The three Display Sets of the Effanbee Historical Dolls spent at least the remainder of 1939 and all of 1940 year touring the nation, being displayed at major department stores as both an exhibition and as promotion of the 14″ replica dolls that Effanbee offered for sale.

Even then, ads promoting the displays termed the dolls as ‘rare’ and ‘valuable’ and often pointed out the $10,000 price tag of each set.

The doll’s travels were also noted in newspapers and periodicals of the time. The June 1939 edition of Playthings, the national magazine of the toy trade, contains a recap of the 5th Annual Hobby Show at the J. L. Hudson flagship store in Detroit, at which the Display Dolls were a huge draw.

One story, unproven, is that the owner of the final store on one of the set’s tours kept the dolls for his twin daughters to enjoy instead of returning them to Effanbee as he was supposed to.

Interestingly, one collector recently contacted the author of this website to report that he had – years ago – purchased an entire set of the display historicals from a family in Ohio who had kept them for many years. This could have been that set. He reports he sold many of them and had ten-to-twelve left. He would not, however, identify which dolls he had, despite repeated requests so they could be added to The Registry.