I bought a few dolls off ebay last year before I started reborning myself. I didnt pay more than $200 for any of them. Some I resold right away because I just didn’t like them. Two were so bad, that I used them for my first practice dolls after I stripped them. In those two there was scraps, garbage and sand in the heads and old dirty stuffing in the bodies. I bought 2 more off a lady on ebay who puts out about 30 dolls a month. (100% feedback).They look good from a distance. Not so much up close. I want to resell these as budget babies, so I wanted to reweigh the head on one because it’s too heavy and floppy. I opened it up and removed massive amount of stuffing and then came the LOOSE fine glass powder. It was so fine, I thought it might be baking soda. It was stuck all in the hair too.Does anyone else put loose granules in their heads? The bodies are way over stuffed also. The hair on one is hard and krinkly. This is the reason I started to reborn my own. What’s the weirdest thing anyone has found in a doll?
Your story sounds so much like mine !! I was curious the other day and took one of mine apart and it was weighted with rocks !
My one and only ebay purchase was $250 for a preemie Megan (I renamed her Holly)…not too cheap. After I had made a couple of Reborns, I opened Holly up. She wasn’t too bad; no dirt or rocks.
The bag in the body was a sports sock (hopefully never worn!). The glass beads in the limbs seemed kinda’ “stringy” like maybe cob webs were in there. I don’t know what it really was but I didn’t reuse the glass. When I poured the glass into the trash it just clumped together. Very strange.
That glass sounds creepy.
Indeed! That’s why it went in the trash. 
I just don’t understand…this blows me away.
I think most of us (hopefully all!) put the glass beads for the head in a bag of some sort. That’s crazy that they were loose in your baby. 
[quote=“pinkclove212, post:6, topic:24143, full:true”]
Plastic grocery shopping bags, bits and pieces of trash (literally) and sand (looked like play sand, it was beige) At least she was kind enough to place the small bags of sand inside ziplock bags. All from a member here…not sure if she’s still a member though. [/quote]
WOW!! 
Anyone who spends time here knows that this type of thing is not acceptable. That’s just horrible.
I just opened the second doll from the mass marketer on ebay and the same thing, loose fine glass powder in the head. Like I said, they look fine from a distance but up close the painting is very messy, overly stuffed, head too heavy and the hair is very poor quality and poorly rooted. Feels like straw. I went back and read through her feedbacks and am surprised how many people said they loved her dolls. She is cheaper and fast shipping. There were 85 feedbacks in one month. She must run an assembly line, so you never know what quality you are going to get.
Karen a member here found garden dirt in one doll that she received in a trade.
Yuck!
That sounds like one I got.
And just not the reborns… over the weekend my granddaughter gave me her AD doll. She says it is creepy (mostly to do with the sparsely glued on hair) and asked me to fix it. I had bought a new doe suede body for the doll some time ago as the one it came with was not jointed. Much to my surprise, the head was weighted with a plastic bag the size of a sandwich bag which contained about a half cup of course sand. The body and limbs were STUFFED with poly-fill and the body also contained a cloth bag with a similar bag of sand and about a cup of poly pellets. The doll now is nicely weighted with glass beads and will be sporting a mohair wig shortly (the head is such a hard vinyl it would be impossible to root). She also can wear newborn clothes now as I stepped up a size in the body to match her extremely long limbs, which makes my granddaughter very happy to be able to expand her layette from my stash LOL
I know someone on here said not to put down the people who used sand because that was an acceptable practice at one point, but to put any type of loose granules in a head and not even sealing the neck opening is not right.
I know Ashton Drakes aren’t reborns, but I was surprised to see the label actually stating it is filled with sand. At least they were honest about it.
Pretending a doll is stuffed with glass pellets and then using rocks and/or sand is wrong and in most cases the client wold be able to make a claim to get a refund based on false advertising.
I always baggy my fine glass pellets in new nylon knee high stockings for both head and body. I do pour them straight into limbs (2/3 to 3/4) though to fill them properly and top off the glass with polyester fluff stuffing.
The objection to sand is that some people were using dirty unsanitized sand that had bacteria and bugs in it. This is also why foreign countries do not allow it into their countries. So if you are shipping to another country it might be an issue.
Yes, the one and only time I did a trade with someone my doll was filled with DIRT…OMG…I will never forget it. Only reason I opened her to begin with was that I needed to fix her crooked eyes. Ugh.
I am one of the guilty ones who used sand back in the day, but it was sterilized play sand, NOT beach sand or anything gross. Just didn’t know any better back then. Now we know about the fine glass beads.
Even back then I never heard of putting sand/beads loose in the head, though…yikes…I bet this lady knows better.
the second doll i bought on ebay before i started making the babies myself was an Ember sculpt. i wanted to repaint that baby and so i took it apart and found that the limbs had some sort of silicone type tub sealant goop inside about half way up the limbs. well needless to say i had to toss those limbs because the goop had hardened a great deal and was extremely sticky.
Yes, YIKES!!
So sad!
Or in my case, trade. SHE got a very nice baby out of the deal & I got well…DIRT. Lesson learned.