AG Twins: 2017 MCM Benefit Sale Sunday Report

We went to the Madison Children's Museum Benefit Sale again this year. The sale took place on July 22nd and 23rd. We went for the discounted second day of the sale, and are excited to report what was available as well as our experience.

We arrived at the sale at 7:15, and the line was already super long. The sale volunteers started to hand out tickets for 9 o'clock entry at 8 am. We received tickets to be in the third group in, with numbers in the high 200s. The first group of free tickets entered the sale at around 9:30 instead of 9:00 due to overcrowding in the warehouse. This pushed back entry times for all groups, so we ended up entering the warehouse at 10:30, and were very surprised at what was left.
The first thing that we went to look at was the Truly Me dolls. Only about 10 different number dolls were left, and of them had straight, dark hair except for number 58. We had been planning on getting one Truly Me doll, but did not see any that we wanted.

After this we went to check out the GOTY dolls. We were shocked to see that they were completely sold out of all the Grace (GOTY 2015) and Isabelle (GOTY 2014) dolls. We thought for sure there would still be some left based on the large number of them left after Sunday last year, but this was not a problem for us as we already own both Grace and Isabelle. There were still plenty of Lea dolls left (GOTY 2016), but not all of them came in her meet outfit. Many came in Lea's Rainforest Pajamas, which were also on available at the sale. We picked up one Lea doll in her meet outfit, and were lucky enough to find one with pierced ears. We asked a volunteer if we could switch the box with another doll, because it did not have the bag and compass necklace that Lea comes with. We are glad we noticed they were missing and were able to get one that included them!

Most of the Lea dolls had hair that was in poor condition, almost looking straight instead of wavy, but we found one with intact waves.

Lea's compass necklace and messenger bag

Lea's exclusive earrings

We were pleasantly surprised to see the amount of BeForever dolls that they had left on the second day. They had Samantha, Rebecca and Julie, as was listed on the price list posted for day 2 of the sale. Some Rebecca dolls were even in her Historical meet outfit. We were excited to see some surprise BeForever dolls that we were not expecting! Among theses surprises were Josefina and Melody. We expressed our surprise that Melody dolls were still left on the second day to one of the volunteers, and she informed us that they had just found a stack of them and had just put them out. We saw a few people walking around holding Maryellen dolls, but did not see any more left on the tables. The prices of these dolls were a little different than last year. At last year's sale, all BeForever dolls had the same price, except for Caroline, who was just retired. This year each doll had a separate price. Samantha was $50, Rebecca was $60, Julie was $75, and Melody was $80.

The Dolls section of the Sunday Price list

The limits on items were different from last year as well. There were higher limits on the clothing and accessories, which helps to explain why so much of it sold out the first day of the sale.

The prices listed in this picture are the Saturday prices, so they are different from the Saturday prices listed above.

Aside from the dolls, we were surprised at the lack of clothing and accessories that they had available. We were disappointed that none of the outfits and accessories were 50% off on the second day, as everything had been in past years. The only discounts were on dolls. This was unfortunate because we had been hoping to get some discounted items. They did not have anything from the Truly Me line except for the Friends Are Sweet Set for $10, which had been on sale on americangirl.com for $8 for a full year leading up to the sale. The only BeForever items that they had left was Melody's Fancy Floral Dress for $15 and Melody's Bedroom Accessories for $6. All the rest of the clothing that they had was from Lea's line. We were surprised by this because last year's sale had nothing from Grace's line. The Lea items that they had left included Lea's Rainforest Hike Accessories for $10, Lea's Rainforest Dreams Pajamas for $10, Lea's Bahia Outfit for $15, and our personal favorite find of the day, Lea's Beach Dress for $15. We were so surprised that they had Lea's Beach Dress available because it had not been listed on the price list for either day, and were shocker that it had made it to day 2 of the sale because it had only previously been available for purchase when you bought Lea's Exclusive Collection for $180, which included the Lea doll, Lea's Accessories, and Lea's Beach Dress.

Another thing we were surprised to see made it to the second day of the sale was the big furniture items, Melody's Bed, Lea's Fruit Stand, and Lea's Rainforest House. We had been planning on purchasing Lea's Fruit Stand since the price list was released, but were extremely disappointed to find that it was incomplete. They were selling just the Fruit Stand itself with none of the accessories for $65.We decided not to purchase the Fruit Stand because of this. We also heard a volunteer talking about Lea's Rainforest house (on sale for $100), explaining that it was also incomplete as it did not include the roof. We are unsure if it had any accessories with it. The only complete furniture set they had was Melody's Bed, which was available for purchase for $35.

At the end of the day, we ended up purchasing one Lea doll, Lea's Beach Dress, Lea's Rainforest Hike Accessories, and a Samantha doll. This is much less then we purchased at last years sale due to the smaller selection, higher prices, and incomplete sets, but we were happy with the items we did end up purchasing. As we were leaving the sale, volunteers were passing out Truly Me Activity Spinners for free! We received a total of 5 of them.