Vintage Paper Doll Collecting

The Poor Girl's Doll Collection Can Be an All-Consuming Passion

Oct 6, 2009

Paper dolls have historically been popular when household money was tight. Collectors, however, seek vintage paper dolls for the "joy of the hunt", not the modest price.

First and foremost, the paper doll collector is a highly organized person. The only reasonable way to keep a collection is with file folders, organized chronologically, alphabetically, by brand, or era. Once the system is in place, the collector is free to build their collection, starting with the all-consuming “hunt”.

Early 20th-century Magazine Paper Dolls Illustrate Popular Culture of the Era

Some of the most interesting paper dolls are found in the large-format women’s magazines at the start of the 20th century. These include the fascinating Rose O’Neill “Kewpie” paper dolls from the Woman’s Home Companion, and also the meticulous Shiela Young “Lettie Lane” and "Betty Bonnet" paper dolls found in the Ladies’ Home Journal. The Pictorial Review magazine’s Grace Drayton “Dolly Dingle” paper dolls were very popular in the 1920s and 1930s. And the Betsy McCall paper dolls found in McCall’s magazine were popular in the 1950s and 1960s.

The die-hard collectors prefer the rarer finds: the Delineator’s “Carolyn Chester’s Full-Base Paper Dolls”, or odd paper dolls from Canadian Home Journal or Comfort magazine. There are also many magazine paper dolls that exist in the advertising pages: there is a “Marilyn Maxwell” paper doll on a Quadriga Fabric advertisement from 1948 (this appeared in Life magazine), and also a Quadriga Fabric “Stanley Musial” paper doll the same year.

Antique paper dolls are usually the most valued in a collection – for instance, the French poupee paper dolls banned in Paris by Louis XV, because they satirized the nobility. However, the celebrity paper doll books published by Whitman, Saalfield, and Merrill during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s have become the most sought-after in recent times.

Paper doll books became popular during the 1930s because they were so much less expensive than other play things. Imaginative artists like Queen Holden took the sets to the extreme with accessories like furniture, vanity sets, wigs, pet dogs, and then clothes for the pet dogs as well. As the economy improved, the books became more glamorous, lush, and dazzling. Examples of these are coveted sets for Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Doris Day and Elizabeth Taylor.

Baby Boomer Collectors Set Market Value for Paper Doll Sets

The Baby Boomers often collect the sets that existed during their childhood. Lucille Ball, The Beverly Hillbillies, That Girl, and Twiggy sets are in demand right now for that reason. The Boomers also collect the Barbie paper doll sets of their childhood (those published from 1960 to 1970). They are competing with the Barbie collectors for these vintage sets, which makes them quite pricey at auction.

Vintage Paper Dolls are Everywhere

Vintage paper dolls are everywhere: in comic books (Katy Keene and Fritzi Ritz, for example), and in Sunday Newspaper comic strips (Flash Gordon and early Tillie the Toiler are most sought after), on Howard Johnson’s children’s menus, greeting cards, valentines, and on the back of cereal boxes. Paper doll collecting is never exhausted, because there is yet another category, that of the homemade paper doll, of which there is no definable limit.

The copyright of the article Vintage Paper Doll Collecting in Collectibles is owned by Polly White. Permission to republish Vintage Paper Doll Collecting in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.