Do you like the idea of "limited" dolls?

I wish all BJD owners were as considerate and down-to-earth (or down-to-Mars ) as your clan!

 

Maybe it is Mars. Or just my perspective.

I own 2 limited dolls. I am neither proud nor apologetic about that. I just love that Volks Lucai mold thing and for the most part, they are all limited dolls. I feel pretty lucky to have them but I don't spend any time thinking about their limited-ness. They are what they are. I love my Shinydoll just as much. Some days more

 

Uhm... yeah, this is really not me either. Most of my group are LEs, because I can't afford to get them -and- the standards I want usually -- and I hate secondary markup prices. I have the money for them when they appear because I have a general idea of the release schedule, and budget accordingly -- just like someone who buys a non-limited doll. If the one coming down the pike isn't one I have an interest in, the wishlist gets whittled down.

One of the smallest edition dolls I have -- he's shipping, anyway -- is edition of 29. Released about a two months before ordering, still not sold out even after I bought one. (And doesn't exactly seem in a hurry to sell out, either, any time soon.) I find it difficult to consider anything bought after two months of consideration an 'impulse buy', but your mileage may vary. Other things I've bought on a shorter timetable, but only when I am well aware of the quality and service of the company I'm buying from in advance to have a good idea of what to expect. I dunno about you, but if it comes down to "I know what I like, I like that, I have budgeted for it, I know the quality to expect, and I DO NOT want to pay a markup price at a later time if I change my mind" I would hardly call it a matter of impulse. Again, your mileage may vary.

Yes, this particular belief is... rankling. More than a little -- because I haven't met anyone who fits this stereotype either. Just because someone budgets and plans in a different fashion doesn't mean they aren't budgeting or planning just as much than anyone who wouldn't touch a limited edition with a ten foot pole, or that they have no impulse control, or any of the other assumptions that are rather nauseatingly common to see endlessly repeated.

 

I haven't made it to many of the meets around here, but the people I've encountered when I do make it to the ones out here are like that too, very welcoming to all the dolls and very happy to see a variety, limited or no. (The last one I went to, my completely not-limited LittleFee got more attention than my recently-shipped Soom MD tiny.)

But I've experienced the flipside, too, usually when travelling, with people who insist that "these dolls are better because they're limited," or "because they're from country X not country Y," or "because I paid so much for them."

I'd rather have the first side, where we can all share everything alike, and no one cares if it's something you can only buy on the aftermarket now.

 

To be honest, I am half and half about it.

Reasons I like them: If you're lucky enough to be able to afford the doll at the time and get the doll it makes them all that more special to you. Like my new Bambicrony girl who will be coming soon is a limited edition. It will be a nice change having only a few people with a doll I have!!

Reasons I don't like them: People are SO greedy when it comes to selling limited editions on the market place. Lati dolls for example are crazy. People just become so greedy with money and end up selling dolls which cost them $400 for a full package for often over double the price.

 

I like the limiteds - and honestly, if you can't afford them when they do sell, so what? It will always be another time around It isn't the companies that are unfair for not bringing the limiteds back - it is the people who re-sell them for insanely prices on the secondary market. If anything is un-fair - it is that. But then again, if you're able to sell the doll for that kind of money - it's worth it. At least for some people, and I guess you can't say that is un-fair either. That's just life.

 

I, for one, lose interest the minute you say the words "limited edition." I refuse to jump through hoops for the "privilege" of buying something.

 

Being quite new to the whole BJD thing i dont really know much about them but the thing that got me looking at them in the first place is a lottery on the volks USA site for a suigintou doll that i sware if i had the money i'd have already ordered. while these limited dolls do seem a good idea it does suck knowing that i will have missed out on a lot of great items

although i do hope that now i know about them i can snap up some nice limited edition's for myself in the future

to summerise they seem to be a mixed blessing i'd love some of the ones i've missed (read shinku, rozen maiden £3500? damn you yahoo auction, im not paying that) but hopefully there will be lovly ones in the future that you can pick up! there is a nice sence i think when you own something that there isnt very many of!

