Samantha Parkington is Coming Back!!

*UPDATES*
-Nellie will not be coming back
-Samantha will get a new meet outfit
-Samantha has feathered eyebrows
Click here for the source of the information

American Girl's Facebook this morning.

Willow here!

Many of you might have already seen, but American Girl is bringing back Samantha! This is HUGE!

So, Samantha was archived in 2009. That means it's been 5 years since she has been on the market. When she was around, she was one of the most popular characters. I myself own a large quantity of her things, though not her (the doll). This confirms one of the rumors on Living a Doll's Life and makes me wonder how many more of them could be true. They are right that AG retires low selling dolls and brings in dolls that make $. So, that would mean that this fall we have some interesting candidates for the chopping block:

1. Addy Walker

I just want to emphasize that this is a really ugly picture of Addy. If you look at our pictures of her, you'll see what I mean!

Okay, so Addy has a few things going for her in terms of retiring. First of all, she's been around the longest of our candidates, having been released in 1993. Secondly, from what I know, not a lot of people own her. I mean, we do, but we own the only Addy in the whole club (which has over thirty dolls in it!) Also, Steampunk Addie predicted her demise (although she was wrong, Molly went first.) Steampunk Addie also did hint at the possible retiring of our next candidate (or should I say candidates).

2. Marie-Grace and Cecile

Maybe the reason these dolls aren't selling is because of the terrible photography. Ew.

So, these two have only been around since 2011, so three years. They're like babies compared to Addy. With those kind of stats, you wouldn't expect them to be retiring. However, the events leading up to now certainly hint at their archival. At their height, they had 6 outfits each, seven including their meet outfits. They are now down to four including their meet outfits. In addition, many of their accessories have been retired, such as the treats table. They've also been on Jill's Steals and Deals (on the today show) repeatedly since their release. Finally, their collection is one of the only two to not get a fresh release February 13th.

3. Josefina

Okay, that's a better picture.

To be honest, Josefina doesn't have that much going for her (in terms of being archived). The only piece of "evidence" I have is that she didn't get anything new February 13th. However, she still has 9 outfits (counting her meet outfit), 7 accessories, and two furniture sets. That's more furniture than Julie has! (Although July does get a car...) In addition, Josefina is currently the only Hispanic character AG offers at the moment, so archiving her could be controversial.

I'm betting on Marie-Grace and Cecile at the moment, as much as it irks me to do so.

One of the things that interested me the most about the Facebook post was the line "is just one of the exciting changes to our historical line." As the speculator I am, I can't help but thinking of what might happen...

The Ideal

This is what I really want to happen. I want AG to shift their focus back on the historical characters and their stories, and bring back the uniformity where each character had a birthday story, a christmas story, a winter story, etc. Unfortunately I don't think this is going to happen.

The Worst Possible Outcome

AG changes the historical line so that it's non-existent? Okay, that's highly improbable, but they might consolidate what they have and perhaps redo the meet outfits of the characters to make them more pink. That's been a recent trend. Don't get me wrong, I love pink (ask Honey) but it's nice to see diversity and both Caroline and Marie-Grace had pink dresses.

The Middle Ground

To be honest, I'm unsure about what this one would be, despite that it has the most likelihood. Maybe AG will redo the formating of how they market the historical line and add some new catch phrases? Who knows...

Opinion Time

Okay, so now's the part where I say what I think...

It's very cool that Samantha is coming back. It'll be interesting or not to see whether her whole collection comes back in its full glory, and whether Nellie (her friend doll) comes with her or not. I'm disappointed that two