GUEST: When my grandparents passed away, we found these couple dolls and found this one in the bottom of the trunk.
APPRAISER: Well, I understand you also said that you'd taken it apart, but couldn't find any mark on it.
GUEST: Yeah, I started looking at it trying to figure out if there was a marking on it, and I didn't see anything.
APPRAISER: Well, it was made by the Simon & Halbig firm. And they're known for the beautiful bisques. What's also special, he's got the original sheen to his composition body. And thirdly, he's got these wonderful original clothes, original leather boots, nice little wool outfit, all original, original mohair wig. So everything is just wonderful about him. The firm started making French fashion dolls, then dolly-faced dolls, and then they went into character dolls. And this is what we call a character doll. Normally, they would be marked on the back, but not every one is. So this doll is not marked, that's why you couldn't find anything. And what makes him so special is the character face. If you'll notice, a little moustache. And nice molded eyebrows, beautiful eyes, and he even has little eye lines right here.
GUEST: Oh yeah.
APPRAISER: Beautiful, beautiful modeling, beautiful quality bisque. And that makes him very, very special as a character doll by Simon & Halbig. Would you like to guess the value?
GUEST: Probably $500 something, in that area, $500, a little more?
APPRAISER: I'll buy him, sold. (laughing) Not really, but actually he's worth $3,000 to $4,000.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: If he was marked, you could go to the higher end, but he's definitely Simon & Halbig because of the face, and the other versions of this are marked. And that's how we know for sure that he's a Simon & Halbig.
