.
It was brought to the toy market after the war as the plastic manufactures searched for new outlets to replace the war production.
It was met with open arms by the Doll Companies who wanted to replace the easily broken composition dolls ( wood pulp,paper
and glue) with something more durable. With aging hard plastic dries out; the oils everaped. This is a very slow
process and can also be accelerated by heat in an attic. The result is crumbling, usually around the fragile areas
such as fingers and ankles and wrists. So be very careful and try not to put a lot of pressure on the hard plastic dolls fingers
when handling hard plastic dolls especially if you do not know their storage history.
How to store a doll? Good question! It is a no win situation. If not on displayed they need to be stored in acid
free boxes and acid free tissue paper or in 100 % cotton. This is expensive. The original boxes were cheep cardboard
and have a high acid base. So, when the dolls are store in a box with a lid that is a high acid box it makes the air
with in the box become acid and this accelerates the deteration of the doll and the clothing. So all our wonderful old
boxes are out to get us! When dolls are displayed they need to be out of direct light and under or behind glass to prevent
dust from getting on them. Dust is made of of many things; none of which are good for fabrics, but the biggest element in
dust that is damaging to dolls is old skin cells from our own bodies. Our bodies have an acid content and this is in the dust.
Also don't forget about dust mites....nasty little fellows who live off of the old skin cells in dust. They pee and
poop like all other creatures and this is not good for fabric. When handling dolls and their clothing it is best to
ware white gloves; these can be bought at your local Photo Store that sell photo supplies . They sell cheep white gloves that
are 100% cotton and very thin. The gloves with keep the natural oils and sweat of you hands off of the dolls and
their clothing. This may see extreme, but watch the major auction house and museums who handle fabrics and they will
have them on. The good news and the bad news. Air will eccelerate deturation ; but not as fast as an acid
box; also air will help dry out the oils as they are rejected by the vinyl making this process less noticeable.
In a doll case use museum lighting which is low UV ray. In other words we are fighting a loosing battle ; the
vinyl will probably out live us, but unfortunally they will never make it to Antique . Which is now been revamped
up to 100 years since the doll world added the term "vintage" to keep composition and hard plastic out of the Antique doll
world. Vinyl's are considered Modern by some and Vintage by others....so much to do about a hobby that is supose
to be fun! The extreme high prices that some old and some new vinyl dolls command has made it important for the collector
to understand what they need to do to protect their treasures. I have lost several doll to the aging process and it
makes one take notice. It is all about Science when trying to do consirvation of a collection. That
how museums do it!
Hope this will be of interest to you and
maybe a little help too! David
Hi Deanna,
My background is in Costume Design, Fashion History and restoration of Antique Clothing.
I designed doll dresses for Royal with Miss Elsa for about 4 years in the early 1990's and it was fun! Since I am a
doll collector first at heart and love costuming it was a dream come true to go to NYC and work with Miss Elsa; who is one
of the truly great ladies of the doll world!
How the dresses were selected is a good question and not an easy one to answer.
Usually for dolls it begins with finding a piece of fabric that will work for dolls. Most fabrics are designed for people
and they are either too heavy or the print is too large to work on dolls. Designing for modern
dolls has changed through the years....in the 1930-60 doll were playthings for children. They were designed to target
that market place. Then in the mid 1970s the doll collecting trend started and gradually most manufactures started creating
their line with both market places in mind. By the late 1990 the prices had soared on collectors doll and most manufactures
were after the big bucks and so production of dolls for children began to decrease. This change from a plaything to
a collectable had a huge impact on the manufactures, the market,the doll designers and the collectors. The
1930 were depression years and if someone could afford a doll it was for a child and ended up being played with . So
perfect doll mint in the box from the 1930s are few and far between and this effected the collectable value. By the
1950 money was more available and young girls began collecting doll rather than just playing with then and by the early 1990
most all dolls were considered to be too collectable for children to play with. The theory that doll only
go up in value took the doll away from the children and so most dolls of this period ended up not being played with and
are now mint in the box. So the value increases of collectors dolls decreased with mass production
and collectors hording everything in perfect collection. A Composition Judy Garland from the 1930 mint in the box is impossible
to find, but a 8 inch Dutch Girl from the 1980s is ready and available on EBay when wanted. So, back to the design
aspect; these changes in the economy and the market place effect what a company produces and it becomes the doll designer
job to fill this need. In the 1930's cheep fabric were used due to the depression and during World War II what ever fabric
that became available was used ( the major source of fabric was remounts from the garment district) and by the 1950's fabric
used for doll dresses became a designers selection.
