Do grail dolls have to be expensive or limited?

I think of grail to be like a quest for the holy grail--it's not easy, very hard to find, and you may spend months or years waiting to find it and afford it, usually a LE that's sold out and you have to find secondhand, or may not be able to get at all. I've had three dolls I considered grail, one took me 2 years to find secondhand, but I finally got him, I haven't succeeded in the other two because both are discontinued, one seems to only pop up on the market when I'm broke and is gone before I can get enough money, and the other only had two ever sold, and I know who owns one of them and he's not for sale, there's no trace of the other ever existing, I guess the owner doesn't post pictures anywhere.

But, "grail" means different things to different people. To some, it's not rare or limited, just the one you want above all else, and may be hard to get based on coming up with the money, or getting sidetracked by life.

 

To me the grail would be the one that above all others would fulfill your most heartfelt dreams. Perfection in your minds eye. It might take some time to find it or even find out anything about it, especially if you simply saw a picture somewhere outside the market, but it has brought a desire in you to diligently pursue your search for it. To me, the cost is not the point. Although, if it is discontinued, you may have to pay a bit once you find it. No matter. Once you find it, your heart will soar with anticipation. Good luck with your journey.

 

This very much.

For me, something like a basic, easily attained doll that might still be a little pricey or even just a doll you want a lot but haven't gotten around to getting yet is a "dream" doll. I've had a lot of dream dolls - B&G Sapphira, Peakswoods Goldie (WS with bitten torso - thats the one I wanted), Dollstown anything, Unoa anything - Dolls I wanted for a long time and thought(think) were perfect but never bought for one reason or another, but I've only had two Grails.

One just didn't exist when I started collecting, and when it did, I bought it, so I'm really not sure he counts anyway.
The other was Volks Michele - a harder to find, more expensive (for me at least) LE release. I didn't want to admit he was my grail (or that I even had one at all, because I owned my favorite doll already, several times over), because I'd convinced myself I didn't need him or want him enough to pay for him (he cost a small fortune for me), but the second I had the money that was the first thing I went looking for, and when I did get one after a small battle on YJ (which was my quest lol), all the other harder to get or expensive dolls went off my wish list, and I don't even want any of them anymore. Michele was it, and I was and still am happy enough with him that the others I wanted don't measure up in the least. That's when I decided he was my Grail doll.

So in answer to the question: For me, yes. It does have to be a hard to find, expensive or limited doll, because otherwise there's no "quest" involved, and then why consider it a "grail" at all? It's just a doll you really really really want and love. And that doesn't have to be expensive or limited: B&G Sapphira is none of those things and I fell hard for his cute little face. I got mine in 2008, and I still love him to death when I see him. He's one of my favorite dolls on the planet, but he's not a grail doll.

 

^This. Grail doll refers to the Holy Grail and that artefact is not something you could easily find. For me, for some doll to be a Grail, it has to be hard to get. Not necessarily expensive, but sold out long ago and no longer readily available. The search for it is part of their charm, for me. Sometimes I enjoy the hunt more, than actually buying them.

A doll you could buy at a shop at any given moment, could of course be your dream doll, but it's not a grail.

 

It's usually something difficult to acquire, yes, that is the original point of the term "grail doll".

One's grail doll requires the searching, the hours of pouring over photos of the elusive object of one's affection, the counting of pennies stashed in a jar until you have the phenomenal sum required to post that WTB, more waiting and upping of offers until one is located (and then the repeated refreshing of tracking info until the doll arrives at your doll). Generally it takes people quite a while -- years, even -- to find and acquire their grail doll.

It's not really a big deal to acquire a standard available from the company any time you want right?

 

This! A grail is something very difficult to find and acquire. So to answer your question: Yes, I think a grail doll has to be rare, but not necessarily expensive.

 

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said already.

It don't have to be pricey just rare or hard to find. Aside from old limited edition dolls, I think a grail could also be a difficult hybrid to make or a head with a faceup from an artist that doesn't work anymore etc. Something that means that even if you had the money for it you wouldn't be able to just go and buy it straight away.

 

Expense doesn't matter. Limited doesn't matter, either, really, as there are many basic models that are longer sold or easy to find.

I think there are two ways of thinking about Grail dolls.

1. That perfect doll that you search for and is incredibly hard to find.

2. That perfect doll that you have always dreamed of, but couldn't bring home before, for whatever reason.

The second one isn't really as close to most people's definition... but it can work for some people. Grail Dolls have sometimes been used to include the latter type. Some people think of "Grail Doll" as synonymous with "Dream Doll."

I don't mind the looser definition of it being a doll you have long dreamed of having...

 

Nope. One person's grail is another's cheap doll.My Dai certainly was. Most people on this board would have looked at her as a very cheap doll, an easily gotten doll, but it took me a while to get her because $200 is a pretty sizable sum for me. RS may be low end for a lot of BJD people but it's definitely not for me. So far, Dai is my most expensive doll. I have a couple of heads that are usually more expensive but I got mine at a severe discount to what they usually are sold for used and they came with issues.

I've learned to be very patient, to adjust my expectations, and to accept imperfection when it comes to BJD's. Certainly a low end BJD can be a grail. Not everybody can afford Iplehouse, Soom, Fairyland, etc. A so called "low end" doll may be very expensive for some people, even used, and it may take considerable time and effort on their part to ever get one. There are ways around spending top dollar. You buy really old used dolls or even damaged ones. You hybrid more expensive doll heads onto less expensive doll bodies. You learn to fix things. You put major work into rehabbing a doll just so you can have it.

