How often do you buy a new doll?

Too fast! I always promise myself to take it easy and finish the previous ones first, and then I find myself waiting for two more dolls or something. But I guess my pace has been sensible enough, I have now nine dolls and three more on the way (all 1/4) and it's taken me seven years to collect them - so that's only one or two per year. (Though there was a break and most of them actually only came home after 2014...)

I'm quite impulsive (there's this thing me and my friends call "midnight madness" when you just go crazy and buy a doll even though tou can't afford it) but the dolls I buy are always ones that I've actually wanted to buy anyway. I usually feel that I have to either a) sell an old doll, b) have a birthday or c) get big tax return or similar. I generally can't afford dolls just like that.

 

Too often. LOL!

Seriously, It may be due to I started collecting just outside of highschool, and always had to buy things with my own money, but my collecting started slow. I bought my first doll in 2008, a year after I graduated highschool. I saved all i could while working to get my first doll with the job I had-- Which ended up closing down later in 2007. In the end, I scraped enough by to order my boy early February.
Then I went through 2 years with just him. Bought my next doll in November 2010. The next in 2011 (Juneish)
I said Iwas only to get 1 a year, but I wanted twins which meant /skipping a year/
I did end up buying a cheaper doll secondhand off of a friend , but kept true to not ordering one from a company, and nothing horribly expensive. I bought my twins finally after that and... Then just sort of had a trickling effect.
The next year was two, then 5, then 7. LOL! I'm up to 24 dolls, a floating head waiting on a body, and another peakswoods boy on order. And I said only one doll this year! (Came and went LMAO)


So basically I probably get anywhere between 3 and 7 dolls a year, even though I REALLY shouldn't and want to tone it down.

 

My first three dolls were one a year, and then I went on... a spree... and now I'm trying not to get any more unless a good deal or a sudden falling in love happens. (But I have to give myself as long as possible to consider the new doll to make sure I'm actually in love.) I like diversity in my crew as well though--especially in body sculpts.

 

I've been in the hobby for only a year and a half now, and I've acquired 12 dolls. I've been in a doll craze and ordered about one every month and a half. Some are carefully-planned purchases while others are opportunities that arise. I have never sold a doll. I don't think I could stand getting rid of anyone. I love them all so much. I'm like you in the respect that I want to try out many different companies and sculpts. I think that's why I've collected so many so fast.

 

Usually before I plan to buy a doll I make sure they are going to fit an idea/ character. I am so meticulous about it.

Or....my friend mentions they are selling a doll and I feel bad so I buy it....and that is how I got my Luts.

 

I just got my first doll with my tax return this year. There are several more I want, but most likely wont be able to get another till my next return. If I am lucky. so hopefully at least one a year, but we will see.

 

Way too often, something my family will happily agree with aha I have a hard time resisting a good deal/if I see a doll come on the second hand market that I've wanted for a while. Thank god I save for those moments!
The problem is the fact that I love having variety, and since I'm starting out I feel the need to grab more so I have have different personalities (and therefore different styles of clothing) and looks. Speaking of, I can't stop buying clothes too, someone please send help

 

If I divide the number of minions I have by the time I've been collecting, it works out to adding about one doll to the gang every month, plus an extra Floating Head (Who would, in many cases, eventually get a body of its own somewhere down the line-) or one of my little non-human "critters" once every third month or so...

That's not actually the way I bought the majority of my crew, though. It wasn't nearly that even or orderly.

I bought the lion's share of my dolls during the first six or seven years I was involved with the hobby, and I often picked them in pairs rather than ordering them one at a time. The last few years my rate of adding new minions has slowed down a lot. There are a couple of reasons for that... I'm pretty much out of cabinet space, I have most of the older sculpts that I wanted, and the general style of new releases has gone in directions that I'm not really interested in.

So, on paper, the average may look steady... But in reality my collection was heavily "front-loaded".

 

I bought only one doll and I'm not going to buy any more now. Maybe in the future if something catches my eye.

 

In less than a year I've accumulated 5 of them lol. Mostly because I've been buying MSDs that are under $200 lol. And bonus is Resinsoul has so many color and body switching capabilities lol.

 

I've been in the hobby for 13 years as of this post, and adding together all the dolls plus floating heads, it averages out to 3-4 dolls a year. Almost all of them have been purchased secondhand so it has always been a matter of opportunity for me. Some years I was able to find and purchase more, others less, depending on finances and availability.

