DAM Vintage Animal Trolls

 

    In the 1960’s along with his Troll dolls, Thomas DAM also made several different troll animals in many sizes and colors. Some DAM collectors find pleasure in collecting these unique versions and some of these DAM animals are VERY rare and highly sought after by collectors. The elusive DAM alligator trolls may be one of the most SUPER rarest of them all, supposedly they came in two different sizes. The only picture I’ve ever seen one was on the DAM Things website (click of photo of Thomas Dam above to visit the DAM website), www.DamWorld.dk– alligator trolls) on their Animal trolls page, the photo itself looks like it came from a calendar or may be a scan of some sort.

   Several of these unique DAM animal trolls can occasionally be found for sale on the secondary market, such as on e-bay or other websites which auction and re-sell items, with some of the more RARE of these DAM trolls fetching in the $500 to over $1,000 range. Unfortunately, not all the DAM troll animals are marked, but serious DAM collectors usually have the eye for recognizing the unique sculpting style of Thomas Dam. For additional info on Thomas DAM trolls check out the Evertroll website (click on hyper-link or on the Evertroll logo below).

   Although many of the DAM trolls were made in Denmark, as mentioned previously some were made in America in the 1960’s the company which was licensed to produce DAM trolls in the USA was Royalty Designs of Florida (located in Hialeah, FL).

Final fetching $$$ on any of the DAM troll animals shown below, depends not only on the condition, but if the troll comes with all the original accessories and how much a buyer is willing to pay for the troll.

  Thomas Dam (pronounced Dom or Dahm), made his first troll in the 1930’s out of wood. Among his other odd jobs, his carvings were a main source of income for his poor family. Some of his earliest trolls were made of natural rubber and filled with wood shavings (these early DAM trolls are also known as SAWDUST trolls by collectors), their wigs were hand sewn together from small pieces of sheepskin and clothes were sewn directly on their bodies. The work to create these trolls was time consuming but they quickly became the family’s livelihood and main source of income, soon a factory (The Troll Company A/S) was built to accommodate the demand for these trolls. The sales for these trolls grew rapidly in the 1960’s and eventually these DAM trolls traveled from their homeland of Gjøl Denmark, into other European countries and to the U.S.A. and beyond.

    Unfortunately there were other toy companies who saw the financial possibilities of these unique trolls and they began creating cheap imitations and knock-offs. In the mid-1960’s there was the one company- Royalty Designs of Florida Inc. in Hialeah, FL which was officially licensed to make the DAM Things original trolls in the USA. These lighter hard-body troll dolls and animals are often referred to as American trolls. But issues with copyrights in the mid-late 1960’s with Scandia House Enterprises, Inc (refer to court case– Scandia House Enterprises, Inc, plaintiff v Dam Things Establishment, defendant, July 15, 1965), and the surge of imitations in the USA caused a very frustrated Thomas Dam to halt the sales of his trolls in the USA and pull back to selling his trolls in Europe exclusively where his patents and copyrights for his trolls were established and protected.

 

 

Thomas DAM– Animal Trolls