COVER STORY : Collectors Embrace These Dolls

His body collapsed years ago and his face is scrunched like a doubled-up fist. To many, this misshapen figure looks like nothing more than a congealed puddle of disintegrated rubber. But to Solana Beach resident Jo McKirahan, this is the doll she keeps in a place of honor and has never had the heart to throw away.

In Kathleen Clark Sweeney’s Carlsbad antique shop, she surrounds herself with several old dolls from her personal collection, including her favorite of papier-mache. It doesn’t matter that the doll is missing its head.

To avoid having her more than 2,000 dolls strewn about the house, Carlsbad resident Mary Lou Voigt had her husband move the hot tub out of the back yard and build a storage area. Voigt has limited herself to just one cabinet in the living room for her older Ginny dolls.

These are just a few North County residents who regard their dolls on a higher plane than toys. They are among a large group of collectors in the country who spend small fortunes on their dolls, books and accessories, travel the world looking for new acquisitions and join clubs for camaraderie and networking.

Ranked second only to stamps, dolls are among America’s most favorite collectibles, according to several national collectible publications. Some people buy dolls with an eye toward investment, but a vast majority add to their collections because of some emotional pull.

If their doll doesn’t come with a name, they will select a suitable one. Collectors with an emotional bond will talk to their dolls, style their hair and dress them up for holidays and special occasions.

If necessary, they will restore and conserve. Considering that many collectors have thousands of dolls in their possession, this is no easy feat.

The popularity of collecting dolls has as much to do with tapping childhood memories as it does with investing in a piece of art, said Joan Pursley, editor of Dolls magazine.

“Some of it stems from collectors who did not have dolls growing up,” Pursley said. “They came from poor childhoods where their only doll was a rag doll. Now they can afford pretty dolls and capture something they missed from childhood.

“Or it can be simply seeing beautiful dolls,” Pursley said. “Not all dolls are in essence art objects, but they are works of art in one way or another, and it’s not uncommon for collectors to buy dolls as art instead of figurines or paintings.”

Pursley said collecting dolls is “an American thing” and feeds on itself. A collector will often buy one doll, decide it looks lonely, and buy a second one.

“There is something catching about collecting,” she said. “Once you’re involved, it grows on you.”

“I read not long ago that if a population of a town is 1,000, the doll population is 10,000,” said Carlsbad collector Mary Lou Voigt. “When you stop to think about it, just about everybody you know has some kind of doll in their house.”

Escondido doll artist Sarajane Helm agrees that dolls are fundamental and their appeal broad.

“Dolls are something that are really basic to society,” Helm said. “It doesn’t make a difference where you are from, every culture uses dolls.”

“They have a lot of power to them, they pull people in,” she said. “Whether they are cute or not so cute, they are small and you can do things with them. That makes them popular.”

Its origins are sketchy, but doll collecting has always been able to span generation gaps and economic levels. In the past decade, collecting has enjoyed a new vogue thanks primarily to exposure on television shopping channels and in mail-order catalogues.

“Doll collecting has really come into its own in the last 10 years, partly due to the growth in the number of artists and limited editions, and partly due to the attention that television and mail orders have given to collecting,” magazine editor Pursley said. “There are people who buy their first three or four dolls on TV who have never noticed there is a doll shop in their town.”

Magazines also play a part. About eight national publications keep doll collectors abreast of trends, auctions and shows. Local booksellers often run out of these magazines within three or four days, one collector said.

Doll shows, too, pull in hundreds of thousands of collectors each year from around the country.

Belonging to one or more clubs is probably the best outlet for collectors to swap information and indulge their passions. With 20 members, the North San Diego County Doll Club meets monthly and is among the most active local groups. Some clubs are very specialized and may meet only once a year or exist through correspondence only.

However proud collectors might be of their dolls, many are wary of showing them to anyone but friends and family, and rarely will they discuss how much they spent on their collections. They fear the emotional and financial loss that theft would create.

In light of the recent $1-million Barbie heist in San Diego, area collectors have become even more fiercely protective of their possessions. Barbie collector Glen Offield had described his loss this way: “I’m totally devastated by this. They meant everything to me. I could do without eating. I don’t know if I can live without them.” The dolls were later recovered undamaged.

Just like jewelry or furs, dolls are covered under normal homeowner insurance policies, but some people go an extra step and buy special insurance for their collections.

As an added measure, one collector goes through her home every couple of months with a camcorder and videotapes her dolls. Another collector, who does show her dolls to interested parties, does not display her most prized dolls and keeps them under lock and key.

The precautions are just as much to protect their financial investments as their emotional ones. Collectors accept matter-of-factly that $4,000 for an original Gibson Girl is a reasonable price to pay, but for those who have had dolls stolen, they talk about losing a dear friend.

Most collectors agree that accumulating dolls is not a cheap hobby and the money spent on their own caboodles could probably finance the operations of a small country. But, in the pursuit of dolls, the anthem seems to be, “If I can’t afford the $3,000 doll, maybe I can afford the $300 doll.”

Different levels of collecting make it possible for anyone to own dolls, Pursley said. Because antique dolls have become so cost-prohibitive, many collectors now purchase only contemporary dolls by living artists, while those with their hearts set on something special will save up or take a part-time job.

