"Dutch, I'll tell you what. I don't have time to screw around. I’ll take that doll sitting over there in the corner and two hundred in cash."

Honest to God, the old man looked at me like I was nuts.

"That doll's priced at a thousand, are you out of your mind?"

"Hey, old man, it's priced at a thousand but you only have two-fifty in it, if that. You want to play ball or don't you?"

"Look kid, I tell you what I'll do. The doll and fifty dollars. That's it, take it or leave it."

I looked down at the floor, pensive, as though I was thinking. "Tell you what, we'll flip a coin. The doll and one-fifty if I win and just the doll if you win."

"Okay, but no coins. I hate coins."

Guess what. I pulled out my deck of cards. "One hand of poker, straight-up."

I take the cards out of the pack, put them on the counter and tell him to shuffle. He says, "Screw poker! Cut the cards Picker."

I cut, he cuts. Turns his over, Queen of Hearts. Dutch smiles. I turn over my half of the deck. Ace of Spades.

The old man sighs. "Win some, lose some".

He wraps my doll up in white tissue paper and puts her in a paper bag. A "little brown bag" from Bloomies. I tell him no checks, I'm pressed for time. He goes into his pocket and hands me a hundred dollar bill and a fifty. I thank him, tell him how nice it was to see him, wish him a nice day and am halfway out the door when I hear…

"Hey Picker, still going to Tannen's?" Like I said nothing stupid about the old man.

There's an old adage in the antique biz and it's this: 'No one knows everything!'

And this doll was living proof of that.

Kewpie dolls are based on the illustrations of Rose O'Neill which first appeared in 1909 in the Ladies' Home Journal. The very first ones were manufactured in the small German town of Ohrdruf, renowned for its toy manufacturers. The earliest versions were bisque dolls. Later ones were made of celluloid. Effanbee, the famous doll manufacturer, made the first hard plastic ones around 1949.