My background is in Costume Design for the stage and after collage I did stage design and I can safely say that doll design
is more fun and less work than theater. So when I went to NYC to work with Miss Elsa I approached my designing
for dolls the same as I would for a show. 1.) Decide on a chacture 2.) research your subject 3.) start sketching
ideas. Your are only as good as your research! Since the decision had already been made to do the Empresses
and Queens of Europe ; I read up on these women and decided who was the most interesting, most beautiful and who had
lead the most dramatic lives. Well naturally Marie Antoinette was at the top of the list as was Empress Alexandra of Russia
and for beauty Empress Josephine and Elizabeth of Austria. The real problem was selecting one of these ladies
and so in the end Royal ended up with a group of Queens to replace the Opera collection that had only 1 doll
addition a year. After the ladies were selected I did research on their lives and the events in history around
them. I photocopied pictures of them and got together information on the costumes of their period. Most all of
these Queen and Empresses had influenced the fashion of their period just as Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow of the silver screen
influenced the fashion of the 1930 and 1940. Empress Elizabeth of Austria was the Princess Diana of her day and was
called Sissy by her people. Marie Antoinette's fashion extravances toppled an empire and she lost her head in the end!
The research done each Queen was placed in a file folder along with a few sketches and labeled with the Queen's
name.
Once
my research was done and I had arrived in NYC ; Miss Elsa and I set down over coffee and Danish from her favorite German bakery
(Doll design is also very fatting when you do it with Miss Elsa) and we selected the top three Queens to make sample dolls
of. This number would expand as we had more fun designing these great ladies of history. Then the fun began; selecting
fabrics.
In her NYC factory there was a wall of bolts of fabric almost a block long and ceiling high (ladder need for the top two shelves)
full of fabrics. These fabrics had been collected there since the 1950 with new as well as vintage.
The small yardage vintage fabrics could be used on limited production dolls only since they could not be reorder. If
you couldn't find a fabric there then there was the wall of file cabinets of sample cards of fabric from her suppliers.
These were arranged by fabric type cotton, taffeta, velvet, etc. In huge boxes on shelves in the back of the factory
were trimmings; lace, silk flowers and trim. Once again vintage as well as new. Talk about a doll collectors heaven.
So the hard part was making a selection of what to use there was so much to pick from. Miss Elsa , Inga and
myself would work together in making a sample . Inga ran the production line and she had the final say. Could it
be made. She often told us we were crazy.....
The research was the guideline on the dolls of actual people from history and all the other dolls that were designed it
was what you liked. Sometime something worked and sometimes it didn't and availability of materials always played
in to the finished dolls in the line. The manufactory would send sample bolts of app 5 to 10 yards to be used in producing
samples. Once in a while the fabric would not be available when ordered.
On Queen Elizabeth I a sample doll was produce in a lovely emerald green and copper brocade. After Toy fair the
order was placed for the fabric and it was no longer available and so a change was made to a plum brocade that was still available
( Miss Elsa had used the plum brocade once before on another doll from an earlier year) . So there were
only about 20 dolls produced in green before the change to plum accrued. Marie Antoinette was designed in soft shade
of rose with a rose and lavender floral satin over dress and white wig. Once finished and we stepped back and looked at her......
Miss Elsa, Inga and myself all said at once" not gaudy enough" so that sample was put aside and we started over and
we used a rich pink lame with an overdress of a pink and gold floral lame. Very over the top. The head
was removed from the first doll and placed on the new Marie and she went into the production line. After a few
jokes about the headless doll it was decided that something needed to be done with that design. We had said earlier
that it was more Madame Pompadour than Marie Antoinette and so she got a new head of soft blond hair in a
simpler hair style and entered the doll line as Madame Pompadour. Empress Elizabeth of Austria's dress was a simple
choice, the Winterhaulter portrait in the lovely gold dress of stars was the only choice. The original gown was silk net embroidered
with tiny gold Edelweiss (the flower of Austria) in a basic Worth 1860 ball gown style. Silk is too expensive,
but there was nylon net with gold star burst that worked fine on her and was also cost effective.