(im new be gentle if i screwed up posting :P)

 

I think the idea is to be "fair to yourself". Not that life isn't fair, it's just the way you see yourself going thru life. Don't worry, there's always another limited edition doll that will catch you eye sometime down the line. Just keep saving for the doll you intended to buy first, for you'll never know when it might just be taken off the list, and then you'll have no one else to blame but yourself.

My advice: Stay focus as to what you want and why you like a certain doll, then limited editions won't tempt you.

 

I like the idea, I just don't like the prices.

Simple and sweet.

 

I dun really like the idea since some will miss out if they really like it but do not have enough money to pay for it.

 

I now own a limited doll (Dollfie Dream Sasara) and I still don't like the idea of LEs. I'm terrified I'm going to damage her or lose her somewhere down the line and won't be able to replace her. Even if it meant losing the extra $300 I spent, I wish Volks would standardize her so I wouldn't have to worry so much about taking her to cons or accidentally touching her face.

Again, companies like Soom would probably make more money releasing standard versions of their limited heads. They don't make a penny off of the inflated secondhand market. These are businesses we're talking about here, and like I said if they can't handle the demand they need to hire more employees. It takes a skilled artist to sculpt the dolls, but after the molds have been made I don't see why they can't scale up their production. Talking about them getting "tired" of making the same dolls seems silly to me, do regular companies get "tired" of making the same products?

 

I don't really care for the whole Limited idea... mostly because the dolls are gorgeous most of the time, and always come at times when money is tight for me it seems.
And the side effect of secundary market prices is even more unappeiling to me.
Sure I bought a Souseiseki at a secundary market price, but she was the only one that felt worth it to me.
In any case, I think the Limiteds should be re-issued every half year or so. That way the sculptors have more satisfaction of their hard work too.

 

I don't think that's actually true. Sure they may in the long run (as in over a few years), but making something limited creates a sense of urgency which causes people to feel they need that doll. The percentage of dolls that get resold quickly on the secondhand market once people get them is a good example of this - if they'd been given time to think about it, they wouldn't have bought it. Most companies don't really care if you sell the doll off later, they just want you to buy the doll in the first place.

Unidoll's discontinuing of a heap of sculpts is another example of it - so many people have bought Arks in the past week who have put it off for years. When things are left as standard, people happily put of purchasing the items. Great for the customer, not so great for the business.

The majority of dolls I own are limiteds, not because I wanted something rare, but because of the urgency created by the company, which lead me to get those dolls ahead of the standards on my list. There's a couple of sculpts I've been planning to get for three years now, and limiteds constantly get the priority.

Limiteds can be frustrating to own as you can start to fear them being wrecked in some way and hard to replace. But at the same time I don't think I could replace one of my standard dolls either, as I've put the effort into that particular doll being them. None of us like the feeling that we have to get that doll right now, or suffer the price hike on the secondary market, but as a business owner I completely understand why doll companies to this in order to generate sales.

 

I consider myself lucky there are only two dolls in my family so far that are both something I had to have and limited. I'm in no way inticed by falling in love with a mold that is part of an expensive full set, I wont ever leave them in the default wig and outfit as putting my personal touch on my dolls is highly important to me.

I'm one of those people always dreading Soom Monthlies because the facial features of the molds are so inticing to me but the spectacular full package is not. I find Chrom to be amazing and also Dia, how sad one is far pricer than the other when in my mind, they are made the same, the company is the same and so is the beauty and quality. The limited label and order period is the biggest difference and it's not great enough for me to pay ridiculous amount on market after the fact.

I too have to jump the gun each month and decide if I want to buy. Perhaps for the opposite reason than most, attempting to bring home a doll I won't ever feel is more special than my standards while it's within reasonable cost.

