Hello, I've been lurking in these threads for a while now, and just wanted to share my experience with my very first doll order from the online Disney Store!
First of all, lets get the bad out of the way - I would like to know who packages these things for shipping? UPS dropped the box off this morning (Elsa & Hans), and it was almost wide open! There was only a tiny bit of tape holding the ends of the top down and the flaps were widely separated, meaning almost the entire top was open in the middle! I could literally reach my hand into it without any trouble! One corner of the box was ripped to shreds and the other side was severely crushed and dented! Now, I know UPS is likely to blame for the rough handling, but the missing tape?! How did that happen?! I don't see any evidence of tape being ripped off, so it looks like they simply didn't put a full strip down at all?!
Suffice it to say, I was terrified that the actual doll box, and worse - the dolls themselves, would be damaged before I even looked inside. Thankfully though, they weren't. Unlike some people, I did get a bit of air packets (not nearly enough imo), but wow, virtually no protection in there! For a rather expensive collector item, I think this is outrageous!
Anyway, on to the dolls...
I'm not experienced in this hobby, as I am mostly a pin collector, but these dolls are beautiful! Color me impressed! I've seen and admired photos before, but never knew how good they looked in person until now! The size is nice to me, and the box is lovely too! My cover art sleeve has no damage either, surprisingly! I feel extremely lucky after reading about all of the horror stories on here the past couple of weeks!
I can see why people get obsessed over these! I decided to buy this set for trading (I am actually looking for a Calhoun doll), but now I am having a hard time with the idea of giving this set up!
Oh yeah, as I am a total newbie to this, does anyone have any tips for what to look out for as far as common errors/damage on the dolls themselves? I mean, these look good to me, but I don't have any previous experience to go on, so I could be missing something that others find a major issue.
Thanks!