The bulk of the cost in the Empress of Austria was in the hair style of braids and curls with clear rhinestones for the stars
in her hair. It took Inez over two hours to style Sissi hair.It was always a mad search for jewelry small enough to use on
a doll, but the search was always fun. Each doll in the line has her own story to tell of its creation.
I hope this
answered your question and the answer was not to long....as I said a good question ; but not easy to answer.
David
Hi! I will think it over and then write up a start to finish production run for you.
Tell your sewer that she need not feel bad that she went into education and left design. With education you get paid
enough to eat. As for Design there is so much computation for every job; both big and small; that they can pick
and choose who they hire and the pay is awful. This is true with all art related positions. I have heard stories
about working conditions both amateur and professional jobs that would scare you to death. ..both in the theater and
in the doll world. I left theater because the pay was awful and the hours long and there was always trauma and drama
going on and someone screaming about something.So what do I do ; go opened a doll store.....talk about not getting paid and
how to loose money in a hurry. No matter how much you know and how good you are there is never enough money
to make a collectors store work unless you have unlimited funds behind it. Notice how many small stores
close every year? The successful one are usually a tax right off for a rich husband! Design is fun and a great
creative outlet and I love it. But no one wants to pay for it. My best friend makes the most perfect doll clothing and
she can not make enough money sewing to support herself. She says she is lucky if she makes about $2 an hour. Just like
Warren said when I worked for Miss Elsa I didn't get paid. I stayed at her home and she feed me well. I also received one
of each of the dolls I worked on. She was a dear lady and it was a totally fun place to work. I was lucky and would
not trade the experience for anything. I love Miss Elsa and her sister Inga and the rest of her family. The two
months I spent each year with her were a total joy, better than a trip to Disneyworld! The combination of my love of
dolls and design was brought together and that can be very exciting. I will write more on production after I think
it out.....David
Hi Deanna! Thought about your question and it is a three part question as there is not
one production line but generally three going all at once and each is probably working on a different doll at the same time.
So here is a general brake down of a day of Production at Royal.
There
is only one word for the Royal factory in NYC and that is gray. Everything was gray. I was there in January and February
so the sky was gray and the snow on the ground had turned gray with the soot of the city. The multi floored factory stood
behind a gray chain link fence that made it look like a prison and not a factory. There was a fire escape on the far left
side ;also gray. This turned out to be the main iterance to the factory on the 4 floor. It was covered in ice also gray
with soot. I am from the South and we do not do ice very well. It was very scary! The door to the factory
was gray metal and the inside was just as gray. The floor and wall that were once cream 60 years ago had turned dove
gray with age. At the front of the factory was the office run by Edie; Miss Elsa nice. She was super sweet and a great
business person . She controlled the orders and managed the shipping and the finances. Behind her was the production floor
at the rear was the storage and frothier back was the doll body parts department.
Production of a doll.......First step after design is to make a master pattern . This is done on thick paper and each part
is labeled with the production number. At Royal the numbers were made up by first two numbers were the last
two numbers of the year the doll is introduced into the line followed by a dash then the next two number referred to the doll
size /mold being used and the last two numbers were style. The pattern were placed into a large envelope made
of heavy cardboard. Included in the envelope was a product list of materials used and a doll dress. These envelops were
store by the production number of the doll under the cutting table. These patterns went back many years . A sample doll
is placed on the shelves against the far wall of the production room and clearly labeled. This is the production road
map to insure quality control.
Doll Assembly .......The vinyl parts come in separate boxes for each piece from the molder. The heads have already visited Inez
for hair styling with hairnets and been bagged in plastic to protect the hair styles The vinyl parts are warmed in an
oven to soften them up and make them easy to pop into the body. The warm heads go to the eye machine where an eye is
placed in a cylinder and the injected into the head(this is done before the hair is styled) . It is very hard to
do and you can end up with crossed or walled eyed dolls. Miss Elsa had a small tool that she would tap the
eyes with to reset any that went a stray. She tried to teach me how to do it; but it is a talent and she was the only one
there besides the man who ran the machine that could do it. Once the parts are warmed a person sits with the parts around
them right arms and legs to his right and left on the left with head and bodies in front. Then they are popped
together and placed in a box that also has a production number on it. If the parts start to cool too fast they had a hair
drier to help out. If the body's are vinyl instead of hard plastic then only the bodies need to be heated; this change
from Hard plastic to vinyl bodies speeds things up in production. The box of assembled dolls are ten sent to storage
.
