Elf Collection | Pristine Condition | Designed by Robert Simpich
Whatever was just said, Knapp thought it was very funny.
His eyes are shut, his head is tipped back, and his mouth is open in the middle of a laugh — not a grin held for a photograph, a laugh caught halfway. Sculpting a closed-eye face is a decision. You give up the eyes, which are how most figures hold your attention, and you make the whole expression live in the mouth and the creases. It works. Nobody looks at this face and wonders what he's feeling.
The rest of him is built around the walk. A knapsack of woven jute, stuffed full and bound with dark cord, rides high on his shoulder — coarse, tactile, and the exact opposite of everything else he's wearing. His name is the joke and the joke is good.
He's dressed in red: a felt tunic cut in deep points at the hem, with a line of white blanket stitch running down the front opening and around each cuff. That stitching is worth stopping on. It's decorative, it's on the outside where every stitch shows, and someone sat and worked it by hand around every edge. His hands are pale suede mitts, one raised and open, and his legs are the same pale suede running down into sculpted brown clogs with a curl at the toe.
Over it all is a proper tartan — red, green, navy and cream, fringed at the ends, wrapped once and left long.
His hat is black felt, cut in tall points across the front and falling long down the back, sitting well off the forehead so the sculpted white hair sweeps out over his ears in two wings.
Knapp was designed by my grandfather Robert "Bob" Simpich, and he is one of the oldest elves I've ever had to offer. Two things say so, and both are on the piece rather than in a story I'm telling you.
He still has his original paper tag — a small printed card reading Simpich Elves, pinned to his scarf with a straight pin. That's how the shop tagged pieces before the gold foil sole labels came in. Tags are the first thing to get thrown away, and on a figure this age it almost never survives.
And his mark is different. The shoe carries "Simpich" pressed in, without the copyright symbol and without a year — not the format used on the later pieces I handle. Between the tag and the mark, this reads as a pre-1980 elf, and elves that old very rarely come through in one piece with their paperwork attached.
Condition is honest for his age: the pale suede has warmed to a soft cream, which is what suede does over decades and not damage. The red felt is unfaded, the tartan is sharp, the stitching is unbroken, and the tag is intact and legible.
Cast from Bob's design, then hand-painted and dressed in hand-sewn clothing in the Simpich doll shop.
Elf Collection | Pristine Condition | Designed by Robert Simpich
Whatever was just said, Knapp thought it was very funny.
His eyes are shut, his head is tipped back, and his mouth is open in the middle of a laugh — not a grin held for a photograph, a laugh caught halfway. Sculpting a closed-eye face is a decision. You give up the eyes, which are how most figures hold your attention, and you make the whole expression live in the mouth and the creases. It works. Nobody looks at this face and wonders what he's feeling.
The rest of him is built around the walk. A knapsack of woven jute, stuffed full and bound with dark cord, rides high on his shoulder — coarse, tactile, and the exact opposite of everything else he's wearing. His name is the joke and the joke is good.
He's dressed in red: a felt tunic cut in deep points at the hem, with a line of white blanket stitch running down the front opening and around each cuff. That stitching is worth stopping on. It's decorative, it's on the outside where every stitch shows, and someone sat and worked it by hand around every edge. His hands are pale suede mitts, one raised and open, and his legs are the same pale suede running down into sculpted brown clogs with a curl at the toe.
Over it all is a proper tartan — red, green, navy and cream, fringed at the ends, wrapped once and left long.
His hat is black felt, cut in tall points across the front and falling long down the back, sitting well off the forehead so the sculpted white hair sweeps out over his ears in two wings.
Knapp was designed by my grandfather Robert "Bob" Simpich, and he is one of the oldest elves I've ever had to offer. Two things say so, and both are on the piece rather than in a story I'm telling you.
He still has his original paper tag — a small printed card reading Simpich Elves, pinned to his scarf with a straight pin. That's how the shop tagged pieces before the gold foil sole labels came in. Tags are the first thing to get thrown away, and on a figure this age it almost never survives.
And his mark is different. The shoe carries "Simpich" pressed in, without the copyright symbol and without a year — not the format used on the later pieces I handle. Between the tag and the mark, this reads as a pre-1980 elf, and elves that old very rarely come through in one piece with their paperwork attached.
Condition is honest for his age: the pale suede has warmed to a soft cream, which is what suede does over decades and not damage. The red felt is unfaded, the tartan is sharp, the stitching is unbroken, and the tag is intact and legible.
Cast from Bob's design, then hand-painted and dressed in hand-sewn clothing in the Simpich doll shop.
