An amazing doll store!

[Katie from IL]

When I was buying the doll school uniforms yesterday, a girl who worked there referred me to a store nearby that she said sold stuff for AG. When I drove by there yesterday they were closed so I went today and just came back.

This huge store is called Gigi's Dolls and Sherry's Teddy Bears, Inc. The sell nearly every doll anyone can think of, including Gotz and American Girl dolls! I've never seen a store outside AG that sold the full-size dolls until today. They don't have a lot of them, but they do have many of the historics and Marisol MIB.

They did not have the high demand ones-Felicity, Elizabeth, Lindsey or Kailey. They had 2 Addys-1 was on display and had one completely silver eye-the first time I had ever seen silver eye on a doll. The other Addy which was MIB had the beginnings of silver eye. I would think that if a doll has silver eye or some other defect they may take $ off.

They were charging $100 for the MIB ones, $27 for the AG mini dolls and $47 for the MIB bitty babies. There was also a set of blonde bitty twins but I didn't see the price.

They also had some of the mini dolls, including 1 older mini Felicity with the inset eyes, which I have never seen before in person. They have furniture, shoes, accessories, clothes, everything! They had a few authentic AG items out of the packages(Molly's bed, Kit's Xmas outfit, Molly's aviator outfit), but many things that were copies of Ag items and hand-made clothes and things that would fit AG, including used doll clothes and furniture.

There is a entire room with nothing but rows and rows of doll clothes-AG/18", bitty, other sizes and even used doll clothes. There was another room that was a warehouse of things like stockings, socks, underwear, stands, wigs, and doll parts. The handmade and used stuff, not authentic AG stuff were very reasonability priced.

They also sell Beanies and other stuffed animals, antique dolls, Barbie, Madam Alexander, and doll houses. They buy dolls and clothes and things from people and they claim they even have an on-site doll hospital, but I didn't ask about it.

If anyone lives in the Chicago area, this is a must-see store if you're looking for stuff for your AG dolls! It's on the far NW side of Chicago.

Here's the website:
http://www.gigisdolls.com

<font color="#051E50"><font size="1">[ August 26, 2005 06:26 PM: Message edited by: Katie from IL ]</font></font>

<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ August 26, 2005 06:28 PM: Message edited by: Katie from IL ]</font>

[Shawniec]

Wow, that's very interesting. We have a local doll store where the owner sells lots of non-AG clothing and furniture made to fit the AG dolls. She also has LOTS of real AG dolls for display purposes, but she told me she never sells anything AG because she could get in big trouble if she was caught. I remember she was saying a gentleman came in begging to buy a Lindsey off of her for what she felt was a good price (I think it was around $150, but this was over a year ago), and she told him she couldn't. [img]graemlins/wonder.gif[/img]
That place does sound like a lot of fun though!

Shawn

[shuffar]

I was thinking the same thing. If it was a second hand store, I could see it being all right. But since it sounds like they are selling alot of new stuff, that could be a problem. For them if AG finds out, I would imagine.

[Katie from IL]

Compared with all the different things in the store, the actual amound of official AG stuff is minimal. And I'm not sure how much of it was from other people who sold it to that store first. I think most of it, actually was from doll collectors and parents with children who outgrew the stuff since they do have a lot of used stuff in the store. However, they do not list AG on their business cards or on their website.