Move over, American Girl dolls and corporate parent Mattel (NYSE: MAT). Ellis Island dolls are vying for the collectible budget of hyphenated Americans with a unique version of Americana through various online channels.

What may have been the first wave of Ellis Island dolls surfaced as early as 1992 after the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation let Lenox, today known as Lenox Group (OTCBB: LENX), create a limited edition of six dolls to mark the centennial of Ellis Island. With porcelain heads, hands and legs and costumes, the dolls each measured 1.5 feet tall or slightly smaller and portrayed immigrants of various nationalities, such as "Eva," from Germany, "Stefan" of Poland and "Katrina" of Russia. Artist Pat Thompson served as designer for three of the dolls, which originally cost $152 a piece.

While Lenox Group has created many art ceramics, collectibles and figurines over its 120-year history, since November 23 it has been reorganizing under Chapter 11.

Lenox Group Inc. (NYSE:LNX), the makers of gift-ware, silver, and china products under brands including Department 56 and Lenox, is a company in serious trouble. After the resignation of disgraced former CEO Susan Engel in January, shares of the company sank as low as $2.86, but have since made a recovery to more than $5 per share, still well off the 52-week high of more than $14.

In the months leading up to the bad quarter and simultaneous departure of Ms. Engel, the company had attracted the attention of Winmark (NASDAQ:WINA) CEO and private investor John L. Morgan. He acquired more than 5% of the shares of the company and, in a letter to the Board of Directors, he called for changes in the company. When the Board offered him a seat, he declined, saying that he needed to play a more active role in the company's turnaround. In a letter attached to a 13-D filing, he wrote:

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article (viewable on Moneyweb), Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is in talks to acquire Adscape, a San Francisco company that provides technology for advertising in video games -- think Mario and Luigi in Lowes uniforms.

If the price is right, this looks like a terrific acquisition for Google, perhaps even a genuinely synergistic one. If they can get even a tiny percentage of the advertisers who shelled out nearly 10 billion dollars to Google for online advertising last year, Adscape's revenue will soar. For years, console games have featured ads, but they were programmed into the cartridge during the game design and could not change. With new systems like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hooked up to the Internet, it is now possible for product placement in video games to change every day.

I'll be eagerly awaiting details of Google's probable acquisition of Adscape. As most investors know -- and shareholders in Lenox Group (NYSE:LNX) recently found out -- acquisitions seldom end well. Peter Lynch calls it "diworsification." But this one looks better than most.