German Kammer & Reinhardt dolls, 1895 to 1920

The Kammer & Reinhardt doll company was formed in 1886 in Waltershausen, Thuringia, Germany by doll-maker Ernst Kämmer and businessman Franz Reinhardt.

The early Kammer & Reinhardt dolls were made of wax, and while Kammer & Reinhardt bisque doll heads and bodies were designed by by the company, most of the heads were manufactured by another German doll manufacturer, Simon & Halbig. They also purchased bisque heads from the porcelain factories of Kling and Schuetzmeister & Quendt.

From 1886 to 1909 they made dolls with a bisque head on a composition ball jointed body or kid, many with an open mouth with teeth, but after 1909 they diversified into other types of dolls including bisque, composition or celluloid heads, and cloth costume dolls with wired bodies, dressed as various professions.

Kammer & Reinhardt were one of the first producers to use coloured bisque for black, red Indian and oriental dolls, the latter of which had more... slanted eyes.

However, Kammer & Reinhardt is probably best known for their character baby and child dolls.

In 1902 Kammer & Reinhardt purchased the Heinrich Handwerck doll company and in 1919 they merged with the Simon & Halbig doll company.

After World War II, with their production base in what was then East Germany, all doll producers in the city of Waltershausen, where Kammer & Reinhardt were based, were combined into a single entity to avoid competition amongst the East German manufacturers, and operated as "Biggei".

The Kammer & Reinhardt company is now operating independently again, and still producing dolls.

In January 2013 a Kammer & Reinhardt doll set a world record for the most valuable German made character doll, when a doll modelled by renowned sculptor Arthur Lewin-Funcke of a child dressed in traditional German costume, known as Model 104, was sold for $US212,000 by Theriault's Antique Doll Auctions in California.

The auction house, which specialises in doll sales, currently holds the world record for any doll at auction, set in 2009 by a French model by sculptor Albert Marque, which achieved $US263,000. less...