Friday, March 26, 2010

The Rosetta Stone Award

Recently I was presented with the Rosetta Stone Award by My Realitty's dolls. I am very honoured - especially as the award was just created by CM and her dolls, so I am the very first recipient (and it's quite exciting to know someone who created a blog award!).


The Rosetta Stone Award, I am informed, is a serious award for scholarship on the history of dollhouses. The dolls said,

This is the first "Rosetta Stone Award". It is given to a dollhouse blogger who has contributed greatly to the information of dollhouse history.

As we all know dollhouses were originally the hobby of rich women or tools to teach girl children to keep house.

Today women all over the world are interested in them. Note the number of bloggers and that Dollhouse blogs are a world unto themselves. Though these houses started as toys and may have led a perilous life, once they are in the harbor of the collector they have a story to tell. This award is to acknowledge the sleuthing it takes to discover that story.

Furthermore this award is issued to only one person, must be kept for 6 months then passed on to another worthy recipient. There are many worthy of this award... ... and this year we are bestowing it on... Rebecca of Rebecca's Collections for her serious and valuable work on English dollhouses.

Thank you very much, CM and your dolls! I appreciate it very much - especially as I completely agree that there are many worthy of the award, and I know that the research I do follows on from the work that others have done.

As some of you know, I love family history research. Researching my own family can be particularly moving, but I also love the thrill of the hunt, when one clue leads on to another - or when you get a bit stuck, and try to think of other ways to approach the problem. I started researching dolls house firms when an article on dolls houses made or sold by the firm C. E. Turnbull was published in the first issue of the Dolls Houses Past and Present online magazine. The author stated that not much was known about the firm, not even an address.

Well, that was a challenge I couldn't resist - and quite an easy one to solve, as this London-based firm existed from the late 19th to the early 20th century, a time for which the UK censuses are available to search online.

So that got me started - and now Florine of My Vintage Dollhouses and other treasures and I are researching the history of dolls houses made by Keystone of Boston, Massachusetts!

I thought about how to celebrate this award - and I decided to make a scene rather like the room where I do my research. I've borrowed the downstairs living room of the Bodensee and filled it with books (borrowed from many other houses too), on bookcases squeezed in everywhere they can fit, with dolls houses on shelves, trolleys, the floor ... and Linda Kimber is modelling me doing research (or possibly browsing ebay ;-) ) on the computer!

I put this scene together, and photographed it - and then thought, but where are the boxes? Because my study has lots of boxes in it - boxes of dolls house furniture I've just received, boxes of stored dolls house furniture, the original boxes for dolls houses and sets of furniture .... So I added some boxes!

It looks like my sister's cats have come to visit, as mine are both black. But they do like to sit with me when I'm working on the computer :-)

Thanks again, CM and your dolls!

11 comments:

  1. Oh Rebecca, diese Bilder sind so schön, richtig rührend. Ich kann mir richtig gut vorstellen, wie es bei dir aussieht.
    Und wie schön, dass du diesen Preis gewonnen hast. Du hast ihn sicher verdient.
    Ich interessiere mich ja nicht so für die Geschichte, aber ich freue mich an den vielen Ausdrucksformen der Liebe.
    Danke auch an CM! You made my day!

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  2. You know that I'm not usually an award person, but with it's "this award is issued to only one person, must be kept for 6 months then passed on to another worthy recipient" it's an award to my liking! And I can't think of someone who deserves more to be the first recipient of this award than you Rebecca!

    Love your mini study too, I can totally imagine you sitting by the computer finding new clues to get further in your research! Love the green mini-furniture on top of the triang book case too!
    And I also love that part of genealogy, finding clues that help you find yet another ancestor. It really is almost like a treasure hunt :-)

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  3. Wonderful study room, I'd love to sit there, too.

