Out of the Box: Madame Alexander South Africa (International Friends)

Madame Alexander's South Africa

I was doing some Christmas shopping on Zulily last month, and noticed that their Madame Alexander section (which had previously consisted of the 18" play dolls), had a number of the smaller collector dolls available for half their regular retail price.  And three of those collector dolls were from the International Friends line (Madagascar, South Africa, and Brazil), so it's no surprise that one of those (South Africa) fell into my cart.  And yesterday, she arrived at my door (a bit of a surprise, as she hadn't been marked as being available for pre-Christmas delivery).

Being a fan of the older version of that series (I've posted about my 1970s India and Canada dolls a few times in the past), I've been curious to see what these modern versions would be like, but the greatly increased price made me wary since I'd heard conflicting reports about the relative quality of these newer dolls (the new dolls retail for $100 USD, while - with a few exceptions for rarity - the older dolls are generally available on the secondary market for less than $30).  But since this sale had them at half price I was happy to bring one home and see how she'd compare to the older dolls.

The first thing I noticed about this doll is that her box was

The box.

 slightly smaller than the ones from the old line - a surprise since this doll is slightly larger than those ones.  She was secured to the box with a pair of ribbons, which made her significantly easier to debox than the similarly themed playline Travel Friends line.

In the box.

Out of the box, one of the improvements over the "classic" dolls was obvious: this doll has jointed knees and elbows, which gives the doll significantly more posing potential.  I also thought her outfit was better constructed than those of the 1970s dolls and more obviously constructed to be removed, should one choose to redress the doll.

She also appears to have better quality hair, although whether that's unique to this doll (who is one of the few in the line to have short hair) or a line-wide improvement, I can't say.

New posing abilities: without knee and elbow joints, the old dolls
 can't sit and wave like these newer ones.

This doll has one of the classic Madame Alexander faces (specifically the "Wendy" head), so she has the traditional small puckered lips and small round sleep eyes.  The inset eyes are probably the standout feature of this doll for me - the specific shade of brown gives them a certain warmth, and they reflect light fairly well, which keeps her from looking a little less stern than many Madame Alexander dolls do (I've always felt that Canada and India are glaring out of the doll shelf with an expression of disappointment).

Compared to the older "India".  You can see the difference in height
and in eye detail here.

Overall, I'm pleased with both the general improvements to this line of dolls and with the charm of this specific doll - I probably wouldn't pick up another at retail, but at discounted prices, I certainly think they're worth looking at.