Attic Antiquity Doll Hospital
Texas · 40 years
Listed by the Doll Doctors Association. That is a membership, not a qualification. The association says itself that it makes no assurances about any member’s training or experience, and every member is an independent business. It does mean somebody other than us knows they exist.
Dorothy Meredith and her husband Mike, restoring dolls from a studio in Central Texas since the early 1980s, specialising in composition. Every patient is tagged, catalogued and put in a labelled container to wait its turn, and they do all the work themselves rather than sending it out. Written estimate before anything starts.
Getting hold of them
Email is the way in. They do not take cold calls.
If it gets lost
Not stated
This is a blank on their page, not an answer from them. We have never asked anybody in this trade the question. Of the 185 businesses we have read, 4 have written anything down about losing an item: 2 say it is insured, 2 say the risk is yours. The other 181 are silent, and silence is not a policy either way.
If you would rather not have to phrase it
“Before I send it, can I ask what happens if it gets lost or damaged while it’s with you? I’m not trying to catch you out, it just can’t be replaced. Whatever the answer is, could you put it in an email so I’ve got it in writing?”
“No, we don’t cover it” is a fine answer to get. It tells you to insure the mail yourself for the full amount, both ways.
Nobody has told us who covers the outward leg. Ask, because that is the half people forget.
If it is lost or damaged
Their website does not say what happens if your item is lost or damaged while they have it.
Ask before you post anything you could not replace. Only four of the businesses we hold publish an answer to this.
What they take on
- Full restoration and rebuilds
- Mending and seams
- Cleaning on its own
- Eyes and noses
- Joints
- Valuations
Works in leather pads.
What they won’t do
The part every other directory leaves out. None of this is a criticism. It is how you avoid three wasted weeks.
- Won't quote from photos. Needs it in hand first
- Doesn't say whether you can bring it in person
Their exact words on what they refuse
Quoted from their own pages, unedited, because a paraphrase of a refusal is the kind of thing you find out was wrong three weeks in.
- “Our goal is not to make an antique appear new, but to restore damage while preserving as much of the original as possible.”
Getting it there
- Takes work by mail
- Doesn’t say whether you can bring it in
- Comes back standard
Money
- Will not quote until it is in their hands. Looking at it costs nothing
Anything else they say
- Called on for doll appraisals by individuals, museums and insurance companies.
- Member of the Doll Doctors Association, the United Federation of Doll Clubs and the Madame Alexander Doll Club. Past vice-president of the Texas chapter of the DDA; her husband was president.
- Refers minor repairs out to Sandra Lee Products.