GUEST: I brought in two very old wooden dolls. I don't know a great deal about them. I'm very curious what you can tell me about them.
APPRAISER: Where did you find them?
GUEST: In the thumb of Michigan, up by Lexington or Sandusky area. I've been collecting since I was a child and I buy and I trade and I love stuff. And a woman called me and asked me if I wanted to buy some dolls, and I said, "No, I don't care so much about dolls." She said, "They're very, very old. Maybe you can look at them." And when she came in, I really just wanted this one. But I ended up with both of them. I understand she inherited them, and she didn't know anything about them.
APPRAISER: I'm not able to talk about the small doll properly to you. I can't do the kind of authentication that I would need to do here. So we'll just talk about the big doll today.
GUEST: Excellent.
APPRAISER: This early English doll dates from the early 1700s and were only owned by wealthy children, or children of royalty, in particular. She is wood and painted. So it's fairly common to see crazing and pieces of paint that will flake off. When you have a piece that is this early, you can expect that there's going to be damage. She has that little black, pupil-less eye which is an indication of an early piece. You can see dotting that has been used on her eyebrows. And that's another early doll signature. She has an all-wood body. In fact, she's completely wood except for her upper arm, and her upper arm feels like it is a cloth. Her clothing is melting-- melting happens when you have a silk fabric and it's weighted with metals. And it causes shredding, such as you see here. It wouldn't be very often that you would find a doll of this period with original clothes. It could be, but it would take more research in order to tell that. She has a human hair wig and that may or may not be original to her. She also could have had a flax hair wig. There are very few of these that have ever survived. You do find them in museums. You don't find them out in the general public very often. She's in very good condition, and because she is of that early 1700s, Queen Anne period, in a retail setting, she probably would be valued in the range of $15,000 to $20,000.
GUEST: Really?
APPRAISER: Yes.
GUEST: Oh, my. For the two dolls, I paid $100.
APPRAISER: So you had quite a bargain.
GUEST: I didn't even want that one! (chuckling) I wanted this one. (laughs)
