Add whimsical Annalee dolls to your antique collection.
Annalee dolls were created by Barbara Annalee Davis during the Great Depression. She began making dolls that featured hand-dyed fabric and hand-painted faces as a hobby. She made her first dolls in the 1930s to represent her sons. She made dolls that looked like they were swimming, skiing and doing other outdoor sports for all of the seasons and a variety of holidays. Eventually, she also made dolls that looked like animals and elves. There are a handful of ways you can identify whether the doll you have is an authentic Annalee doll and roughly what year it was made.
Instructions
1. Find the tag on the doll. Tags are found sewn into the clothing or on the bottom of the doll. The earliest dolls from the 30's have hand-written tags. Some tags are machine embroidered and have copyright dates included. Tags after 1970 are either silk or stiff gauze. All Annalee dolls have "Annalee" written somewhere on the tag, regardless of the other information the tag provides.
2. Check the date on the tag. Dolls made after 1961 have the last two digits of the year they were made printed at the end of the copyright number. The last Annalee dolls were made in 2001, so if a tag has a number that indicates it was made after this year, it isn't authentic.
3. Observe what type of hair the doll has. The majority of Annalee dolls have either yarn, feathers or fur for hair. Yarn is common on the earliest dolls. The feather hair became popular in the early 1960's with synthetic fur following.
4. Look at the face of the doll. An Annalee doll has a one-of-a-kind, hand-painted face with a large smile. The smiles on the dolls are unique to the Annalee style of painting.
5. Look for a signature on the ski's of skiing dolls. Annalee's husband, Chip, used a pressure cooker to soften the wood so he could bend the ski tips to look authentic. Authentic skiing dolls have Annalee's signature on the tip of each ski.
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