“Certainly, the thing about doll collecting is there are dolls in an enormous price range so that no matter the income level, there are little gems you can choose from,” Pursley said. “Some people spend their extra money on clothes, movies, theater or entertaining. With collectors, their spare money is spent on their collections.”

Making the most of extra money, however, requires collectors to be more selective. With doll manufacturers flooding the market, collectors can’t keep up and shouldn’t try, said Voigt, a member of the Barbie Club.

“Our members used to try to get every Barbie that came out, but now Mattel is making like 15 a month instead of 15 a year so we have to pick and choose,” Voigt said. “For example, now, we’ll just buy the Christmas doll because it’s one in a series.”

Often, a collector will purchase dolls that are not exactly what they want but that will aid them in bartering for a desired doll, said Kathleen Clark Sweeney, owner of the Lion and the Lamb antique shop in Carlsbad.

“I have collectors who are constantly upgrading their collection,” she said. “They’ll bring me something they want to get rid of so they can get something older or perhaps more valuable.

“I had a girl come in this week and she had picked up a lot of plastic from the ‘70s and ‘60s. She collected those because she couldn’t afford what she really wanted, a bisque-headed doll.”

Mail-order magazines and television shopping channels provide convenience, but part of the joy of collecting is the hunt for something your neighbor doesn’t have, Pursley said. National doll conventions and antique shops are good foraging grounds for the collector with some resources, but scouring swap meets, flea markets and garage sales for hidden treasures are other good outlets.

Half the odyssey of buying a doll is researching its history. Sometimes collectors have only a slim lead, such as the doll’s mark.

All dolls are marked--usually at the nape of the neck--with a manufacturer’s number or letter. With this scant information, collectors turn into doll detectives and head to their personal doll libraries, which invariably include Jan Foulke’s “Blue Book: Dolls and Values.”

Most collectors are people who can tell the difference between a Simon and Halbig and a Jumeau Tete at 20 paces. But sometimes, finding a doll in less than perfect condition requires a certain vision.

Clark Sweeney recently restored a doll that a client brought to her after finding it in a wall during renovation of a house in Utah. The composition doll, made of sawdust and glue, was missing its body, and the face was cracked and discolored from years of heat and cold.

She deduced that the doll’s original owner played in the attic of the house and that the doll slipped through the slats of the unfinished floor. She said it is not uncommon for people to find dolls in old houses that way.

“There are so many stories like that,” she said of the plethora of places dolls pop up. “It makes you wonder, ‘Who played with it? Did it come across the prairie? How did it get here?’ ”

There is also a story behind how each collector came to be attached to dolls. Clark Sweeney began her first collection as a young girl in Europe with the help of her father. As a military man, he traveled extensively and bought his two daughters dolls from wherever he went. The footlocker filled with the dolls was lost when the family moved back to the United States.

“I never got over that,” Clark Sweeney said. “Now, I still think that must be behind why I love dolls and never get tired of collecting.”

Clark Sweeney had several careers, including one as a deputy district attorney in Orange County, before buying the Lion and the Lamb. Her first doll acquisition as an adult came when she graduated from law school. Her collection is not as large as some, but she said she has narrowed it down in order to have the dolls she absolutely loves.

Her favorite is her fashion doll, an antique figure that was originally used as a model by design houses to display the newest dresses. This doll has a miniature fan with an ivory-carved handle, a wardrobe trunk, leather gloves and pince-nez. It also has its own collection of about 40 miniature dolls. A four-tiered cabinet at home has been converted into a large doll house for that prized collection.

While her husband watches sports, Clark Sweeney looks at her doll house and its inhabitants.

“My husband can appreciate something nice that I point out about the dolls, but I can see his eyes glazing over if I talk to him too much about it,” she said.

Besides her dolls, Clark Sweeney has a passion for doll clothes and accessories. She has sewn almost all of the clothes for her dolls, and searches far and wide for antique fabrics, lace and patterns to bring authenticity to her collection.

“I love dressing my dolls, even for the holidays,” Clark Sweeney said. “They all have their own wardrobes. I monogram little things for them.”

Mary Lou Voigt’s collection of about 2,000 boasts mainly Ginnys and Barbies, including an original 1959 Barbie.

Voigt keeps her collection in a storage room specially built for her dolls. Her appreciation for her dolls does not extend to having them overrun her house, she said. “I have gone to people’s houses where you can’t sit in the living room because the dolls are there, dolls are in every nook and cranny,” she said. “I can’t do that.”

She began collecting when she was in the Marine Corps and helped with the Toys for Tots holiday gift-giving program.

“People would give us the dolls throughout the year and they would need to be cleaned up and made pretty, so I would have lots of them around when Christmastime came,” Voigt said. But she got to know some of the dolls too well in the process. “It got harder and harder each year to part with them, so lots of times I’d go out and buy dolls to replace some of those.”

A couple of years ago, when Voigt retired from teaching, she went to work at the Doll Doktor, a Carlsbad business that specializes in repairing dolls. Her parting shot to her students: “I’m going to work with dolls now that sit there and don’t talk back.”

Her remark underscores what a number of collectors have said about their dolls. They make good companions.

“When I dress my 3-year-old, we have fights about what shirt he will wear, but when I dress my dolls, it’s my line all the way,” said Helm, the Escondido doll artist. “Dolls don’t change their minds. Dolls don’t complain.”