Friday, June 20, 2008

Gregor here

Hello Everbuddy—it's Gregor here! If you want to know the truth, unlike Sasha, blogging is not anything that ever crossed my mind. But since I have the chance, I may as well give it a whirl. You never know, it may be my only hope for 30 seconds of fame. So I get to tell you MY story. I was MamaT's first Ebay Sasha. Now Sasha is hovering over my shoulder and telling me I have to back up a bit, to where ol' Karinne left off. Well, I wasn't even here then, so I don't know why that's my job, but I'll tell you what I've heard anyhow, and no doubt, Sasha will let me know if I get any of this wrong.

I think MamaT got Karinne in 1999. MamaT got married in 2002 and started on this house building project, which they still haven't finished. Don't ask me why it's taking so long. You might find that on MamaT's blog. Anyhow, in 2003, they moved onto the property, and most everything had to go into storage including Sasha and Karinne. MamaT says it really bothered her to think of her dolls packed away in a dark box in a cold storage unit, what with them being real and all, but it couldn't be helped. And I don't know what the technical term is, it's not hibernation or aestivation, but we dolls go into some sort of suspended animation while we're in storage, so it's not quite so bad as you think. Still we do prefer to be out in the open.

Fast forward to 2007 when at long last the storage unit was emptied, and MamaT was delighted to be reunited with her dolls again. She also pulled out her Sasha books, although most of her other books are still boxed up. MamaT says she searched for Sasha's on Ebay a number of years ago, and found some, but there were only a few. With her dolls back on her mind, she did a search in 2007 and was amazed to find dozens of dolls available at any given time. She googled Sasha too and found all kinds of wonderful websites about Sasha dolls and saved most of them on her Favorites. It wasn't long before she became addicted to looking at the Sasha doll listings almost every day, just to enjoy looking at them you know. The most common search term she uses goes like this:
  • sasha -bratz -euro -eurogirl -american -osmond -attic

This narrows the number of non-Sasha hits down a bit. There are other terms she could take out too, but there is a character limit on the search term. She has this search saved as a favorite. Now if you are looking for clothes and accessories, you could probably leave Eurogirl, Magic Attic, and American girl (for accessories not clothes) in, but MamaT mainly just wanted to look at Sasha's which she says she never tires of.

Now I said earlier that I was MamaT's first Ebay Sasha, but that was not the search she used to find me. Just for an experiment, she tried searching on “Gregor” and I was listed without Sasha in the title. She thought maybe there would be a little less competition for me, since most people just search for Sasha. So she tried bidding on me. It was a very close auction. She won me by only 2 cents. She felt a little guilty the next bidder lost by such a narrow margin, but later that same bidder outbid MamaT more than once, and she saw her pick up lots of other things. So she quit feeling guilty after that. Back when Ebay didn't keep the bidder names hidden, she would see the same Sasha bidders a lot, some often enough to make a guess at their personality. But she says it's been more fun communicating with them more personally on the Sasha-L list.

My original owner was a young girl who had an English Grandma who got me and a blue gingham Sasha for her granddaughter. The mother who sold me couldn't remember what my original outfit was, but the highest probability is that I wore the denim jeans and navy sweater. Her best guess is that I was purchased in about 1985, and I have all the characteristics of an 1980's doll (dark brown and white stringing, minimal hand detail on my eyes and paler skin). I've been told that I resemble Hugh Grant for what that's worth. Sasha says I should take that as a compliment. I came wearing the pyjamas outfit with the red robe usually found on blonde Gregor's, but also shown on a brunette in the postcard set. I also was wearing the ribbed briefs typical of dolls of 1980 and older, so it seems my underwear is older than I am. I have to tell you one great advantage of being a doll is that you can wear the same pair of underwear for 20 years and no one cares. In fact, the longer you have worn the same underwear and same clothes, the more valuable you are. Is that cool or what? But since I have pyjama bottoms, I really didn't need the briefs all that badly, so I loaned mine to Sasha who wears a skirt and needs them more than I do. Again, this is all totally kosher when you're a doll.

One of my best talents and favorite tricks is standing on my head. I am also a pretty good dancer. Now Sasha is whispering that I have to share my favorite website with you. Well having some English family roots (besides being manufactured there), I'll have to say Shelly's site, Sasha Doll UK is the one I'd like to share with you. It has all kinds of great Sasha doll photos and some fantastic dolls for sale that would make any Sasha collector salivate. Good day to you all! --Gregor Vaughn

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