I find it fascinating that there are so many differences between the American Girl mini dolls. The differences are much more obvious than those with the 18 inch dolls.
Here I have compared the three different minis with minis of Addy and Cecile.
It is hard to know where to start.
Here are all three dolls, from newest to oldest.
The oldest mini doll, glass-eyed Addy, is the smallest. She is more in scale to be a doll for the 18 inch dolls.
She has inset eyes and a wig, so she is most like the 18 inch dolls in that respect. She also has textured hair, which is really nice when compared to Special Edition Addy. She can stand on her own.
I like her earrings better than Special Edition Addy- they are at an angle that looks like they are hanging naturally. They look less natural on Special Edition Addy.
The biggest drawback to this doll, I would say, is the shoelaces that go everywhere and won't stay tied. Some people don't like the face, but that is a question of personal taste.
Soft-bodied mini Cecile is very cute. Her curls look very different from the 18 inch Cecile, but that is a drawback due to scale. I think she is very slightly the tallest of the minis. She cannot stand on her own at all, which is her biggest drawback.
Special Edition mini Addy, with the vinyl body, is also cute. They are all cute, of course. She can stand on her own, or with her stand. The stand makes her taller than she is, so I didn't use it when taking comparison pictures. Her shoes don't have those annoying shoelaces. Someone on AGC complained that they do not like the way the legs of the vinyl minis are farther apart, but it doesn't bother me.
The vinyl mini dolls can only swing their arms in a circle. They cannot move their limbs from side to side, like the soft bodied mini dolls can.
This is less like the 18 inch dolls and makes them less realistic to me. However, I will admit that while the soft bodied dolls can move their arms and legs to the side, they cannot hold this pose on their own.
With the vinyl body, the lower-cut Sunday dress does look better on Special Edition Addy than it would on a cloth bodied mini.
You can see the differences between the bodies better with the dresses off. Glass-eyed Addy has a smaller seam at the neck than Cecile.
From the back, you can see that both Cecile and glass-eyed Addy have strings, like the 18 inch dolls do. Does that mean that you can take the minis apart like the 18 inch dolls? I am not going to experiment and find out.
Cecile has a giant tag on the back, so glass-eyed Addy scores a point over her there.
The vinyl minis would be easier to clean off if they got dirty, although I have heard you can throw the cloth bodied minis in the washer and drier. I haven't tried it.
It all comes down to personal preference. I like different dolls best in different editions of the minis.
I like the glass-eyed minis, except for Josefina, who looks odd. These dolls easily win in the mini book category, because they had hardbacks instead of paperbacks.
I like Cecile and Ruthie as soft bodied dolls with painted faces, but those dolls are only available in that edition.
I really like the faces of Kit and Kaya on the new vinyl minis.
All the mini dolls have advantages and drawbacks, so it depends on your personal preference.
