Howdy Doody Doll with Box, ca. 1950
GUEST:
I did a little work through the Internet to try to—uh-- get some information on Howdy Doody itself. Buffalo Bob trademarked a lot of his items between 1947, I believe it was, and '51.
APPRAISER:
Correct.
GUEST:
This is one of his trademarked dolls.
APPRAISER:
Howdy Doody was really one of the first to do children's educational television. And my generation, I'm used to, you know, the Captain Kangaroo, and a lot of the baby boomers really remember the Howdy Doody character. And as the cameras were rolling over here, everybody's humming the song, and I love that. It's that nostalgia I love. On the box, it gives us some other clues that it was the Effanbee doll company that produced this. Now, are you familiar with the Effanbee doll company?
GUEST:
I... I am, from the standpoint of trying to find some information on the Internet.
APPRAISER:
Right.
GUEST:
And I'm actually—uh-- contacting the company to try to get some information about this particular doll, and there was no success.
APPRAISER:
Without any help, right.
GUEST:
No.
APPRASIER: Well, most of these companies, they weren't really concerned about the secondary value of these particular items. They would make these dolls, push them out, bring in the next line and look to the year ahead. So, Effanbee is an American doll company. They were wonderful. They made a lot of really great dolls, and this being one of them. One of the problems, though, with composition is the crazing, which you can see, that is happening on the face and all through the head. So you want to be careful to store this in a good environment. Now, how do you have this stored?
GUEST:
Well, I got the doll in 1973, and, um, he remains in this box, flat on his face because I learned a tip from the Antiques Roadshow, that with dolls that have the sleepy eyes, you should store them face down to keep the mechanism from getting locked up and ruined.
APPRAISER:
Very good.
GUEST:
And he stays in this box, like I said, inside another box, locked up in the corner of the room, and that's where he sits.
APPRAISER:
Wonderful, and you were telling me this is only, what, the tenth time...
GUEST:
About the tenth time since 1973 he's been out of his box.
APPRAISER:
Well, the nice thing about this is that it also has the original hat and all of the original clothes and in this kind of condition, with the original box, I would put a value of about $1,000 to $1,200 on this piece, because it is in such great condition.
GUEST:
Oh, that's great. That's really great.
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