| What is the
German Doll Company?
A brief history...
During the heyday of the German
porcelain making
industry in 1900, the area of the Thuringian Wald (in what was formerly
East Germany) had as many as 200 factories producing dolls for the
American
market. The Hertwig factory in Katzhutte alone turned out 2.000
dozen
dolls per day during the winter months! Seconds were usually disposed
of
by merely dumping them behind the factory or using them as filler
beneath
factory floorboards - an inexpensive substitute for insulation
materials.
Along with the huge number of dolls being turned out every day also
came
an equally large number of plaster molds in which each porcelain doll
head,
arms, legs, etc. had to be poured.
At the very most, one mold can be used
to pour
15 doll heads, as the features of each piece become less crisp with
each
pouring. Instead of disposing thousands of molds per week, molds were
often
mortared into interior and exterior walls of the porcelain factories,
or
given to the poor factory workers who gladly used them to build chicken
houses, barns or homes - again an inexpensive substitute for expensive
building materials.
As these factories were being razed or
found sitting idle after years of neglect,
floorboards
were ripped up to expose bucketfuls of century-old porcelain.
Digging in old dumping grounds yields
handfuls
of broken parts or an occasional complete doll or figurine. Only
a few of these porcelain factories remain standing, lost through
ravages
of war or fire, a common occurrence in factories with their massive
coal-burning
ovens. Most of those that did survive have been torn down since the
reunification
of Germany to make way for car dealerships, petrol stations, and the
countless
other businesses springing up virtually overnight as East Germany
continues
its westernisation.
Many of the turn-of-the-century molds
have
been
uncovered, & the German Doll Company followed the
time-honored
method of producing quality porcelain in their factory in the
Thuringian
Wald.
Note:
There no longer is a German Doll Co. website, & most probably
registered company. Also Roland Schlegel (the
German founder of the German Doll Co.) has been, & continues to
sell duplicate
German Doll Co. Bonzo figurines on eBay. They are not marked German Doll Co.
and are listed as old!
Buyer beware!
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