Samantha's Story in her own words
One day in 2002, I was flipping through the latest My Twinn catalog. I discovered the Cuddly Sisters and Brothers section which was located on the last few pages. Completely enamored with the small life-like dolls, I ran to my mother and grandmother and begged them to buy Savannah and Madison for me for my April birthday. I was lucky that year; I received both dolls along with several outfits for the girls. Madison instantly became my favorite, I brought her everywhere with me and played with her constantly.
The dolls were discontinued shortly after that birthday, which is a shame because I believe they would be a big seller in today's market. I went online and joined the OurTwinns Yahoo group, where I was able to view catalog scans of the Cuddly dolls. I saw that there had been a collection of Cuddlies in the late 90s- many of those dolls I had never seen before. I had my heart set on finding Cuddly Rebecca and during the process I purchased Cuddly Emily. After I found Rebecca, I added Rachel to my collection and commissioned a custom cuddly! For a few years my collection stayed at six, and as my interests changed, I packed up all of them -except Emily, Madison and Rebecca- and put them in my basement.
Unfortunately my basement flooded during hurricane Irene (2011), and I lost Rachel, the custom doll, and Savannah, as well as several outfits. When I realized they were gone, I took out Madison, Rebecca and Emily who had been stored in my room, and decided to start collecting them again. Quickly Kayla joined my collection, then Mei-Mei, Angel Heather, Brittany, Daniel, Anne, and finally Madeleine. I also bought more clothing for them, and constructed a little dollhouse which is currently being remodeled.
For all collector's interested in adding Cuddlies to their collection, I have noticed a difference in materials that were used to make these dolls during the end of their availability. For instance, my Madeleine has beautiful Denver brown eyes, while my sister's Chloe, who was purchased at the very end, has almost insect-like brown eyes. I have seen differences in all the later production dolls, for instance the non-denver open mouth Cuddlies are a variant of the original denver open mouth mould... very slight differences but recognizable.
I highly recommend these dolls, they are very charming, have excellent play value and are high quality. After all, my Madison managed to survive childhood with me relatively unscathed. I hope to add more Cuddlies to my collection in the near future :)
