More weirdness about that Coraline doll/statue sale

So just about everything points to the Coraline statue and doll sale to being fraudulent. But there was even more weirdness related to the sale in today's blog post by Neil Gaiman. Of the sale, he says this:

The fake Coraline box Other Mother doll was taken down from eBay, and the person selling it seems to have vanished too -- seeing that he had a few "he took my money and never sent me anything" complaints on eBay, I do not think he's a great loss to the world of online retailing, and will probably be back there soon enough under another name.

I don't mind people making their own dolls. I just mind when they do it to try and screw other people.

Fair enough.

But then he quotes an email from someone named Philip who claims to have created

a handmade fully-articulated Coraline doll . . . Lovingly hand-made with kitchen gloves for the raincoat and boots, do-rag for the skirt, beenie baby for the pink top, knit sock for the stockings, twist-ties for the boot bows, blue paper for the hair, lots of super glue and of course, buttons for the eyes and raincoat.

Philip apparently provided this Photobucket image link, which is to the exact same photo of a doll that was being used on eBay. Weird.

Seems like a good time to compare the mystery Coraline doll:



with the one Tomopop got from the Coraline crew:



And if you haven't seen the official toys yet, they're available for preorder (by the case only) at Entertainment Earth.