Dress production.....Head cutter manages the cutting table and the fabric is laid out in layers and a dye cut is used of the
pattern to cut mult dresses at once if it is a standard pattern used over and over each year ( Baby dresses....same pattern
only color and collar changes). For the more complex dresses only one or two are cut at a time. This runs up production
cost on the more elaborate dolls such as Opera or the Queens. The pattern pieces are taken to the sewing line as cut.
You don't need lots of fabric puzzle pieces laying around ; so assembly is done at once as the garments are cut. The
sewing line is made up of 6 or so rows of machines that are 3 to 4 machines deep across. There are bright light that hangs
from the ceiling...like the one in a police movies from the 1940 with huge metal shades that reflect the light......gray
shades !The machines are industrial strength and look to be at least 50 years old. They are the same ones used
in the garment district. Each machine does on thing . Some sew, some surge and cut and others do button holes. There
is also a snap sewer that you put a snap in and push a button on zap it is on in one touch. Some companies use
round only and some square. Royal used round and Alexander used square. Guess what color the machines are.....gray!
Each sewer only does one step and then passes it along. So one does the top seam of the bodice, one inserts a sleeve
left, one right etc. Most offer small or less expensive doll had only two seems on a bodice ; one under each arm. Once
the bodice reaches the end of it row it is passed forward to the next row of sewers for the skirt and then passed on to snaps
or button holes and so at the end of the line you have a finished dress. the dresses are tossed into baskets ( much like a
bicycle basket) at the end of each row and then the next can grab it as ready till it reaches the end. When
producing simple garment like underwear each line of sewers finishes an item with out passing it forward. The finished
dress are then hung on small racks and bagged in clear plastic. Then the rack is taken to the assembly table.
There the doll will be finished and boxed
Assembly of the doll......The
is a huge table that three or four people sit at and the doll is dressed . One person does under clothing and the next does
dressed and then it is passed to one who does trim and flowers or accessories and the it is box by the last person and placed
on a flat bed car that is then rolled to shipping and sent to the stores and finally to big and little girls!
Hope this is what you wanted. I will write more about Miss Elsa later.
She is so wonderful. David
Hi Deanna! The 14 R mold has always had a lot of talked about it and Ideal gets the
credit for it. It in reality did not have anything to do with Ideal or Miss Revlon except that the mold maker
that supplied most all the parts to all the doll companies was selling it out his back door to anyone who needed
an undressed doll. Actually the mold maker had artist that worked for them and designed mold on a special order basis . They
would often farm these dolls out the back door with the marks removed to smaller doll companies and especially to the Gift
Market dealers. These molds were referred to as "open Stock Molds" meaning no company had an exclusive on them. Sometimes
a mold would be slipped out that a company did have an exclusive on and this was referred to as a "Pirated Mold". The 14 R
is very close to the Revlon doll , but there are a few slight differences in the jaw line and she did use the same
basic body as Revlon. She is so close to the Revlon she could probably be considered "Pirated". The Toy Fair and the
Gift Market shows were separate and the two Markets usually had different buyers. So it was pretty safe to slip things
around and make a few fast extra bucks back in the 1950s. Huge companies like Ideal and Mattel really didn't care if
there was a cheaper doll with their face at the gift show. They were too big and two busy to get caught up in any legal hassle
over something they did not see as "their " competition. Madame Alexander , American Character and Nancy Ann dolls on
the other had took the opposite view point. If you look close at the Effanbee Little Lady face and at Alexander's Margaret
face you will see a strong resemblance. First the same designer probably did both the two dolls and Doll Artist have
a look that carries through out their work. Molds were twicked around. Twicked means slight changes are made; such as
wider jaws or thinner cheeks. The nose, eyes and moth were too hard to change and required more work; so usually the
jaw, cheeks or chin was changed. It was quick and cheaper to twick and move on and make money. The 14 R mold
was sold to hundreds of small companies and can be found in lots of different boxes under lots of names. I have one bride
that is 14R in a box marked Paul Mall Dolls and another in EF& G box. Same doll just different box. Sometimes the grade
of vinyl will vary on these dolls and that is due to the quality of vinyl ordered by each company. Uneeda bought the
doll just like all the rest and boxed them under their name. They were a smaller company up against Effanbee, Ideal and American
Character for the mid price doll market. Alexander and Nancy Ann were out to get the higher marked . Royal
used these basic 14 R doll during the early 1950 and gradually up graded. They were the smallest of the major doll companies.The
Grandmother doll was one of the company's steps up in the doll world. It was an original face and a better grade vinyl and
had nicer clothing. For many years doll historians were crediting Ideal or Alexander for the doll due to the high quality
and originality which was not necessarily a hallmark of the early years of Royal. Grandmother was the work of Miss Rose;
who was trying to take Royal into the ranks of Alexander and American Character. There was a doll dressing company called
A&E that would make dresses on a limited basis as well as massed produced. They did work for all the major companies.
