SALES QUESTIONS    

GENERAL CURIOSITY QUESTIONS

Sales FAQ

How can I purchase one of these dolls from you?

All of our dolls are one-of-a-kind, so not every doll shown in the gallery is available for sale. Dolls that are currently available for sale can be found on the Sales Page.  Dolls that have been sold or are otherwise unavailable are marked as such in their descriptions.

Can you combine shipping if I buy more than one doll?

Not always. With smaller dolls we can usually ship them in one box, but most of our larger dolls must be shipped separately for their safety.

How much does it cost to have a doll shipped outside the USA?

Prices vary based on the size of the package, weight, and shipping service.  For our international customers, we get estimates from UPS, USPS, FedEx, or other shipping services to try to find the best deal.  But if you are outside the USA, you must contact us before ordering with your shipping information so we can make the adjustments for shipping.

How come you have such a wide price range on your dolls?

Not all of our dolls are created equally. Some, like the large Marie Antoinette, took many days of tedious hand-sewing beads to her costume.  Prices are also determined by the type of materials used for the doll’s costume and how much sculpted body work had to be done on the form.

How much does it cost to have a custom doll made?

As with most things, the devil is in the details. We tend to base our prices for custom work on how large the doll is, what kind of components we need to get for it (wigs, shoes, fabric, accessories, etc...) and how much work we have to put into it. It's best just to just contact us directly with the details of what you want and we can give you a quote based on that.

General Curiosity FAQ

How do you decide who to model a doll after?

We have different methods we use to determine what historical character to commemorate. First and foremost, they had to have died horribly. Sometimes we have a good idea who we want to do and set about finding the components to create that particular doll. Other times we'll get a lot of plain dolls in the studio and see if any of them strike us as looking like someone we've been researching.

We've also been listening to suggestions made by our viewers. We've received several requests for Jayne Mansfield ever since our website made its debut and so in October 2006, (on Friday the 13th) we introduced our version of her. 

What gave you the idea to do this?

A few years ago Shiva made a couple headless dolls just for fun and one has been sitting around the house ever since. Just a silly little doll with its head popped off and red paint splattered around the nub, but it still gets a lot of comments from visitors. Since both of us are experienced with special effects makeup, it occurred to us that with a little work we could make dolls look more realistic. We decided to go with actual historical figures because we thought there were enough "horror" dolls out there, and plenty of history-themed dolls, but no one seemed to be combining the two.

So which one of you came up with the name "Headless Historicals"? 

Garith did. We batted around a few different names, trying to come up with something that would work as both a name and a website address... and that name popped out of his head! (Our slogan, "Because History is Violent..." was Shiva's idea after one too many late nights bashing her head against a wall to come up with a catchy tag line.)

Why do you put so much emphasis into the historical angle of your subjects on your website?

Asides from just being interesting to look at, we hoped that our viewers might find the history about who they were and why they died the way they did interesting as well. That's why we accompany each doll with a certificate that includes a brief synopsis of the character's history.

So which one was your first doll?

The first completed dolls in the Headless Historicals collection were Catherine Howard and Francoise-Therese de Choiseul-Stainville.

How come some of the dolls aren't headless?

We liked the name "Headless Historicals" for the website, but we also remember that not all executions were created equally. If someone died in a manner that was particularly interesting to us, such as Queen Brunhilde being dragged to her death tied to the tail of a wild horse, then we'll try to capture the moment in a doll. 

Are all your doll subjects victims of execution?

No. While originally we started just doing figures throughout history who were executed, we started including subjects who met their end in other terrible ways...especially with the more contemporary subjects since modern execution methods are not nearly as graphic as they were in the past. Our first American icons, Isadora Duncan and Jayne Mansfield, were both victims of terrible automobile accidents.   

I heard a different story! Are you sure that's how the person died?

Usually we're pretty sure about how one of our subjects met their end. With most of our subjects, there are plenty of books, first-hand written accounts, and sometimes even post-mortem photographs for us to use to double-check our facts. If we're still not sure, it's not unheard of for us to do some detective work and pull up police reports or other documented accounts and try to recreate a scene to figure out the injuries that were sustained during someone's ordeal. And if that doesn't work, we take our best possible guess.

However there are some characters, such as Raziya Sultan, whom we were unable to find the exact details about the mode of execution. In those cases we look for the most likely execution method used in the geographical region during that point in history and take into account his or her class status and any other circumstances that might determine the method of execution used.

Why are the dolls here of mostly women?

Since most of these are re-vamped secondhand dolls, we generally work with whatever is available to us. We often pick up assorted "lots" of dolls from auctions or second-hand sources and most of the time they are girl-dolls. Boy-dolls that aren't children or small fashion dolls are not as easy to come by, but we pick them up whenever we come across them.  

Does the spine really stick out like that after an actual beheading?

Sometimes. It really depends on the way the victim was decapitated. With many methods, the neck is generally stretched over a block or other device in order to give the executioner a larger target area. When decapitation is complete, the stretchable skin tends to snap back while the spinal bone slightly protrudes from the stump. Although this doesn't hold true all the time, we thought it added a little extra something to the dolls so most of them have a protruding vertebra.  Decapitation is also known as “decollaration” because a beheaded body often does not have a visible neck. 

How come some of the decapitated dolls have really messed up spinal bones and ragged cut stumps?

How they were decapitated plays a big part in how we design the neck stumps. For those who were beheaded by guillotine, the cuts are very clean as the heavy blade almost never had a problem slicing through muscle and bone. Heading axes, on the other hand, were more like heavy blunt choppers that crushed their way through the neck rather than a clean slice... and very often took more than one blow to do the job. Executions via sword would have varying patterns, depending on the angle of the victim and the path of the weapon during the decapitation. 

Most of the dolls look very young! Did all these people die early in their lives?

No, some didn't meet the executioner until they were well into their golden years. For most of the dolls, we tried to capture them at the highest point in their lives, usually their young adult years, and then mutilated them as they had been at the end of their lives. (Although some, like Lady Jane Grey, died while in their teens.) Then there's also the fact that these are reworked dolls and there doesn't seem to be many "old age" dolls available. So we work with whatever we can get.   

Is there anyone you won't base a doll on?

While we view our dolls as commemorating the lives of famous and historical characters, albeit in the morbid last moments of those lives, we do understand that there are some cases that are considered to be a bit too sensitive. As a general rule, we will not do children under 12. (Sorry, no JonBenet doll is forthcoming.)

We also tend to stick to a "ten year" rule before commemorating a death unless the subject's death is considered something to be celebrated in popular opinion. We do reserve the right to refuse a character request for any reason. Believe it or not, even we have standards!