Kirsten 1854 Minnesota

FAREWELL, KIRSTEN

Kirsten Larson, pioneer girl character, is now gone from the American Girl website and will no longer be sold in the catalogs, online, or in the stores. You can see her picture up in the American Girl Archives because she is now at last retired. Kirsten was one of the orginal three American Girl dolls introduced in 1986 (along with Samantha and Molly).

Here is my Kirsten, which was my grandmother's.


My grandma bought her for me in either late 1994 or early 1995, and she was supposed to be a birthday gift.

I had been wanting Molly for a long time, and when my grandma found out which doll I wanted, she just kept Kirsten for herself and bought Molly for me.

As a kid I never knew this, my mom didn't tell me until years later, after my grandma died.

I mean I knew grandma had a Kirsten doll, but I just figured, "Oh, grandma must like Kirsten", nobody ever told me that she had bought the extra doll because she found out that the one I really wanted was Molly, not Kirsten.

But for whatever reason she kept her.

Kirsten is now retired, and because grandma kept her, I have a very nice old Kirsten that is in brand-new condition despite being old now.

Grandma kept Kirsten in mint condition, only removed her from the box once in a while, so Kirsten still looks new.

As for collecting stuff for Kirsten, I did not do much because I did not not think Kirsten would retire, so I wasn't worried about it, and if I had known I probably would have tried to collect her things faster. I like Kirsten things a lot...but I didn't buy too many of her things in the past because I was worried about other things retiring, so I'd buy them instead.

Here (below) is Kirsten in her underwear set. It seemed silly to buy an underwear set but I'm glad I bought these because they are very, very nice, and not long after I bought them, they were retired. The make her feel more... "pioneer-ish" to me, because they're flannel and they're quilted, so I can imagine her needing them on those cold winter days out on the farm.


Here (below) is Kirsten in her "extra" dress (originally, each doll had two extra dresses). Kirsten's were this green dress, called her work dress (although it looks too nice to be for work!) and a dirndl outfit (highly sought after, I unfortunately do not have).
I forgot to buy the shoes that go with this dress...now they are retired so I probably won't get them, at least not for a long time, but anyway I decided to just leave her in her socks for this picture because her other shoes don't go with this dress.

Here (below) is Kirsten wearing her work dress and sitting at her table and chairs.
If you notice, the table and chairs are the old kind. Later they switched to a lighter wood and put a design on the table and chairs. I am glad I have the old kind because I like it better than the new kind. But, I do not have the orginal dishes set that goes on the table. I have the newer set of dish things..so my dishes don't exactly match my table, haha, oh well.

Here (below) are pictures to show the difference from the old table set to the new table set. I have the old table, but all the stuff that goes on top of the new table....so mine is mis-matched. Oh well.


Here is what the two different table sets looked like:


OLD TABLE (mine):
OLD DISHES SET TO GO TOP OF OLD TABLE (don't have these):NEW TABLE (do not have): NEW DISHES SET TO GO ON TOP OF NEW TABLE (mine) :

So in total my Kirsten collection includes:

-Kirsten in her meet outfit
-Table and Chairs (old version)
-Holiday Baking Set (thats those new dishes)
-her doll Sari (see photo at top of post)
-work dress
-flannel underwear set
-plaid shawl outfit (see photo at top of post)
-Bed
-Bedding and quilt kit
-Trunk

Every Kirsten thing I have is pictured in the photos I put up- except, I don't yet have photos of her bed, bedding, or trunk.
I hope to take some soon and put them up. I love her trunk a lot (as some of you know, the trunks are usually my favorite part of a doll collection!)

I am very glad I got all her furniture at least (well, I didn't get her desk but that's okay) because I figure furniture is the hardest thing to get once it's retired.

My advice is that you should get the doll's furniture first. If things are retired, the furniture will be the most expensive on Ebay.
(Because the price is high anyway even when it hasn't been retired, so once it's retired it will really skyrocket).

Oh, by the way, the outfit in the photo at the top of this post- the plaid shawl outfit- is, I have to say, one of the two BEST outfits that American Girl has made. (The other is Molly's Aviator Outfit). The reason I say that, is that these days American Girl's quality seems to be going down. Those two outfits are spectacular in their quality, so much so that they surpass even the older AG outfits from the 80s and early 90s. That's how good they are. They are made of quality stuff, and they are made well, and they are very detailed. So if you could only get one or two doll outfits, I would say get Kirsten's Plaid Shawl outfit and Molly's Aviator outfit!