American Girls Collection

princess garnet · Post by **princess garnet** » Tue January 27th, 2009, 8:31 pm

Did anyone grow up with an American Girl doll? Or your daughter owns one?
I've found out that Samantha Parkington (1904) will be retired--no date that I could see.
I loved poring over the catalogs when they arrived in the mail; I remember there were only 3 until the early 1990s. I still have Samantha--she inspired my love of history.

Tanzanite · Post by **Tanzanite** » Tue January 27th, 2009, 9:44 pm

My daughter had one until last month. At 17 she decided she had outgrown it and despite my attempts at trying to convince her to keep it (for sentimental reasons or for her own daughter some day) she decided to "give it to someone who will enjoy it" and gave it to her boyfriend's 9 year old cousin for Christmas (along with a storage trunk and tons of clothes). Apparently the girl's family doesn't have much money and my daughter said that they would never be able to afford one.

For her birthday several years ago we took her to The American Girl Place store in Chicago - we had tea, saw the show, got the doll's hair done etc. The place was a mad house and the way they had lines set up for everything, it reminded me a little of Disney World!

Helen_Davis · Post by **Helen_Davis** » Tue January 27th, 2009, 11:05 pm

[quote=""princess garnet""]Did anyone grow up with an American Girl doll? Or your daughter owns one?
I've found out that Samantha Parkington (1904) will be retired--no date that I could see.
I loved poring over the catalogs when they arrived in the mail; I remember there were only 3 until the early 1990s. I still have Samantha--she inspired my love of history.[/quote]

Samantha? She was like one of the most popular!

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Wed January 28th, 2009, 2:55 am

I had some of the books, but not the dolls. Now I'm renting the movies from Netflix. I can't believe they're retiring Samantha!

boswellbaxter · Post by **boswellbaxter** » Wed January 28th, 2009, 5:30 am

A couple of years ago, my daughter and I listed her outgrown American Girls on e-Bay. Within five minutes of listing, we had people trying to get us to drop the auction and sell it to them offsite. They fetched a nice price at auction, and that was before any of them were retired!

Kveto from Prague · Post by **Kveto from Prague** » Fri January 30th, 2009, 12:16 am

i feel like i have to turn in my "guy card" for admitting that i remember these. my baby sister had a couple of the dolls. i just remember playing with her with them. we'd make the colonial one speak in a faux british accent "cor blimey! Ay wot!" and the swedish one bounce up and down saying "Jah, for sure. Im from Sveeden."

LoveHistory · Post by **LoveHistory** » Fri January 30th, 2009, 8:56 pm

That's funny, keny!