How about the big black ticking time bomb with the menacing red fuse that you would pass from hand to hand until…
AHHHHH! Jesus! Get the doll out of the attic!
I work in a museum, and you have the doll in the worst possible place for its preservation. Temperature changes, bugs . . . <shudder>
Please find a nice closet in the interior of your home if you want to preserve the doll. Wrap it in acid-free paper and put it in a secure box. (If you just put it in a cardboard box, the chemicals in the cardboard can damage the doll over time.) Wrap the head especially well, but don’t use any tape to hold the acid-free paper closed. Use string. If insects are a concern, use mothballs, but don’t let them touch the doll, or the acid-free paper wrap.
If the doll looks dusty, you can wipe the china head with a slightly damp soft cloth, as long as the paint is protected. You can use a soft paintbrush to remove dust from the clothing. (Don’t let dust sit on the cloth for long periods of time.) Use gentle swipes with the paintbrush, more like flicking the dust off than strokes.
Stretch Armstrong, I believe it was called. Those god-awful dolls that you pulled on and generally abused for amusement. The cruelty of it, added to the horrible suspense of when it would finally be pulled too far and snap, eeeeeeee! There are issues I have today, that can be traced back to those toys.
Hey! I swear I didn’t see AntaresJB’s post. I must have good taste in my fears, then ; )
There used to be a puppet that came with “a thousand disguises”. You could add scares to him or mustaches. I don’t recall his name, but my neighbor had one and without all the stuff, he was pretty evil looking.
Now that I think about it, he looked like Dr Evil.
Hey, I owned one of those. I think she mooed when you pumped her tail, and you’d put little white tablets in the water you filled her up with to produce the “milk” that squirted from her udders.
I only saw this in the store when I was in the second grade or thereabouts, but there was actually an Incredible Melting Man™ costume kit, believe it or not. I’m pretty sure this must qualify for some kind of award on inappropriate tie-in merchandise. Here I was, all of seven years old, blithely strolling down the store aisle with my mom… And I spot this HUGE box on the shelf with a close-up in lurid color of the titular Melting Man plastered across it, runny flesh and dangly eyeballs and exposed bonework and all…!!
TO THIS DAY, I have NEVER been able to bring myself to look at stills of the Incredible Melting Man. I had to put a book jacket on my copy of the Psychotronic Film Guide because he’s on there! I can’t even flip through the “Films Beginning with ‘I’” section because he’s there! When I heard MST3K was going to cover it, I tuned in, confident that the wacky riffing of Mike and the Bots would be the perfect therapy for my fear.
I spent the whole movie with my hands over my eyes. 
Here she is… Milky the Cow.
Lissa-
You will relieved to hear that Nun Doll is not in the attic. It’s on the top shelf of the closet in this room–and must have been there since I moved into the house about 2 1/2 years ago, since I don’t ever remember putting it there and didn’t really know where it was until I went looking for it last night. Maybe my mom put it away when my parents helped me move in.
It’s wrapped in paper (I don’t know if it’s acid-free or not) in a plastic shopping bag. Should I get rid of the bag?
The only harm the plastic could potentially do in the short-term is to trap moisture in with the doll, and cause mold or mildew. Over the long term, I can’t say, unless I know the type of plastic. Is it one of those bio-degradable brands? If so, that’s bad over the long term. As the bag begins to break down, chemicals will get on the doll. As for right now, having it in the plastic bag is better than just putting it in the paper bag, but that should only be temporary storage.
I strongly recommend you go out and get some acid-free tissue paper. I’ve seen so many cases where folks bring in their dolls and heirlooms to the museum, asking if there’s any way to save them from the damage done by improper storage. We have to tell them no, that all they can do is prevent further damage by storing the item properly in the future. Worse comes to worse, wrap the doll in a clean towel, one which has been washed in a soap which leaves no residue, and then place it in a container.
One of these days, I’m thinking about starting a Preservation of Your Heirlooms thread . . . sounds like it could help a lot of people.
Thanks for the info. I will re-wrap the doll.
I don’t think it can be worth much as an antique. There is a large crack across the top of the skull–usually covered by the veil–that has been there for as long as I can remember, and which was part of the doll’s essential nightmare quality. Also smaller cracks and chips in the face. I’m mostly interested in preserving it for sentimental value (if one can call childhood terror “sentiment.”) and to eventually hand over to my eldest niece in at least as decent a condition as I received it.
That might be interesting. You’ve been enormously helpful here.
Some of my favorite items in the museum in which I work are not artifacts of enormous value. For example, we have one rag doll which wouldn’t probably be worth a hill of beans. It’s ragged, stained and downright ugly. Yet, what makes it beautiful to me is the handwritten note which accompanied it when it was donated back in the 1940’s.
In a spidery hand, an old woman explains that it was her mother’s doll. She related how her grandmother and mother had made the doll together as the daughter’s first sewing project. (You can see the fine, tiny stitches made by the grandmother, and the loose, uneven stitches of the mother, who was then a three year-old child.) She knew the story of every stain and rip. The burn mark on one foot happened when their house burned down. The owner’s brother had snatched the doll just as it started to catch fire because he knew how much it meant to the little girl. It was the only thing saved from the house. Needless to say, those rich stories make this doll my favorite.
We have a large case of priceless dolls, fancy store-bought things that don’t look like they were every played with by their owners. There are no “love marks” on them. But you know, I think that if we had a fire, I would try to grab little ugly “Lucy” first.
In my museum, we make no distinction in care between the mundane and priceless. Each is treated as a treasure, and preserved with the utmost care.
Even if your doll wouldn’t appear on * Antiques Roadshow, * it has value. Someday, you ought to write down all of the stories connected with it, even the tale of your fear and loathing. Your descendants will thank you for it.