The Boondocks of the Doll Shop World

I had Tonner's Tangled in my grasp and I could not have been more delighted to have her. Despite the things I did not like about her, I was still far more thankful that she was mine. However, I felt a little bit of sadness. I could not help but think that I would never find Tonner's Rapunzel for my collection.

Rapunzel was released in 2011 (I believe, though she was advertised the year before) to go along with the movie that had been released in late 2010. At the time, I did know know of Tonner's dolls, nor had I developed my love of Tangled yet. (Complicated story for another post.)

She was released as she would be later in the Tangled edition: limited to 1,000 dolls in a three-piece dress that matched the one found in the film with a lovely detailed face, a clear doll stand, and a set of satin ballerina satin shoes to wear. The major difference between Rapunzel and Tangled was the hair. Rapunzel's locks were flowing free.

This doll was something I coveted. I loved her hair and I had to have her. There were many times I regretted not having purchased her when she had first come out, but at that time I was not as large a Tangled fan as I am now (a story saved for another posting.)

I constantly agitated myself as I would look through image collections on flicker or with Google images and I saw what people were doing to the doll. Some people repainted her face, some people were dressing her up in modern and taking her out into the world as their blog mascot which resulted in a matting of hair (even when braided!), and some people had cut out her eyes and had them replaced with glass ones. So, that last one looked all right, but I was still upset that someone could do that to a limited edition doll when I did not have one yet! Greedy? Selfish? Yes, but at least I am honest about it.

I searched eBay constantly, looking for Rapunzel. All I could find were the Tangled versions of the doll and not the original release. Each day I grew a little more sad, and tried to cheer myself up by listing what I had in my collection and speaking to myself about how grateful I was to have such a collection. Just because I want to expand it, does not mean I do not appreciate what I already have.

One night, during a search, I found her. She was less than her original listing price, but still pretty close. I whimpered and whined and had to leave my computer multiple times. Why didn't I purchase her right away? She was for sale on a website I had never ever heard of before: The Classic Doll. I was a little wary. It looked like a legitimate site, but making a site look real is not a hard thing to do.

I lurked on the site for a while. Eyeing the doll and began to wonder if she was even really there. I did not want what had happened with the Tangled doll to happen with Rapunzel. I sent an email to the site manager and asked if the doll (using the serial number so I knew it was the correct one) was truly in stock. I got an email back within the hour stating that she did indeed have the doll.

With that, I took the chance and purchased her. I felt nervous  I was so afraid that this site would not be real, that the doll would never come, and I would have to figure out how to get my money back. I spoke with my fiancee over the matter, since he had deal with issues like that in the past, and he assured me he knew what to do and how to handle it just in case. I nodded, then waited.

I checked the website constantly. I looked for updated and I would look for the image of the doll. One day, it said my order had been shipped and the image of the doll in their inventory was gone. At that moment, I felt some relief. Not only was the doll on her way, but this site actually would take down a doll when they no longer had it.

About a week later, Rapunzel showed up at my home. I opened the box and looked down into the painted green eyes of the doll. I immediately looked to her hair to make sure it was her... and it was. Some how the matching serial number on both boxes she was in did not convince me. I had to see the hair!

As with the first Tonner doll I got, I carefully deboxed her to see all of her details, namely the hair. Right away, I knew I liked her a little more than the Tangled doll. There were only two things that I did not like about the doll, and both could easily be fixed with a little styling. First, her outfit was a little off. The bodice was not tied well and thus it was pulled in odd ways. This was fixed easily with a nicer bow at the top of her bodice and some adjustments of the lacing. The second thing that I did not like, which actually was the biggest part, was that a portion of her wig on the left-side of her face had a lot of short hairs that would poof out (known as fly-aways when talking about hair.) If you gently combed the wig, these fly-aways were tamed, but just that they were there bothered me. When I looked at other dolls in this edition online, I saw they some of them had them as well, so I knew I wasn't alone in that slight wig imperfection.

Other than that, I was so happy to have her. I placed her back into her box after a few photos and put her away. I wanted to have Rapunzel and Tangled  out for display, but I wanted to have them either in a protected case or in a cabinet of some kind. Until I have those, and the perfect location, they are safely kept in their boxes.

I feel so fortunate that I have both of the Tonner dolls.That took a large portion of my doll wish list away. And though I may not ever complete the rest of that list, I am happy.