 

My only experience with Soom was so frustrating that I'll never go there again. I enjoy seeing what they do with their creations and also with what other people do when they recieve their MDs, but for me, I was so frustrated with the wait and delays I experienced with my Glot that I don't think any Soom doll would be worth it for me (and I sold my Glot pretty quickly after she arrived.)

The trouble with a niche market like BJDs is that it's always fluctuating. Why should a company go to the expense of hiring a larger workforce, when the doll they're producing isn't popular? The Soom MDs Bix and Vesuvia weren't very popular at all on initial release. Soom would have been paying for people to stand around doing nothing in that case. The other thing about BJD production is that it's controlled by the seasons. A particularly humid month could ruin entire batches of resin which the company has to pay for on top of the wages for their workers.

I don't think we have the right to demand that companies employ more people. Molds can only be used so many times before they break down and need to be replaced and casting isn't something 'any old fool' off the street can do, they've got to be trained in the processes if the company wants them to produce quality doll parts. I quite like that most of the companies are small and artist-led, it makes me feel that I'm getting a product that someone has taken time and effort to put together, which is surely important when you're dropping a lot of money on a luxury product?

As for getting tired of the same old sculpts, this hobby is led by artists making luxury products, not some guy running a factory producing tupperware. If the artist doesn't enjoy what they're doing, why should they bother making dolls at all? The tupperware market, in contrast, is producing a useful product, the designs have to stay similar because they're more useful that way and people producing tupperware aren't doing it because it fulfils their artistic side.

I own some LE dolls and I'm not like this. I've not met anyone else like this either. True elitism is rarer than most people think.

When I heard about Volks SDC Kurt I fell in love. A froggy boy for a froggy collector? Perfect! When I saw pictures of him I was even more convinced of how much I had to have him. When I heard he was an LE and released in 2006, I was gutted. I thought he was sold out...but I checked the Volks site and there he was, still unsold two years later! I admit I was lucky, but if I hadn't have been able to find Kurt on the Volks site, I'd have trawled the MP and eBay and Y!J auctions looking for him.

He's one of my favourite dolls of all time and I'm one of these collectors who just doesn't do boys normally. It wasn't that he's a limited that attracted me to him, but I do take extra special care of him because of that reason. I would hate to destroy his LE head or hands/forearms because I don't live in Japan and I don't know anyone there who could help me replace those parts...and in any case, he wouldn't be my Rupert if those parts were broken beyond repair.

 

Limiteds are there and will never change, and I find that very good. It's not a matter of fair or not, if you can't buy it, find something else? I'm pretty sure that there are OTHER limiteds that are more fitting and perhaps if you are lucky, cheaper.

I myself have missed out on the limiteds I love, Kalix(DOD), Chrom(SOOM) but that those are just signs that those dolls, are not made for us and that we still have a chance to get dolls that are more to our suitings. I for one, had definately gotten a doll more valuble in my opinion that the limiteds I just stated. (H.Ducan XD)

For one thing, life isn't fair. And it will never be fair, like you said, I know for one thing it is sad when you have in mind the doll you want, only to find it sold out. But suck it up, move on! Whining and tears and resent towards it DOESN'T bring it back.

 

I am new to BJD's and have two dolls. I was lucky enough to manage to get a limited edition Elfdoll as my second doll. I adored the colours and the way she was put together more than any of the standard Elfdolls, and really love her. However I prefer my first doll which is a standard Luts Delf.

My point is that when limited editions are available they give you more choice. I personally was not keen on any standard Elfdolls at the time but adored this limited edition. I love Luts dolls but would like to see the occasional limited edition to give more choice.

If I can afford or manage to buy in time a limited edition I like I will.
It doesn't stop me preferring non limited edition dolls in some cases.

 

I'm personally ok with the limited edition concept. I have 2 elfdoll LE's (Hazy and Carolei) and I don't regret spending the extra dollars to own them.

The thing about LE's is that it's all basically about 'supply and demand'.

 

I like limited if they have something different from basic style.I always think that if i have a goodluck i will get them if not just badluck .and waiting for next limited i like but it's up to my money at that moment too.