The Display Sets of the Effanbee Historical Dolls are a combination of the easily recognized Effanbee Anne Shirley bodies with the trademark spread of five fingers on each hand, unlike the hands of most other composition dolls of the time that predominately were produced with the fingers molded together.

The heads are various models of the Dewees Cochran designs used on the Effanbee American Children series. The heads are marked as such, ultimately causing much confusion over the doll’s identities, especially if their costumes are missing.

The faces are hand-painted with beautiful eyes of varying colors, dots around the edges for lashes and dotted brows. Mouths are closed and very expressive. At least one of the dolls in the series even sports a beauty mark!

The smaller 14-inch replica dolls, while not as exquisite as the Display Sets, speak volumes about the quality of Effanbee Dolls of the 1930s and the importance of the series as a whole.

The composition used by Effanbee was an excellent quality and very few Effanbee dolls produced after the late 1930s are found with any serious crazing. Effanbee referred to their material as its ‘satin-smooth’ complexion. Some sources note that the composition had a latex component to it, making it more resistant to the expansion and contraction changes between the pain and composition that accounts for most crazing over time.

The faces of the replica dolls feature various colored hand-painted eyes, outline with a thin curved line, dotted to simulate lashes. The brows are feathered with tiny brush strokes. The mouths are closed.

The replica dolls all have the same separated fingers as the Display series, with knuckles and fingernails outlined. Some of the dolls also have tinted fingernails.

The bodies of the replica dolls are marked “Effanbee Anne Shirley”, again leading to confusion about the identity of undressed dolls, although the wigs are far more elaborate than on any other Effanbee doll of the time. The heads are unmarked.