MCM 2019- The Year of Deals!

While my feet are still recovering from all of the walking, I am back! Benefit Sale 2019 is over with and it's time for my yearly review & coverage. This year I was lucky enough to score tickets to the Sunday sale which is when prices of some items are slashed anywhere from 15-50%. Because of this my mom and I rented a hotel Friday & Saturday night. If you remember my post covering last year, I drove to Middleton and back in one day for the Saturday sale. Can I just say how nice it was being able to relax in a hotel before and after the long sale days? I don't know what I was thinking last year, haha.

Margot was my sale doll from last year so she came with this year to welcome the new additions! She also snagged up mini-Grace as her own doll. 

Since I knew we'd be staying in a hotel I was able to reserve a room put aside in the partner hotels, which meant that we received a goodie bag upon check-in! This year the bag included a mini Grace Thomas doll with her first two books, a coupon book for other businesses in the Middleton area, and a welcome letter from the MCM staff. We stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn which I would highly recommend. The rooms were clean and nice, the staff was super friendly, and they had an excellent breakfast selection.

Goodie bag items.

Our ticket time for Saturday was originally set for 12:00PM. I was nervous as to what kind of stock would be left over at that time so my mom and I took a chance and arrived at the sale grounds at 7:00AM to see if any earlier tickets were turned in to the welcome tent. Boy, did we luck out! We were able to trade our tickets for a pair of 8:15 ones! During that odd hour my mom and I checked out the vendor tents while I explained the full sale process to her (it was her first year attending). We browsed the Silent Auction tent where I was surprised to see that they had a selection of 10-12 Create Your Own dolls that were $120 and Buy It Now. This was the first year CYO dolls were made available at the sale and emails were sent out explaining the whole process of buying one. You needed to view the online photobucket albums (which crashed constantly while I was browsing them) and write down a list of corresponding numbers to dolls you were interested in buying. In the warehouse you would go to the CYO table and give them the numbers. They would go down the list, bring out the dolls still available or if they already sold, well, then you were out of luck. 

I was thrilled to see that Beth from Dreaming of Dolls took a photo of the Silent Auction CYO selection. I hope she won't mind that I've included that image below and circled a certain doll. ;) Side note: Beth has a fantastic blog and does an incredible write-up of her MCM experience every year. I'd highly recommend following her! 

Photo credit: Beth @ Dreaming of Dolls

I was nervous about this system- how long it would take, how fast the dolls would sell, etc. So when I saw the Buy It Now option at the Silent Auction tent, well, I caved. The CYO's there were the same price as in the warehouse so I couldn't see an issue with bypassing the warehouse system if I found one I liked at the Auction tent. Most of the dolls on my list were the Sonali mold with gray eyes. They happened to have one fitting that description in the Silent Auction selection. She is a light vinyl, Sonali mold with gray eyes and long straight brown hair. She came in the Let's Explore outfit with corresponding accessories. I've named her Tillie, after my great grandma. I lucked out and she even has the good quality eyes and body fabric. Shes also my first doll with gray eyes!

Meet Tillie!

After purchasing Tillie my mom and I ran her back to the car before heading to the line-up tent. I was excited to see that there were no dolls 'sold out' as of 8:15. By the time I went in last year Logan & Z were both sold out! The warehouse was much like it was last year- tables on either side as you enter with outfits on the left and historical dolls on the right. Historical dolls in large quantities like Addy & Melody were in the second half of the warehouse. Outfits I grabbed included the Double Bow Dress, current Basketball outfit (which I was surprised to see there!), four items from the Summer 2017 mix & match line, the 2017 Celebration Dress, and the TRU exclusive box set of the winter 2017 mix & match line. I purchased the mix & match box set for $20 which was the most expensive of the clothing items. Also seen were the Pomeranian PJs, Melody's PJs, Maryellen's School Dress, Samantha's Special Day Dress, two red holiday sets, and the holiday PJs from last Christmas. I know I'm missing items but that's all I can remember!

As for LE dolls I saw Grace (in limited numbers, which is why she didn't make the price list), Isabelle, Gabriela and Luciana. I did not see Lea this year. Z was also unavailable, but Tenney & Logan were both at the sale. Below you'll see photos of Isabelle still available on Sunday. I think it's safe to say she'll be around for next year. 

