s soon as Mary McAboy realized that her cottage industry creating Skookum Indian dolls was going to be much more than that, she applied for a patent. Her request for a patent was filed on November 29, 1913. The patent was granted February 17,1914 and from that day forward, Skookum Indian dolls were labeled.

Labels were affixed with glue to the base of the doll in the case of the early apple-heads, or on one of the doll’s feet. Some dolls, for no apparent reason, have a label on each foot. Dolls such as the squat sitters have the label fixed to the cotton covered base and some early mailers have a label on the back of the cardboard carrier. Many labels were lost over the years as the glue that held them became brittle and dried out. In some cases the label, if it is an unusual or rare one, can add to the dolls value. Generally we can rely on a number of other factors to authenticate a Skookum doll so the label isn’t always necessary to identify or evaluate the doll.

 Because Skookum Indian dolls were made for such a long period of time there were years when two to three labels may have been in simultaneous use. This seems to be the case particularly in the late teens through the 1930s. In the next part of this series, we’ll look at other Skookum attributes that will help you to identify when dolls in your collection were made, even if their label is missing!

The table below illustrates the Skookum Indian doll labels we have found to date. If you have others that are not pictured and would like to share them, please email us and we’d be glad to update the list. Please note that the labels themselves were printed on a variety of colored papers including: tan, off white, red, light green, light blue, gray, pink, yellow, and orange. The examples below are references for the design and content of the label only. You may have the same labels in different colors.