Is having many dolls a good thing?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: Yes if you want many. I think as a younger person, I worried WAYYY too much what other people thought of things I did, and I have to say that the best part of being a whole 30 years old is that I don't have to give a toss what anyone else thinks is normal.

Ironically, I'd planned 28 dolls when I first started out during my first semester of uni. I was only 18 and I swear I didn't know anything at all LOL. I have to laugh though, because all these years later I'm well on the way to that with 24 dolls (only three of which are not yet on bodies) and 2 more full dolls incoming, with one last one planned. Once I get Aleasha I'm done lol. I have a couple of dolls that honestly serve no purpose in my overarching narrative, and yet I just... can't bring myself to sell them. I also tend to buy randomly - especially last year. So I do think I have quite a lot of dolls, but after 13 years collecting, I'm at my firm stopping point. Aleasha is the last planned doll, and when the two in transit finally arrive on is probably going to end up moving on to a new home, so I'll be tapping out at 26 complete full dolls.

It just feels right. As for whether my big collection make me happy: it genuinely does. I wouldn't keep them all if it didn't! Again I don't really care what others think of it, but for me the dolls give me a place to stash the pieces of my childhood that are still beloved and special to me. And that's not going to change. I'm hoping to display them all one day, fully dressed and posed together like @PoeticSoul does - your setup sounds GORGEOUS.

 

I think it’s perfectly fine to collect several dolls if you have the money and space for it. I think it only becomes problematic when it negatively interferes with your life. Like, if you can’t afford to pay your bills or to buy things to meet your basic needs (like food), collecting tons of expensive BJDs is perhaps not very wise.

But if you’re responsible with money, and have things budgeted out and planned for, I see no problem with collecting lots of dolls. It helps to support the artists, which keeps the industry alive.

 

It's really a personal thing. I've known people happy with one doll and others who have over 100 and plan to get more. For me personally, I have 13 right now including the ones on the way, and that's about my limit. At the very most, I had 39 dolls and it was entirely too many for me. I thought I'd really enjoy a large collection and it kind of got out of hand before I realized that it was just too overwhelming for me to have so many dolls. I've set my limit at 13, with a hard limit of 19, meaning I'll try to stay at 13 or fewer, but I'll allow myself to have up to 19 if I fall especially hard for something. But once I hit 19, I'll force myself to sell before buying more.

I don't think there's a set answer to your question, since people vary so much! Regardless of whether you have 1 doll or 100, there really is no right or wrong. As long as you enjoy your dolls and are happy with your collection, then it's not too few or too many. The only time I'd say stop buying would be if they were choosing to buy dolls instead of food and other necessities for themselves or any dependent people or pets. I'm not talking about "quit eating out to save money", but like actually going hungry or having electricity shut off in favor of the dolls. Then they might need to reconsider priorities. But if all bills/obligations are paid and you wanna have fun with your extra cash, go for it!

 

@Teddy Beautiful display! (I'm guessing that you don't have a lot of pets. )

 

Kind of comes down with what your goal is in having dolls. My dolls tend to be important characters from the stories I write so I can't have one doll playing everyone. lol

 

Like everyone else said, it's super personal, and it can change with time. When I started, I was a one-doll person, which went up to "maybe a small handful, but not double-digits for sure" once I started customizing that first doll. It turns out, I really like doing aesthetics stuff (even if I'm slow as all heck at it), so that "small handful" has gone north of 50 at this point, and I'm still totally fine with it, though I feel like it's getting "close" to "done." But I don't have any kind of hard number, and while yes I'm out of storage space at the moment, it's mainly because I'm waiting to buy the extra shelving I need (I'll be needing to temporarily relocate all the shelving in the near future for some remodeling, and it'll be easier to squeeze fewer shelves into the temporary space while that's happening).

I love customizing these dolls. I love making clothes for them, and setting them up in little scenes. It's loads of fun, and each one gives me something different I get to do with them, so more dolls equals more fun for me! But if you're the kind of person who likes to just have one or two to spoil, prefers to commission things for them, can't stand "unfinished" dolls (I never consider mine "finished" regardless of their state), or just doesn't have that much space, then my collection might give you anxiety.

 

For me more is definitely not good. When I was younger I had 2 rooms and they were full of things (figurines,manga, trinkets, etc ). I realized they didn’t make me happy, and after purging I felt like a weight was lifted. I also value cleanliness and clean often, so the less I have, the easier it is to clean! I have to really enjoy something or I send it on it’s way. This means turnovers but I’m okay with that. Seeing so many sculpts, feeling the resin for different brands,etc is really cool regardless of whether they stay or not. Being minimalist brings me joy, but I know plenty of friends who think I’m insane

 

I wished i have lesser dolls but i cannot bear to sell any of them! Currently its still manageable for me but i will be more selective in buying new dolls now! Having too many dolls meaning my attention will be divided and i need to spent more $$ buying more clothes. lol

 

Personally, I have a future limit of about 20 dolls. I currently have 5 characters from my story.
The only thing I would like to keep is that the number of dolls and houseplants is in balance.

 

I don’t impose limits on myself, because I’ve found over the years, that it unnecessarily stresses me out. Typically, the more, the merrier goes for anything I’ve taken a liking to.

That being said, I tend to also buy things on impulse when my mental health is not doing well, so many of those kinds of dolls stay for a little while, and then move on to someone that will love them more. A lot of the ones that I have sold have given me funds to buy dolls I enjoy way more, so I don’t mind it much.

I love large collections of things, in general. Like group photos of similar things always make me so happy. When I was with my ex, I had an entire doll/toy room (this was before I had BJDs) and it was truly my happy place. It calmed me so much when my anxiety was acting up. I really hope I can have that again someday.