The whole pallet behind the volunteer was Isabelle too!

I bypassed the CYO table since I had already purchased Tillie and did not have the funds to pick up another. To the right of that table, along the back wall were the Costco Exclusive sets. Now I expected Kit to be there since she made the price list, but Molly? She was a huge surprise! I do not have a Costco membership so I missed out on Beforever Molly. Though she has my least favorite stories I love her time period. Outside of clothing items she was the very first item I shoved into my bag. Molly also had my favorite sign of the whole sale.

Molley, as in Trolley.

Next up were the tables of TM dolls. This year they were priced at $55 on Saturday. They took up the majority of the second half of the warehouse. I felt that there were more dolls this year than last. Could that be because of the permapanties and new eyes debacle? I sure was wondering about that. Still hanging around at 8:15 was Truly Me #80. I've had a name picked out for her since last summer so she was an easy YES. I also grabbed Truly Me #21 who was retired last year. She's a doll I've admired since I was a child. #80 is now named Georgia and #21 is Darcy. 

Saturday purchases.

Georgia!

Darcy! With pincurls!

 My final Saturday purchase was Addy! She was $30 (!!!) at the sale both days. I made the mistake of selling my Addy last year and have regretted it ever since. I'll be honest and say that I gave her the biggest hug once she was freed from her box at the hotel!

The weather during the Saturday sale was over 90 degrees with terrible humidity. The whole state was under a heat advisory and after being in that warehouse? I needed a shower and a nap. We spent most of Saturday afternoon recouping and managed to mostly sleep through the thunderstorm that hit around 3:00PM. Saturday evening I attended the meet-up hosted by ag_4allages on Instagram. Over 100 collectors young & old attended! Lots of shop owners attended too. I received items from Elite Doll World, Exquisite Doll Designz and Happy Threads Girl. Getting to meet so many of the other adult collectors (& friends!) I follow on IG is always one of my very favorite parts of this event.

2019 meet-up photo!

Alright, on to Sunday! We had ticket times for 7:30AM. This time was perfect because we had a chance at any remaining items from the day before. The Kit & Molly sets (though Molly sold out before 8:30), a good selection of the TMs,  and most of the outfits (minus the box set) were still available at our time. Sunday also had a selection of $20 nude Addy dolls who were not around on Saturday. I grabbed the second Molly book and newest Rebecca mystery as well as Truly Me #24 and #55. The Truly Me dolls were $40 on Sunday, the Costco sets $80 down from $100. Historical dolls outside of Addy & Melody remained at $85 A few of the vendors were around too which was a nice surprise for me. Someone had told me that no vendors would be at the Sunday sale. I picked up an adorable ruffled yellow polka dot dress from Janine's Creations on Etsy (thanks Neth for catching her name!) and several items from Ebony, The Glam Doll. 

Waiting to go in on Sunday morning!

Yellow dress by Janine's Creations and cat dress by The Glam Doll.

Just some further notes: I didn't pay much attention to the Wellie Wishers, Bitty Baby or Bitty Twins areas since I don't collect for them. I do know that Emerson was sold out before 8:30AM on Saturday. This year's sale also had way less big ticket items than the previous year.

My mom and I ended up checking out and heading home before noon on Sunday. The next day was a moving day for the both of us and we had a 4 hour drive home ahead. All in all I came home with SEVEN dolls which I'm still trying to wrap my head around. As I'm writing this I'm surrounded by my horde of TM girls and Tillie. 

My biggest regret from the sale is not being able to meet-up with Beth and Neth. The heat made it impossible to really wait around and the health of my friends is a #1 priority. I have no doubt that we'll make plans to get together next year if we're all able to make it. Hopefully somewhere with AC, haha. As I said earlier, Beth already has her MCM write-up posted and Neth is the one and only American Girl Outsider- both of their blogs are fantastic resources and I cannot recommend them enough. 

On my way out I did manage to catch sight of the sign announcing the dates for next year's MCM Benefit Sale. Mark your calendars for July 18th & 19th, 2020. I know I'm already planning on being there! Do you have plans to attend the Benefit Sale or have any questions about things I didn't cover from this year's sale? Let me know!