Angelina Ballerina at Hamleys in London

[carolinapooh]

I noticed this last week when I was in London and kick myself whenever I think about it. When I was in Hamley's (the famous toy store on Regent Street), I saw the ENTIRE Angelina line. I wasn't quick enough to get the name of the company that's making her, but it's definitely our Angelina. I even had Henry in my hand and am furious with myself for not buying him. If I go back at/around Christmas, I'll brave the crowds and do a bit more investigating.

I thought this was interesting. I'll bet the company making her is a European subsidiary of Mattel. She was very popular; lots of little girls were looking at her!

Edited to note: also interesting is there was not one other thing in the store that appeared to be remotely related to AG - what I mean is an 18" American doll in British sheep's clothing, if you will. You couldn't even buy outfits for 18" dolls - no Gotz or anything even remotely similar. I went in there because I specifically wanted a different outfit as a gift for Ruthie - something you wouldn't be able to buy anywhere else. No luck there. Not even an appropriate sized accessory. I combed the entire doll floor.

What WAS there was the Baby Born line - EN MASSE. Baby dolls seem to be the baby of choice over there - and Cabbage Patch Kids. And BOY were they expensive even pre-pound conversion - a CPK was upwards of sixty bucks (30 pounds)! (Out of curiosity, didn't Mattel buy the rights to them when Coleco went under, or they bought what was left of the company? Or am I just painfully jetlagged?)

What we did end up with for a souvenir I will scan to show you - it is AWESOME.

<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ April 01, 2005 04:29 PM: Message edited by: mollymom ]</font>

[mom_to_an_americangirl]

I have a UK angelina and a ton of stuff and here is the information. Angelina is a slightly different scale than the one that American Girl used to sell. It was being made in the UK long before AG offered her. Here is the information I have off a package of clothing.

HIT entertainment owns the trademark for Angelina and her dancing mouse logo. The authorized user for the license for the clothing sold in the uk is GE Fabbri Ltd.

[carolinapooh]

COOOOOLLLLL...thanks for the info. I was very curious about that! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

[JuliaAM]

Welcome back, Kimberly!!! Can't wait to see pics of your trip, no matter how rainy the weather there. When my dd took a trip to the UK a couple years ago, my sis in Scotland advised she take an umbrella and trench coat because she would use them alot. Dd said all the rain makes the place extraordinarily GREEN and fabulous.

After reading your post, I looked up UK Angelina. Didn't find anything on the web but I did find a lot of UK Angelina stuff on Ebay. The UK Angelina looks a bit different than the US Angelina. A lot of the ebay auctions were for an 8" Angelina. The legs are chubbier and don't look poseable and her clothes look way simpler than the AG Angelina clothes. She's still cute though. I didn't see any specifically UK Angelina furniture though, just Alice, Angelina and dresses.

Julia

[carolinapooh]

They had a LOAD of stuff - a house or a room? And some furniture. There was an entire display of Angelina. I'd never noticed her when I was in there before, so I had no idea she'd been there.

Of course, this is my first trip to London since becoming AG mad...

[OSusannah]

Just this week I had been looking at AB on eBay and wondering if it could be purchased in the US. I couldn't find anywhere in the US that sells it, apparently AG had the rights for the US and the other company had the rights in England or Europe or wherever.

This is one site that sells AB. They list the producer as Flair. They have a darling cottage and furniture and Miss Lily! I can't find the dimensions of the cottage, not sure if it would be correct scale for AG AB, but we would love to have one!

[QNPoohBear]

London is gray gray gray and wet wet wet! I was there from January-May 1999 and it rained the entire time. I never saw anything for AGs at all, and I don't recall if there were Gotz dolls in the toy store in Germany I went to. I didn't know what a Gotz was [img]frown.gif[/img]

[FelinaDoon]

Wow Thanks for the info.

Yup - Mattel did get the rights when Coleco went under.

Maybe we can start something - Great Britan Girls

Elizabethan Doll

One From The War with the Colonies

One From WW1 - Little Princess Type

ETC.....

[dornroeschen]

Mail Order Express is where I managed to get the Angelina Ballerina dolls for Kamilla all those years ago. When I was at Hamleys the last time, they didn't have a lot of Angelina Ballerina toys then, maybe a couple of the flocked figures and I remember a 'Dancing Angelina', standing on a base and you wound her up - or did it work with batteries I can't remember - and she'd do a pirouette.

Unfortunately in Europe the emphasis is all on the Baby Born, Baby Annabelle and Chou-Chou dolls - just baby dolls. It's really difficult to find a 'big girl' doll. For a while you could find Corolle, G?tz or Colette by Zapf at specialist toy shops. At every other toyshop you would just find the baby dolls. However, more and more of the specialized toyshops now also stop the toddler dolls. It's really frustrating if you want a different doll and not just a baby doll. Checking just now on the Zapf German Homepage - they don't offer Colette anymore either.

Hence I don't have any other choice but to become a big AG Fan.

[img]wink.gif[/img]

[amandajg]

It sounds like there's a major market over in Europe that someone needs to tap into... [img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/wonder.gif[/img]