They would pick up the over run production when the big guys got behind. Miss Elsa's sister Inga started sewing for them when
she first came to America from Germany and Miss Elsa got a job there when she and her daughter came to America a few years
later. Eventually Miss Elsa would move up from sewing to doll dress design. So a small gift company could buy
the undressed dolls from the molder and then order boxes and stock dresses to fit the 14 R mold and have their own doll line.
Most of this was a one shot deal and so there is no home company for Miss 14 R unlike Cissy who calls Alexander home.
The mold maker did try to slip a Alexander molds out the back door. The most obvious was 20" Candy; the fashion doll
sold in Grocery Stores with manikins and three complete outfits. The story of the Madame and the mold maker is a Toyland
legend and Madame's molds never slipped out again. The 15" mold used by Royal and referred to as Tara was originally
an open stock mold ; but Miss Elsa bought the mold out right as an exclusive for Royal in the late 1970s. In the mid
1980 the mold maker sold some unmarked Tara dolls and Miss Elsa found out and proved she could be a effective as Bea Alexander!
Miss Elsa's mold never strayed away from home again. When American Character closed, Madame Alexander bought some of their
molds. The Toni Fashion doll's one piece arms would replace Cissy's chubby two piece arms. They were first used on Alexander's
Shari Lewis and would find their way to Cissy and then Jacqueline. Madame got the twist and turn waist mold, but due
to stringing problems did not put it into her production line. So unless you have a box or a tag it is impossible
to know who to give credit to for the 14 R doll creation. She is the Orphan Annie of the 1950's Doll World!
Hope
this answered the 14 R question and if anyone has questions let me know and I will try to answer them. David
Hi!
I love Candy too. I saw her in the grocery stores when I was little.
No one knows exactly what happened. Madame designed a new face, Jacqueline, in vinyl with rooted hair .
This was the innovative new medium for doll, vinyl was soft to the child's touch and had rooted hair that
was more playable than wigged hair. The Jacqueline vinyl head replaced the Hard plastic Cissy head that was wigged.the
Jacqueline face was originally made to be used on a doll that reflected the style of the First Lady of the day. There was
also a Caroline doll to go with her. No last name used. Like our current First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy was not amused and
the Jacqueline doll disappeared from the Alexander line after 2 years. The Jacqueline head would replace Cissy on the
Alexander portrait dolls. It seems that since the mold maker was creating a new head for the 21 inch Alexander line that he
must have felt Alexander had no more interest in the Cissy face. There had been several smaller dolls that had a face
very close to the Cissy face in other lines during this time period. Horseman had a Cindy and Uneeda had a Dollikins.
These seemed to go unnoticed, but Candy did not. Possibly the large size was just a little to close. The rumor was out
the Madame was unhappy and the look-a-like face disappeared.
The new Candy is wonderful and well
done, especially the clothing and accessories.
Marie Osmond works for the company that makes Candy. She sold her company to them
a few years ago. I don't think it has changed hands again. She has not been involved in the Candy doll production to my knowledge.
About 3, maybe 4 years
ago there was a line of new Revlon dolls introduced in vinyl and porcelain in reproduction clothing. They were over
the top gorgeous. I believe the company that did the "US Stamp" Doll Collection was involved. I don't know
what happened, but delivery was delayed and delayed and then nothing. It is a shame, the prototypes were beautiful and they
were as beautiful as the originals and a couple of the dolls were even better than the originals. The prototypes are
out there somewhere.....? David
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