The Dolls With Unforgettable Eyes
With googly eyes or goo-goo eyes, dolls nicknamed Googlies were popular early in the 20th century. Rose O’Neill, creator of Kewpie dolls, and Grace Drayton, the artist who created the Campbell’s Kids and Dolly Drake, were the best-known designers of Googlies, but many other illustrators and doll makers imitated their style.
A googly eye is almost a circle with a dark circle of color inside for the pupil. The large eyes added a “cuteness” factor to the childlike figures with large, round heads and tiny mouths and noses. Collectors today like the wide-eyed dolls and pay high prices for all types.
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Question: I have a short-legged chair labeled “Ypsilanti Furniture, Ionia, Mich.” The seat bottom has long springs that hook together. Can you tell me when the chair was made?
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Answer: Your chair was made by the Ypsilanti Reed Furniture Co. It was founded in Detroit in 1900 and moved to Ypsilanti the next year. In 1903 the company moved again. This time it went to Ionia, where it was able to take advantage of prison labor from the Michigan State House of Correction and Reformatory. Later, it opened non-prison plants in several Michigan cities and in Singapore.
The firm specialized in reed furniture, but during the late 1920s and the 1930s, Ypsilanti made chairs like the one you describe. The company stopped making furniture in 1948.
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Q: In the 1930s, my parents were in New York and bought a metal table lamp that looks like a Tiffany lamp. The shade is made of pierced metal and painted glass. The bottom is marked “Bradley-Hubbard, patent applied for.” Is the lamp as valuable as a Tiffany?
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A: The Tiffany lamps you are thinking of have stained-glass shades. The glass shade on your lamp is “reverse painted,” which means it was painted on the inside of the shade so the picture could be seen from the outside. Bradley & Hubbard worked in Meriden, Conn., from about 1895 to 1920.
The firm made metal clocks, tables, frames and andirons as well as lamps. Though Bradley & Hubbard lamps are not, in general, as valuable as Tiffany lamps, your lamp could be worth hundreds to thousands of dollars.
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Q: My preteen daughter has plastered yellow smiley faces all over her bedroom. Do you know when the smiley face was first used? Is it a trademark?
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Q: The bright-yellow smiley face, with two solid-black eyes and a wide, upturned mouth, was the brainchild not of an ad agency but an insurance company. The face was first used on 7/8-inch celluloid and metal buttons. They were distributed to employees and customers of the Worcester Guarantee Insurance Co. of Worcester, Mass., in the mid-1960s.
Company employees had been asked to create an upbeat logo, and they decided on bright yellow. A supervisor came up with the upturned mouth, and a commercial artist hired by the company completed the design.
The buttons were wildly popular within a few years, but the design was never copyrighted. By the early 1970s, entrepreneurs all over the country were making cookie jars, T-shirts, lunch boxes, banks, clocks and pitchers using the smiley face.
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Q: What is chalkware?
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A: Chalkware has two meanings to today’s collectors. In the late-18th and 19th centuries, painted plaster-of-Paris figurines were imported from England and later from other countries. They were sold in the New England area. Their popularity grew and soon they were made locally. The figures of dogs, sheep, parrots and bunches of flowers were similar to English Staffordshire ornaments.
Most of the figures found today date from 1850 to 1900. In the 1930s, plaster-of-Paris figures of a very different type were made as carnival prizes. These were larger, upright figures of cartoon-like figures with large heads. Familiar figures--such as Betty Boop, sailors, hula dancers and military figures--were made.
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Q: Why are some antique models of sailing ships called “prisoner-of-war ships”? A model sells for $1,000 to $15,000.
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A: The intricate bone or wooden models called prisoner-of-war ships were made by French and Dutch soldiers and officers the British took as prisoners during wars between about 1756 and 1815. The prisoners of war built the models as a pastime and were allowed to sell them to earn money.
For a listing of helpful books and publications, include a self-addressed, stamped (55 cents) envelope to Kovels, Los Angeles Times, King Features Syndicate, 235 E. 45th St., New York, NY 10017.
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Current Prices
Figures are recorded from antiques shows, flea markets, sales and auctions throughout the United States. Prices vary because of local economic conditions.
* Soakie bottle, plastic, Alvin, upturned red baseball cap, white turtleneck sweater with black letter A, Alvin is holding harmonica, 1963, 11 ounce, $35.
* “Ping-Pong: The Game and How to Play It,” Arnold Parker, first American edition, 1902, $135.
* Bell System blue-glass, bell-shaped paperweight, white lettering, “Bell System-New York Telephone Co.” on one side, “Local & Long Distance Telephone” on the other side, 3 3/4 by 3 inches, $210.
* Roycroft silver-washed, hammered-copper vase, cylindrical, decorated band in quatrefoil design, orb-and-cross mark, 5 inches, $635.
* Gene Autry child’s boot, Little Gents, 3 buckles, box, 1950, $650.
* Cast-iron garden bench, splayed scrolling legs, floral-design back, arms, c. 1850, 80 inches, $1,200.
* Tiffany silver berry spoon, Blackberry pattern, 9 1/2 inches, $1,550.
* Natzler bowl, blue, white and brown volcanic glaze, footed, “Natzler” marked in ink, No. 070, 6 3/4 inches, $1,610.
* Rookwood vase, Iris glaze, ovoid, white snowdrops on pink-and-blue shaded ground, c. 1910, 7 inches, $1,840.
* Walnorg black-beaded, cat-shaped evening bag, white whiskers, ears and nose, green eyes, handle, $2,300.
