COLLECTORS OF RARE PAPER DOLLS PURSUE PASSION AT A FAST CLIP.

Byline: Aline McKenzie Dallas Morning News

Before there was Barbie, there were paper dolls. A child with a steady cutting hand or a helpful adult could create an entire fantasy family for pennies.

Now, fueled by nostalgia and an interest in history, adult collectors have rediscovered the humble paper doll. They snap them up by the boxful at estate sales, trade photocopies for reference and catalog them in more than a dozen collectors' source books.

``The fun is in the hunt and the research,'' says Anne Street of Mesquite, Texas, a retired geology draftsperson, whose particular passion is dolls that were printed in Sunday comics.

Street proudly shows off a set of Alley Oop newspaper dolls that give the comic-strip cavemen modern outfits to wear. ``They only did this in 1937, and I have the whooooooole set,'' she says.

Like many other collectors, Street says she played with the dolls as a child, then put them aside, only to take them up again as an adult.

About 15 years ago, she says, she spotted some that she recognized from her childhood at a flea market.

One doll led to another, then to another, and now, like most collectors, she specializes in just a few categories. An upstairs closet in her house is full of boxes and scrapbooks with plastic sleeves small enough to hold single dolls, or large enough for an entire Sunday funnies page from decades ago.

``It's getting harder to find really good ones, because more people are getting into it,'' says Mary Lumkes, a Garland, Texas, collector and former Air Force nurse who specializes in celebrity and military dolls. ``Any collector would love to find an original Gone With the Wind set - uncut.''

Lumkes says she started her collecting with ordinary dolls, but switched to paper dolls after reading about them in a collector's newsletter.

One advantage of paper dolls is that they're easier to store, she says. Still, she has boxes and boxes of them. Some have been sorted out into albums, while some prized finds are framed.

``Paper doll collectors are pretty much pack rats,'' says Lance Rayburn, an artist who creates his own celebrity dolls and photo dolls of friends and Dallas-area gay leaders.

His tiny East Dallas apartment is filled with dolls ranging from the historical to the kitschy, while one room is so full of boxes that getting samples out of a closet is a five-minute, two-person project.

``There's such a historical aspect, and fashion, I could go on for hours,'' he says.

In fact, with their changeable clothes, paper dolls offer glimpses of changing times, customs and fashions.

They were created in the 19th century, sometimes as advertising premiums for bicycles, coffee, liniment and other goods, sometimes as sets sold as toys, sometimes as inserts in newspapers.

Early dolls depicted royalty and upper-class families in luxurious clothes.

But by the early 20th century, they began reflecting middle-class families as well. Some sets were educational, showing costumes and people from various cultures. A ``Festival Fun'' doll came with outfits for Jewish holidays, plus songs and notes.

``The clothing and the toys that the paper dolls have usually are pretty accurate to the times,'' says Lumkes.

But minority dolls often depicted unflattering stereotypes, particularly African-American dolls, which at best were shown as household servants to white doll families.

Not until the 1960s did African-American dolls begin to stand on their own, with a doll for the television character Julia and a ``Black Is Beautiful'' fashion set.

Historically, most paper dolls were the familiar flat person in underwear with flat clothes that were supposed to stay on but usually didn't. But a few were more elaborate.

Some had both front and back views, with wraparound clothes. Some had interchangeable heads. Some were composed of interlocking legs and arms that could move after the doll was assembled. One artist created elaborate parts to be cut, folded and glued to create three-dimensional dolls.

``There's such a variety that you can really home in on what you want,'' says Joan Homann, a Houston collector who recently wrote a book on magazine paper dolls.

A few got downright metaphysical: A 1930s paper doll came with its own tiny paper doll, complete with tiny paper outfits.

Lance Rayburn has a copy of a Smilin' Jack paper doll from a Sunday comics section that includes the frame of an airplane, labeled ``nude airplane,'' with a fold-on outer shell labeled ``airplane clothes.''

These days, paper dolls - those few that appear - continue to reflect their times.

They show up now and again as adult satire, such as Bill and Hillary Clinton paper dolls, or the ``Irk Martha Stewart'' doll with its lime-green leisure suit, or the popular refrigerator ornaments of Michelangelo's David or Venus with their funky magnetized duds.

In 1986, Life magazine did a Marilyn Monroe doll for her 60th birthday, with a heavy waistline and Madonnalike wardrobe, plus a Rambo-style outfit.

One of the few artists to make a living designing paper dolls, Texas-born Tom Tierney specializes in historic costumes, glamorous celebrities and modern politicians. Now living in New York, he has published hundreds of paper-doll books, mostly through Dover Books. They include every president and first lady since Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

Rare pieces, oddities and mint-condition dolls fetch the highest prices. A run-of-the-mill set from the mid-century goes for $30 to $40, she says, as do many 1960s and '70s character sets such as Rowan and Martin or Mary Poppins.

A Queen Elizabeth coronation set from 1953, on the other hand, runs from $85 to $125.

Celebrity dolls fetch premium prices. Skater Sonja Henie is one of the costliest, at $350 to $400 (that's $175 to $200 per skate).

And the Holy Grail, the 18-piece mint uncut Gone With the Wind set, is so rare that Street doesn't know anyone who has one, and says she has no idea how much it would be worth.

For more information:

At least 10 magazines and newsletters deal with paper dolls, including Golden Opportunities, P.O. Box 252, Golden, Colo. 80402 and Paperdoll Review, P.O. Box 584, Princeton Ind. 47670.

The Original Paper Doll Artists Guild has a site on the World Wide Web at http://www.mint.net/opdag. For subscription information, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to OPDAG, P.O. Box 14, Kingfield, Maine 04947.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--2) Texas resident Anne Street, who began collecting paper dolls about 15 years ago, includes a 1930s Judy Garland set, left, in her collection. Street's Marilyn Monroe, above, gives the screen goddess some modern accessories: Chee-tos and a Walkman.

Knight-Ridder Tribune Photo Service