Collector Doll Display Saturday

The Lilac City Club is hosting a doll show starting Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Days Inn on Sunset Highway.

More than 70 tables will display dolls ranging in price from $5 to more than $1,000, sold by collectors from throughout the Northwest.

To some, the historical value outweighs the dollar value.

Anita Murphy has been collecting dolls for 20 years. Her favorites are the dolls that have a story behind them.

“These dolls tell a great deal about the people who owned them,” Murphy said. “They go back to the tombs of pharaohs, dating back to forever.”

The dolls at Saturday’s event will date back as far as the late 1800s, back when dolls were sent to the United States as mannequins wearing the latest fashions from France.

Some dolls were modeled after storybook characters. Others were used as teaching tools to get little girls in the habit of sewing and mothering.

Depending on the time they were molded, dolls were made of a myriad of materials from basic sawdust and glues to papier-mache, tin and piano strings.

Original doll clothes can be as rare and expensive as the dolls themselves, said Mary Lou, who lives on the North Side and who asked that her last name not be used.

Mary Lou takes extreme caution to protect her doll collection from being stolen. She learned the lesson from a friend who had a rare and expensive doll stolen from her home in Seattle.

“She was so sick from losing it,” Mary Lou said.

Mary Lou started collecting baby dolls in the 1970s. Once she became a grandmother, she switched to collecting little girl dolls.

“Now all the grandkids have grown up and I am back to babies,” she said.

Once a person starts collecting dolls the hobby can easily expand, she said. She also collects costumes, tea party dishes and miniature figurines.

She and other doll collectors in the citywide group travel to doll shows all over the state searching for the next rare treasure to add to their collection.

And with Internet technology, doll shoppers are able to span the world to complete their collections.

Still, some collectors buy to sell.

Bonita Mason, a member of the doll club, said she plans to buy a digital camera to take pictures of her dolls and sell them on the Web.

Murphy said she will continue to buy her dolls the old-fashioned way.

“I like to see them in person and pick them up and touch them,” Murphy said.