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  4. Hi Rebecca, Around a year ago or so I was searching for Lundby knowledge on the internet because having a collectible doll house was very new to me. I am grateful I stumbled across your blog and have enjoyed it immensely ever since. Congrats on the award. It is well deserved. The information you have shared has been most useful to me. Thanks for making me a little smarter. Love all the cute little houses. Just love those.

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  5. Fantastically well deserved award. Well done. And a great scene to go with it!

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  6. Congrats for the award!! Like pubdoll said - this would be an award i would prefer, because you can keep it for 6 month and then pass it to just one person ;D

    I really LOVE how you honored the award. I like the idea to show yourself (Linda Kimber modelling you), doing research! Every detail is so cute and i can imagine you sitting in your study on the other half of the world (is that german english??) with a cat on your lab. And i also like the work you´re doing. I think one can just collect dollhouse stuff, but I like to know more about the maker, the history and the time in which the tiny things were made. That´s one of many reasons why i´m a real fan of your blog! Thank you!!

    Hugs, Nicola

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  7. Three more BRAVOs to you and another to CM for creating it and making you the first recipient! I get extremly happy when awards are well bestowed...I think I smiled all day when I first read about it on CMs blog. :)
    Ah, you are so lucky if in real life you have a study similar to this one. Guess what I identified with...the stacks of boxes with treasures inside! And I love all the miniature houses...maybe a post on all your mini-mini-houses is forth-coming....
    I know you gave the dimensions of your shell house when you first posted about it, but seeing it in perspective...what an exquisite little house!
    And I agree with Amy, I am so happy to have discovered your blog!!

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  8. Great scene! I love all the mini mini touches as well, and it is easy to envision you sitting there doing your research :)

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  9. congratulations rebecca, the award is very well deserved. you put so much effort into the research and make it a little easier for some of us.... cute study, though i wish mine was so well organised!!! :-)

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  10. Danke schön, Oese! Ja, so sieht es bei mir aus - aber es gibt oft auch viel Staub und grosse Unordnung!

    Thank you, Pubdoll - as you know, I don't usually stick to the rules for awards, but with this one, I think I will :-) The tiny green furniture is Sylvanian Families, I think, from the tiny dolls house for the Sylvanian children. I don't have the dolls house yet, but I'm looking! And a treasure hunt is just what the hunt for clues is like - with the treasure being another piece of information, or sometimes, a box full of photos and letters :-)

    @ diepuppenstubensammlerin, you're very welcome! Especially in this mini version of my study, as there's more room there than in the real room!

    @ Amy, thank you so much! You're very welcome, and I'm glad you enjoy it so much, even though I only have one Lundby house! I really enjoy your blog too, and quite envy you the antiques shops and flea markets around you :-)

    @ TSS Thank you muchly! If you could only see the real room ... well, no, I really don't want you too!

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  11. @ Nicola, thank you for your congratulations - and I'm glad you like the scene! Yes, we say on the other side of the world, and I love reading you all on the other side of the world! I know not everyone is so interested in the history of dolls houses and furniture, but I'm happy that some of my readers are!

    @ Florine, thank you!! well, in real life the main bedroom in my two room townhouse houses most of my dolls houses, bookshelves with books about linguistics, dolls houses and family history - and of course my computer. I have bookcases, and dolls houses, in most other rooms too! And more boxes than I had mini ones to put in this scene ;-)
    The shell house is about the size, relatively speaking, of my Battlement House, I think, so I thought it would be good to include it! I'll try to post more about the other mini houses soon :-)

    @ Callsmall: Thank you! I think you and Oese have the best collection of mini mini houses, but of course I had to put as many as I could into this scene ;-) And I'm always on the lookout for more - the furniture on top of the large Bodo Hennig bookcase is a recent ebay buy from a woman in Australia who had it as a child - perfect as dolls furniture for a dolls house child :-)

    @ Christine: Thank you! I do enjoy the research, funnily enough I spend some of my leisure hours on the computer looking at census entries etc!! I wish my real study was this well organised, too - it's much easier with a mini scene - and these cats don't shed fur all over the place ;-)

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