 

When I first came into the hobby I bought one and the wait was killing me and before I got the first one I ordered I had bought 7 more and my collection got up to 15!! And I wasn’t happy so now I am down to 4 and 1 in the making I’m trying to limit myself to maybe 1 or 2 a year now and I must love them .

 

I buy most of my dolls in pieces, so despite making on average three resin purchases each year (calendar year, not cumulative if that makes sense), after two years (three calendar) I still have only three full dolls. I'm also pretty particular, as I usually only really add on at most two dolls to my wishlist a year. That would probably add up in the long run, but so far it's pretty manageable. It is annoying to finish one doll just in time to have another added on though.

 

My average is one doll each year with some years being more than one and some years being none. For the past year and a half I've had a crappy job so no new dolls in that time but I just got a new much better job so I see a new doll within the next few months

 

I'm a slow, picky collector. I have a really specific list, and my ideal collection is super planned and curated so I will have a good variety of sculpts and no overlap/dolls that are too similar or feel like repeats. I also don't want to have too many. My list is roughly the same as it was when I started five years ago, and I actually have been mostly sticking to it as I add to my collection. I have 7 full dolls after 5 years. I like taking my time and adding slowly, because it gives me plenty of time to work on each doll before I have a new one full of new projects that need done. But I will admit that if finances allowed it, I'd be pretty tempted to just order everyone that's left on my list in one go and be done with the buying part of the hobby--- it really is my least favorite part. I immensely enjoy owning my dolls, but I really don't like the acquisition process.

 

I bought all my dolls within the first couple of years in the hobby but got quickly overwhelmed. After a long break I'm now trying to downsize my collection but I'm hoping to purchase another one later on in the year!

 

My collection grows and shrinks pretty fast depending on the market! I try my best to sell dolls before I buy more, but this year has been pretty rough trying to sell on the secondhand! Buying is no problem (har har), since secondhand prices are so low at the moment, but yyyikes trying to move them out.

If I can maintain a balance I'll just keep shuffling dollies in and out as they happen, but this year's funk bit me on the butt. ;;;

I will say, though, my first year in the hobby saw me buying like a demon-- super impulsive. I think that can be a pretty common thing when you're new-- you see all this neat stuff and you wanna try different sculpts and companies! That can be a great chance to figure out what you like and don't like, and then you shape your collection with what you learned!

 

Well, I bought my first jointed doll in 2011 so I've been
at it for 7 years and I think I have 23 so call it 3/year on
average but you know what they say about averages.
(You can drawn in a river that is 7" deep on average.)
I think I'm done and then someone new catches my eye
and they need a girlfriend and boyfriend and then they
need friends and....

All of my kids are 1/4 size until last year a Smart Doll caught
my eye and I love her but she's off topic here so I "needed"
a Dollfie Dream to be her friend and let me post their photos.
I just bought a new head for the DD and I'm thinking they'll
want a guy to hang with and SmD has announced a resin
version that will be cheaper than the vinyl and I'll want to
see what that's like and....

The point being that this whole hobby is really personal.
Everybody has a different expectation of their dolls and
does different things with them. I don't think that there is
a typical or expected anything. Buy what you love. Enjoy
the heck out of them. Play with us here now and again...

 

Personally, I've been in this hobby about ten months at this point, and I have 6 dolls on hand (1 sd sized hybrid [Doll Family A/Gem of Doll], 2 yosd/tiny size [Asleep Eidolon and Cherishdoll/Migidoll], and 3 msd size [Ringdoll, Little Monica, and Resinsoul]), I've just paid off a layaway for another yosd/tiny [Soom], and I intend to buy at least one or two more within the next couple months, as long as budget allows for it. [Fairyland: Altis Human version is my next purchase!] Funnily enough, everyone except for my Ringdoll girl was bought in the last five months, after receiving that first gorgeous lady!

I try to plan out my purchases, for my budget's sake, and so that my main characters are shelled properly. As such, I don't think I'd be able to bring myself to sell any of them...unless they somehow REALLY didn't fit. However, my next purchase was a mixture of impulse and planned. I've been trying to plan shells for my remaining characters and all of the sudden, BAM, there's a doll that would fit one out of three of my remaining characters...and is gorgeous

I doubt my doll family is going to shrink anytime soon, as I have an abundance of characters (both my own original, and my fandoms) that I'd like to shell!