The Rotten Kids Dolls Appall Appraiser

Well, the universe did it again. I’m terrified of dolls and this past week Jessica sent me photos of twenty-five to thirty dolls which are possibly the most horrifying dolls I’ve ever seen, yet I will attempt to appraise them for her.

Here’s the back story: Jessica called over the weekend to say she inherited “really ugly dolls from Spain” and needed to get rid of them because her little daughter refused to ride in the car if those dolls were in the trunk. I know Jessica’s daughter is a brilliant child by just this remark.

In fact what Jessica has inherited are approximately thirty of the worst examples of the doll-maker D’Anton Jos, of J. C. Toys Group, Dolls by Berenguer. Since the 1950’s the Berenguer family of Spain has made these terrifying dolls, and equally such frightening dolls like these, from Castalla Spain. This style of D’Anton dolls is called The Rotten Kids Series, circa 1970’s. Rotten kids! Yes rotten because they are making taunting faces. And some grown adult thought this up, and designed these.

Looking into D’Anton Jos dolls, other titles in the oeuvre of this Spanish doll company are Mi Bebe (1920’s) which has a battery operated box in the back which activates in a loud wail and a sucking noise if you pull out the baby’s pacifier. Another gem are the Cuchi-Cuchi dolls, which are one perfect blue-eyed, blonde-haired young boy and one similar young girl, both with gleaming white teeth. They actually speak, Spanish only, circa 1984. Then there’s the company’s La Newborns, with angel faces, and tiny newborn bodies. Heinous indeed, because they’re hyper-realistic, like in a bad dream.

But let’s talk about Jessica’s dolls. Let’s look, if we dare, at what she inherited. One is a little tough looking little boy in a blue cap with eerily realistic looking huge glassy hazel eyes, with his mouth drawn up in a pugnacious grimace. The next doll looks to represent a three-year old girl with a plaid workingman’s oversized shirt and little blue jean pinafore wearing a knitted cap over short dark boy-cut hair, suggesting lower-middle class, I guess, with her lips drawn up in a pucker. Disgusting. Next we have a baby doll, a girl of seemingly one-year, in flowered pinafore and bonnet, doing something ghastly with her mouth. If we didn’t need another reason to be depressed these days, Jessica’s next doll is sobbing. Finally, saving the worst for last, there’s Jessica’s little misguided vision of a five-year old girl in a country looking plaid ethnic smock and kerchief, hideously sticking out her tongue. As if a placid pink chubby looking baby face wasn’t frightening enough for a doll. And the gruesome photos go on.

The good news, if there is any, for Jessica, is that these dolls have never been taken out of their original boxes. They’ve never been exposed to the air or even to dust. So if they’re worth anything to a demented collector, they’ll land at the top of their value class. Dolls and toys never played with and in boxes are worth so much more, ironically, than any doll or toy which as a child you actually loved and played with, could ever be worth. Jessica, your Rotten Kids Dolls are worth $75 each, and there are a few listed on eBay.

Doll collectors beware. These may be a cross-collectible, which means they may interest two markets: the doll collectors, of course, and the readers of Stephen King!