Identifying Dolls

Can you help me identify my doll and what is it worth?
From time to time I visit many of the doll web sites, chat rooms,
usenets, and hobby forums. This is a question I see posted many
times. There usually are not many answers.
Usually there are questions asking for more information. It is not
that people don't want to help, but the descriptions are usually not
clear and the doll marks are almost never given. Usually the person
does not know what the doll is made of or if the clothing is original
to the doll. To help identify a doll, you have to know the size of
the doll, what the doll is made of, all the markings on the dolls
head and body, a description of the clothing. It will then take a
lot of time going through books  looking for the doll marks, as they are
most important when identifing a doll. The best thing to do if you
have a doll you cannot identify is to go to the library and look thru
all the doll books and familiarize yourself with materials dolls are
made of.  If you collect dolls it would pay you to buy doll books that
help identify the kinds of dolls you collect. I have over a period
of many years amassed a large collection of doll books. You will be
more accurate by looking up the information yourself than relying on
someone else. It takes time to identify most dolls.  Some dolls can
be identified by a description and a lot more by a picture. But that
is usually the newer dolls. I have dolls I cannot identify, some I
have been looking for years to find out who they are. Dolls were
made by the manufacturers as playthings, not as collectors items. 
Therefore no accurate records have been kept on them. 
Ebay is another source to identify dolls.  Go to the doll listings and
look at the pictures.  All this takes a lot of  time, but there is no easy way to find
the identity of a mystery doll.  But AHHH!  The excitement when you do.