Very few of my dolls are perfect or were brand new when I got them. Those that were they were very cheap compared to most, even most RS dolls their size. I still have tons of work ahead of me yet with all of them. But that's okay because in one way or another I pretty much have the dolls I wanted and I paid only what I could afford to have them. I didn't kill my wallet to go there. I think "cheap" is sometimes relative really. If you're making 100K a year a RS probably isn't all that expensive. But if you're making 30K a year it probably is.

It's all about what you can afford. I don't believe in racking up a huge debt just to acquire the most expensive doll you lust after. Some dolls you lust from afar, admire them, but in the end you keep to what you can afford. There are dolls I'd love to have if I was far more affluent than I am. But I am not and therefore Mr Luo and Ms Carina, Mr Photon etc, they just aren't coming home with me...

 

Yes and no ... "expensive" is a term that can vary wildly depending on people's financial situation, so as far as I'm concerned, the absolute price is not enough to determine accessibility / whether or not a doll may count as someone's "grail".

To me, the grail doll is one I'd do everything for - including, but not limited to, saving up and researching, hunting for accessories etc. To me, it's about how far one would go for that one doll and no other. I have various "dream dolls", but I wouldn't do what I did to get my hands on my grail for any of them. (Incidentally, my grail is a basic now but wasn't at the time I fell for her, and who cost the same as most dolls I own now, but at the time my financial situation was even worse than it is now and said doll was harder for me to afford than the ones that came after.)

 

This is a luxury hobby, Janny, and I am pointing out the original usage of the term. It was never intended to mean something cheap and accessible at any given moment. Keeping in mind that $500+ for a doll used to be considered "cheap", of course .... Times have certainly changed since that time.

If you can just order it, there is no thrill of the hunt!

 

I'm right with you about the thrill of the hunt, I was just pointing out that what some consider cheap and accessible can be hard to obtain for others. So while the former wouldn't have said thrill with such a doll, the latter totally would, even if it's not on the expensive end of the spectrum of doll prices.

Sorry if I couldn't make myself clear, I'm not a native speaker :/

 

Any doll can be someone's grail doll, it just depends on the person. All dolls are great it doesn't matter how much they cost or what company makes them, there all beautiful in there own way so any doll could be considered someone's grail doll.

 

I'm in a tight financial situation, to say the least, and yet I consider some dolls 'cheap'. When I look at a doll's price, I'm comparing it to the average price for a doll in this hobby. When a doll has a lower price, I think it's 'cheap' and when it's higher, I think it's expensive. Doesn't matter that I would have to save up many months for even the cheapest doll out there, right now.

No matter your financial situation, $2000 for a Ferarri Testarossa is a steal, whereas a 100 grand for a Fiat Panda... OUCH.

So to me, it's not the price that makes a doll a grail, it's the lack of availability.

 

I think "grail" means hard to attain or find. I wouldn't consider a non-limited, still available doll a "grail doll". Many people on DOA use the phrase grail doll to mean dream doll, which seems like incorrect use of the word to me.

 

It took me six years to get my grail doll! She is a Sato only sculpt, so that means you have to order her in person in the Volks showroom in Kyoto. So that wasn't going to happen! Plus she's very unpopular, so you never see her for sale second hand. I scoured yahoo Japan, the marketplace here, and Mandrake for years before I finally found one for sale second hand. She was a bit expensive at $600 (though I consider that a bargain for her), but she has brought me way more than $600 worth of joy! Plus she has an interesting history; she was a one off model sold at a Sumika during a Valentine's Day event. I named my girl Valentine, of course!

So yes, to me a grail doll is one that is hard to get like a discontinued sculpt, LE, or otherwise just hard to find. A doll you can order anytime off a company's website is not a grail no matter if it is expensive or not.

 

I can see how the meaning of "grail" is exclusive, difficult to obtain, expensive, etc. to many people. But for me, the "holly grail" from wich the "grail Doll" derives from, is more the Doll that is the light that keeps you going in the darkest moments of the collecting, the one you look at in any given situation and know exactly why you collect dolls, the doll that will make your brightest day even brigter, by just hearing it's sculp name, seeing any picture of it, or barely thinkng about the mold.

No matter how easy to get or how cheap it is/was, for me it's not the quest to obtain the doll, but the meaning it has to you.

P.S.: My grail doll was and is a Delf EL. It took me over 5 years to get one and they were in no way limited or "expensive" or sold out at the time.

 

I think a grail doll is the one and only doll that completes your collection and no other doll can reach it's status after you were able to get it. But I also count limited/hard to get dolls to this state. Or the "one and only"-doll if you decided to never buy another doll and only will be lucky with this single one you have saved for for months or even years (but for a person like this the doll is a "hard to get" because it takes to much time to get it). If you only can safe up 5$ per month a RS Mei may be the grail because it was hard to save up. But if you can save 500$ a month I wouldn't consider her a grail. I think there should be a kind of quest behind it.

My grail is a limited event doll (head) and it took 2 years until I got it (partially as a birthday gift from dear friends who wanted to buy the head for me but it was too expensive), after some blood sweating and dealing with a person who is really worse to deal with.. but I wanted the head so bad... I finally got it last year. It took me another year to complete the doll and everything is perfect to me regarding this doll.

What a holy grail is not: a doll for that someone has saved up one month or changes the "grail" everyday after the "grail" was obtained, those wasn't a grail doll to begin with. I saw owner who stated they bought their grail doll and I looked up which doll they meant and it was a standard doll and the future owner saved up two months, bought several other dolls within this time and said "oooh it took an eternity to buy this doll!" ...
And I don't get the people who sell their "grail" quickly after obtaining it, just for saying "my grail is now a XY instead of a AB!"

I really like all my other dolls, but I only have one grail, this is the MNF Juri 2011. I have dream dolls just the same way it was stated above from different members before me. But the grail is a one-doll-only term for me.