The Lebanon Doll Club is putting on a doll show on Nov. 7, perhaps the first ever in Lebanon.

Many downtown vendors will offer 5 to 15 percent off merchandise or specials to attendees on the day in an effort to stimulate foot traffic through the area.

Driving through downtown, it doesn't look like much, show organizer Mary DeSaulnier said. But it's a different story on foot.

"We want to encourage people to walk through it," DeSaulnier said. "They'd probably come back. It's a promotional thing for our downtown."

Club member Mary Whitney helped DeSaulnier get downtown merchants on board.

"We would really love it if the whole town would get together and do an event," club member Brenda Yates added.

The club formed decades ago when a group of friends got together. It's a casual club that meets monthly in different member's homes.

Members vary in the size, scope and age of their collections.

DeSaulnier said she only has a couple of dolls and considers herself rather new to doll collecting.

Club member Betty Edwards has always liked dolls.

"My first collection was when my grandmother and great aunt gave me some," Edwards said. "I thought I was too old for dolls."

She changed her mind and even learned to make dolls through the doll museum.

Yates got started by attending a toy shop's annual doll show and listening to appraisals.

She and a friend found their way to a doll auction.

"We weren't going to buy anything, but we did," Yates said.

When her husband began buying her dolls for Christmas, the collection began to grow.

Yates displays her doll collection throughout her house rather than in one room.

Her dolls range in age and style, from elegant porcelain to homemade.

A pair of elderly dolls sits together on a dresser.

"Everyone likes to touch these on the nose, so if you look close …," Yates said while pointing at the rubbed-off tips of the doll's noses.

Historical dolls wear tiny replicas of actual uniforms and dresses worn by the people they reflect, down to tiny buttons, detailed shoes and undergarments.

"Accessories is what makes the doll," Yates said.

Small books, furniture, quilts and stuff toys add to the charm of the dolls.

"It used to be that papier-mâché doll heads were sold, and mothers made the bodies," Yates said.

All sorts of dolls will be for sale at the doll show, Yates said.

"We have 44 tables rented out to vendors of dolls," she said. "Every kind of doll imaginable will be available."

If someone's just getting started, it's a great time to buy dolls, Yates added.

"The price on everything has gone down," she said.

Someone will be stringing dolls - fixing old, loose dolls - at the show.

Also available are verbal appraisals for dolls.

"I've seen a lot of times a doll is worth a lot of money and they didn't even know," Yates said.

Yates has belonged to the Lebanon Doll Club for 17 years.

The club offers a raffle for its members each month.

"Whoever wins the raffle brings it the next month, changing things out, adding things, taking things, or whatever," Edwards said.

Money earned from the raffle is used to buy toys for the ABC House in Albany.

Although the Lebanon Doll Club is full, a sign-up sheet will be at the show for anyone interested in starting a second club in Lebanon.

The show is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Nov. 7 at 75 E. Ash St. Cost is $2. Children younger than 9 are admitted free. A hand stamp will be given to those wanting to take advantage of downtown shopping.

Door prize drawings will happen every hour. Snacks will be available at for a small cost.