American Girl Doll and Lionel Trains

[brianel027]

Tonight on the ABC evening news (I don't have cable so it's a choice between NBC or ABC) there was a bit about this brew-ha-ha being caused by this doll I had never heard of: American Girl. I guess the doll is real popular and there are a whole series of them. The report showed this mother saying the dolls are big with her daughter and they have a lot of them at $84 each. $84 for a doll?? I looked around on line and found they are even more with accessories and each one's appropriate book.

OUCH! Earth to brianel, Earth to brianel... over.
Man, what planet am I living on?? [8]

Now, I have and still think that some of the prices for Lionel trains are just crazy... $50 for a box car or $140 for a single motored engine from my viewpoint is too much. Espeically when a K-Line Train-19 Box Car or an Industrial Rail one are more than half off that. Or a Williams GP that's built better and has two vertical motors can be had for just a few more dollars.

Still, $84 for a doll blows me away. And that folks seem to be paying it.
Oh well, maybe I'm just living on the wrong side of the bank!

I'm sure those dolls are probably made in China too. I'm also familiar with selective retailing as well as the old adage of "get it while you can." If you are running a company and making a product that folks are fighting to get and willing to spend the dollars to have that product, you might as well make the money while you can do so.

None of this really changes my mind too much on pricing. But I guess when you consider $84 for a doll, $50 for a box car doesn't seem so out of line... if you are living on the right side of the bank! [:D]

Maybe those dolls come with "Doll Master Command Control" and "Doll Sounds" and I just missed that in the product descriptions. [:D]

[Buckeye Riveter]

My daughter has a collection of American Girl Dolls. They are a very high quality doll and are considered collectable. The little girls in the neighborhood ooh and aah at the site of these dolls much like we do when we see the best ot the trains. It's a girl thing.

[spankybird]

HI Brian,

My wife collects dolls. She likes the baby ones. The average price for one is $150.00 each and some up to $250 - $300 each.



And yes some do have processors in them, they cry until you pick them up and rock them or burp them. It drives me nuts when she plays with them.

And of course there are 42” porcelain dolls that are in the range of $500.00 each (she has two of these.



One train engine cost me 2 or 3 dolls.

tom

[pbjwilson]

Oh man, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's an American Girl store in Chicago. Kids take their dolls to the store and have birthday parties, have their hair done( the kid and the doll), you can buy real clothes that look like the clothes your doll wears. It's marketing gone wild. I think a day down at the American Girl store can run into the hunreds of dollars.
And I think if you invite your friends with their dolls and have a birthday party with the works I bet you can drop a 'G'.
If only the Great American Train Store(remember those) had had a marketing scheme like that they'd be rollin in the dough!

[krapug1]

Yes, the American Girl Doll Stores are popular to put it VERY midly. They have one on 5th Avenue in NYC now, and this past Christmas NYC was a sea of their signature Red Shopping Bags. The stores are a real destination with a lunch room, hair salon (for the dolls), theatre etc., it is almost a throwback to the time when Mothers would take their daughters "downtown" for a day at a flagship Department Store.

If someone at Lionel, or K-Line (or MTH) would take notice, what a perfect venue to re-market another re-issue of the Girls Train.

Ken

[cnw1995]

Thank goodness my daughter has 'grown' out of these dolls but because they were so expensive, I'm keeping them forever. I remember a trip for her, two friends and my wife to the Chicago AG store sure cost a heck of a lot of money. The store has a restaurant, a 'show', in addition to everything for sale; the dolls are related to a pretty well thought out series of books about 'real' girls represented by the dolls...

[dougdagrump]

Tom, I feel your pain. [sigh] Between all the Beanies and the porcelain dolls I feel like I'm living in a girls dormitory. For her really hi-end dolls I had to build a display case, 5W x 2D x 7H. Thing cost a bloody fortune with all the tempered glass shelves and mirrored back. Could have had a REAL NICE hi-end set instead, but after 39+ yrs of marriage you learn which battles you can win and the ones you can't. [:D]

[tjsprague]

My daughter has one. it is kind of cool that you can order it with a certain combination of features so she got one that looks amazingly like her. She got hers a few years back and they were about $60 then. The real killer is the accessories. matching pajamas for you and your doll, $80!

But then again, my sons video games aren't cheap either. And my wife's racing bicycle cost what I'd expect to pay for a second car. and trains....well, we all know what they cost.

I guess it comes down to children (of all ages) respecting what they've come to aquire, and not being wrapped up in having everything right now.

Afterall, how much did a 1949 F3 really cost in relation to income?

I guess the point of this rambling is, be happy with what we've got, and learn to appreciate beautiful things even if we may never come to own them.

Tim