The three Display Sets of the Effanbee Historical Dolls use the bodies and the heads of the 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 hands have the five separate and spread fingers, unlike the hands of most other composition dolls of the time where the fingers were molded together.

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. Two of the dolls even sport a beauty mark – one in a heart shape and the other a diamond!

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

The composition used by Effanbee was of an excellent quality and very few Effanbee dolls produced after the mid-1930s are found with any serious crazing. Effanbee referred to it’s dolls as having a ‘satin-smooth’ complexion’.  Some sources note that the composition had a latex component to it, making it more able to withstand the expansion and contraction changes between the paint and the composition which accounts for the crazing that often develops over time on other dolls.

The faces of the replica dolls feature various colored hand-painted eyes, outlined with a thin curved line and 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.