Saturday, September 14, 2013

My collection is complete!! Or is it?

In a previous post I mentioned that the biggest goal I have for my doll collection is to have an example of every face mold AG uses/has used in the past. It's a really good way to get some diversity into my collection and I'm kind of fascinated with the molds anyway. I think it's amazing that AG has so many different dolls (though not as many as you would think) and yet only eight face molds.

Anyway! I completed my goal and now here is my complete doll mold collection!


Top Row: Pre-Mattel Classic Mold, Addy Mold, Asian Mold, Jess Mold, Marie-Grace Mold
Bottom Row: Mattel Classic Mold, Josefina Mold, Kaya Mold, Modified Jess Mold, Sonali Mold
I could fill this post with comparisons of each face mold but you can find really good descriptions of them here (just search for doll molds) at the AG wiki. And honestly they do a better job there than I could! Instead I'm going to throw down a whole bunch of facts and numbers for you!

American Girl has made only 96 different dolls in it's history as a company. (I couldn't decide if the dolls with no hair should count or not so I just counted them anyway! But if you don't think they should then the total is 91.) I went through the AG wiki and counted every doll and what mold they have and I ended up with this:
Sorry if it's hard to read. You can click on it to make it bigger! Also MAG stands for My American Girl and GOTY is Girl of the Year.
It seems like the most diverse group is the historical; using all but one of the face molds. What I found most surprising is the lack of mold diversity in the MAG's. I was really surprised that only two of the MAG's have the Josefina Mold! I love that mold! I suppose it's not terribly shocking when you consider that the line started in 1995 with three face molds and a fourth face mold wasn't added to this line till 2006. Girls of the Year lean very heavily towards the Classic Mold. In fact the whole company does! So let's take a better look at that last column.

Of the total number of dolls AG has ever made 61 of them have the Classic Mold! I decided that I wanted to see the percentages so I made this pie chart:

Again, I'm sorry if it's hard to read! Just click on it!
It breaks down like this: 65% of the AG dolls ever made have the Classic Mold. The next highest two are the Josefina Mold with 10% and then the Addy Mold with 9%. The Jess and Sonali Molds are next with 7% and 6% respectively. RAnd rounding out the bottom are the Asian, Kaya, and Marie-Grace Molds with 1% each.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not posting any of this to criticize AG. I just honestly like statistics and I find all this interesting! Someday I'll post about the hair and eye color figures I have, it's kind of sad. However I do wonder why, when you have gone to the trouble of making 7 other face molds, you would still have 65% of all your dolls be just one. Really I think this is the reason I wasn't all that impressed with Caroline and Saige. They are pretty but I have 8 Classic Mold dolls and I just want something else! So many molds are way underused! I can understand the Kaya Mold only being used once but I would LOVE to see a few more dolls with the Marie-Grace and Sonali Molds made and I think it's a shame the Asian Mold was only used once and then retired. I'm really hoping to see more mold diversity in the future, but then I think everyone is.

So my collection is complete!! Not really. I actually already have my eye on MAG # 58, I really want Mia because of her uniquie freckle pattern and I'm dying to get my hands on a bald doll!  So my AG collecting days are far from over! But I am thrilled to have this goal met!

Next time will be far more pictures and far less graphs when I continue my Dressing Your Doll on a Dime series! Till then!

4 comments:

  1. Congratulations!!! I love the basis of your collection. I have actually considered going about it the way you have now accomplished but the thought of having eight dolls just for myself kind of overwhelms me. (Not sure why but it does.) It is possible that the collective effort of my daughter's dolls and my dolls we will end up with all eight molds so maybe that's the answer. I adopted a #4 from ebay this past weekend, we have Kanani in a holding pattern until maybe Christmas, and though I keep telling myself I only want to have my custom girl Echo and my #4 (who will be a modern girl and Echo's BFF), I still feel like I would love a modern M-G and a Kaya. What I really would love is if the next GOTY has a M-G mold. I also love the Sonali mold but I doubt I would ever venture to get her. And the Jess mold? I don't know. I like #4 so much better because I feel like she looks so much more Asian and I even like her pie bangs.

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    1. Thank you! Congrats on the #4, she is one of my very favorites! My collection totally creeped up on me! I never thought I would have this many, but I love each one so I can't say that I regret any of it! I'm really hoping for a new m-g mold doll! Come on GOTY 2014!!

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  2. Thank you for putting this together! I knew they over used the classic mold, but not this much! I also figured there would of been higher numbers for the Addy mold but I guess not.

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    1. When you look at the numbers it's pretty crazy! I was shocked!

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