I know some people are completely different, though, and enjoy true minimalism. It calms their anxiety, and that’s great.

Just collect the way that makes you happiest. Try not to worry too much what other people think, whether they be “normal” people, or other BJD hobbyists.

 

I will echo the sentiment of many who 've responded to say that you get to decide how many dolls it is you wish to collect.

If you don't have any worries about money, and you have plenty of space, it's ok to have different types of collectibles. I myself have a collection of ball jointed dolls (SD70+), Nendoroid dolls, and POP figurines. I'm really happy with all my collectibles.

In my personal opinion, a good time to stop collecting is when you don't have the money, the space for your collection, or the same passion you had before. In recent years I have stopped buying bjds indiscriminately because I love 70+ cm dolls and at one point I had to consider where to store both dolls and their boxes. I also understood that as a working adult now, I don't have a lot of time for my collection as well.

If you are worried about another person's judgment regarding cost, I would probably suggest not sharing the cost with anyone. When I started collecting bjds, I made the mistake of talking about the price. This led to judgmental looks and words from my own family. Things became much better when I stopped discussing my hobbies (and their cost) with them. To this day, I don't discuss much about my hobbies with them.


If anything, do what makes you happy as a responsible collector.

 

It depends. I personally start to feel I am nearing the limits of my ability to enjoy the collection when the count goes over 10, but I know peeps that do not feel that way at all. I currently have 10 (plus 2 heads) if I count everyone on the way, but I do not consider it "many" really because it is an amount I find suitable. All my dolls are characters with a lot of plot twists in their bio, and all they belong to the same story. I'd quickly feel overwhelmed trying to keep up with all their stories, giving attention to everyone, crafting for everyone and customizing them if I had, say, 20 or more. I think 15 is my preferred maximum.

I really like to have a selected bunch of dolls I put much effort into rather than lots of dolls that just sit around in the state they arrived in because I have no time or energy for them all. I do not display my dolls to keep them from yellowing as long as I can, so they are not decorative objects, they need to be played with to get the enjoyment out of them.

 

Friends, family...and often friends of family who are brought in just to look at it...are quite fascinated. The most frequent comment is that it’s like being in a museum.

This is so very true. Of my 45 dolls, only a couple currently need any work at all. The rest just sit happily on display in interactive groupings, where I can quickly pick one up to play or change clothes or wigs or photograph on a whim.

Thank you so much...I love it, and it is a continuous source of joy for me.

 

.

 

I think it all depends on why you have dolls in the first place. I want a big collection because I can't get inspired to create for just one doll. Sometimes I want to make fantasy stuff, other times more modern stuff and one doll just won't do that for me. But I know there are some collectors who only have one doll at a time, and when they get bored with that one they sell it and move on to the next thing that inspires them or just makes them happy. Others want to shell their favorite characters form a book or tv series, so they need enough dolls to make each character. Or people want to have shells for the same character, just at different ages. It really just depends on how they want to enjoy the hobby. As long as they get the bills paid, its all good.

 

For me, it's good. I've always been a collector so that I have many dolls now isn't a surprise. Some of them fulfill a need to have physical forms of beloved characters (mostly my own OCs from my writing), others serve as new creative outlets, blank slates to spark new ideas with. I've written stories about characters who only exist because I liked a doll and the character sprung from it. I love both ways of collecting. If Marie Kondo came to my house, I'd tell her every doll sparks joy So as long as I can continue to afford them, and have places to put them, I don't limit how many I keep.

I've mostly stopped giving any bothers about what "normies" think. I've actually encountered a good number of people who just... get it. They might not understand why dolls, but they understand that it's my hobby and that any hobby can be expensive. And people who don't get it at all... well, as long as they're not actively insulting me, I just shrug it off.

 

I've learnt that I feel overwhelmed with too many dolls. As long as they can be displayed well I'm happy. I couldn't have a whole room full of dolls, it would be too much for me. However, I love that others have loads because it's great eye candy.

I too collect different types but only in small amounts. I have baby dolls, BJDs, action figures and a few others. I love the artistry. As for what others who don't love dolls think, my friends are always shocked by the cost and find it a little strange.

 

As mostly everyone has says, "too many" is a highly personal thing.

For me, I started with plans of 2, a set of brothers. Then I added a girl. Then I added... and added... and added... Next thing I knew, I had something like 30.

Life took a turn and I fell seriously ill, and got out of the hobby for about 6 years to deal with things. In that time, I sold off quite a few, taking my crew back down to my second-original plan (if that makes sense), which ended up being 9 dolls - 7 who are in the "crew", 1 that I'm just too lazy to sell, and 1 that I can't bring myself to sell, as his head was a grail and long DC'd (as is the body he's on). I've also got a couple heads floating about, 1 I'll probably sell and 1 who's my all time favorite sculpt (I have 3 of them) so it'll probably just stay in a box. All but one of these is 55-62cm.

But, lately I've got this new little world brewing in my head, a whole story, and in order to make it a bit of a reality, I need to shell the main characters... 8-10 of them! Due to space, I'm going MSD with these, the biggest being an Obitsu 50cm boy. So far, I've only gotten 4 of them (well, I already had 1 because I never got around to selling him. Now I'm glad I didn't! ).

I had gotten most of that collection of 30 while I was single. I met my partner during my hiatus from the hobby, so he had no idea about how costly the dolls are (and I even prefer the "cheaper" companies) so he sort of choked when I got back in and told him! . But, thankfully for me, he's very supportive of my hobbies.