"Never to be sold again"

It's kind of sweet that a company would feel so strongly about their dolls that they want them to stay with the original owners, but I also think it's completely impracticle. Sometimes things come up, and people have to sell a doll, or they find that the doll wasn't what they really wanted. In that last case, I think it would make a lot more sense for the doll to be moved onto someone who could really appreciate it. I wonder (maybe somebody knows the answer to this?), if part of promising not to resell is to discourage scalpers?

But in the end it's all a moot point. When a company sells a doll, it is no longer theirs to decide what to do with. It's the owner's choice 100%, and I don't really think a company can enforce their wishes at that point.

I've never had to promise not to sell a doll, but I've never sold any of my dolls either. I certainly would not have a problem buying such a doll second hand--again, at that point the company's wishes have nothing to do with things.

 

I guess to me it seems a little 'odd' because when we purchase one of these dolls, who knows what the future will bring?

If it came down to a choice between feeding our human family and selling a 'never to be sold' doll, I know what my choice would be...there would be food on the table!

Having said that, I respect that others may well have a different opinion to me on this subject!

 

Well, I am on the "dark side" of this question, having bought one of the "never to be sold" Sei Tenshi on Y!J. I've been to one Dolpa in LA, and all I wanted from it was to win a Sei or Rei. When darn near every friend of mine that went won one or the other, I was heartbroken. Months later, I was cruising Y!J and found a Sei that had had it's face up slightly modded by the current owner (as far as I can gather from the translation) and I bid on him.

I looked at it this way, the person selling him will have to deal with the guilt, or not of selling such a precious gift, but I adore my Sei, and he's the PERFECT one for me. I love his face sculpt, I love the eye color, and he has the cutest pale green wings in the Yuki spread out style, that I also love best. I don't think I could ever sell a Sei, or Rei, that I had won unless it meant raising money for a dire emergency to provide for my family. I would keep them forever as a reminder of a time and place when I was very, very lucky.

My Sei Tenshi, Coda.​

 

Dolls are objects. I think people have every right to sell them. Doll artists may wish that the dolls they make will find permanent homes, but people's circumstances change. They may get out of the hobby, they may need the money from the sale of the doll, their taste in dolls may change, or they may die and their heirs may have no interest in dolls. I think it might be kind of sweet for doll makers to ask that their dolls not be resold, but unrealistic. When I see dolls like this for sale, it doesn't bother me at all because it's really none of my business.

 

This. It's ridiculous for a company to sell an expensive item to a customer, then 'ban' them from ever reselling it. As dambuster01 has said, what if the doll's owner needed the money urgently?


The romantic in me can understand the sentiment behind not wanting customers to sell a doll, but the capitalist in me finds it kind of... diva-ish.

But eh, if a company didn't want me to sell a doll, I probably wouldn't buy the doll from them in the first place.

 

I'm not certain who you think would be giving you "heat" about this subject because, honestly, it's a non-subject. First, in relation to the Dollshe recollection you've got - we would need more concrete factual evidence of such a request - yes, tensiya.com asked with the last sales of the Bermann project that the "winners" commit to not selling the doll before it arrived. That's eleven collectors. Second, the tenshi are given with love and the "hope" that they will stay put rather than being sold at a HUGE profit, considering that any monetary exchange is going to be a profit. Again, we are talking small numbers of collectors.

Unless more examples can be given of dolls sold by companies that "insist" the doll not be sold this isn't really a debate.

 

Didn't Hypermaniac ask customers to not re-sell their dolls, and refuse to sell further dolls to them if they did?

 

Props!!! Yes, that's right, I had totally forgotten that - but wasn't it pretty much limited to their first few releases?

 

I have never purchased a doll with a "no resale" stipulation attached to it. In all honesty, unless it was my ultimate dream doll, I would probably be scared away by such a thing. I've sold a number of dolls in the past, when I realized that they just weren't working out for me as I had hoped, and I would have no way of knowing in advance if the same might happen with that no-resale doll.

Of course, I am generally law-abiding and promise-keeping, so I probably still wouldn't sell the thing. I would hang on to it, stewing in my rising resentment. And honestly, at that point, it would probably be better to sell or gift it to someone who would be happy to own it, regardless of any (unenforcable) contract.

I also tend to judge myself more harshly than other people, so I don't bat an eye when I see someone reselling one of these dolls in the market place. I guess I'm just peculiar like that.

Tangentially, what really does get my goat is when I see someone selling one of their dolls in the marketplace, with the stipulation that the next owner must keep that doll true to the first owner's artistic vision, down to the same name, and never resell it Hypocrisy at its finest. I don't care how rare it is, how reasonable the price, how cool the character that owner has designed, or how much I may want that mold; I would never buy a doll with that set of conditions attached, unless I were prepared to take on the guilt of disregarding them.

 

I have never seen this. Does this happen often?

Personally, if I purchased a doll with this stipulation, I would probably do whatever I wanted with it after the sale was completed. Really, how does one enforce such a rule?

 

ghilie, I've only seen it maybe three times, although I didn't log into DoA for something like six months straight this year, and don't always keep close tabs on the market place. I do seem to remember that around the time I first got market place privileges, I saw someone posting about finding a new "forever home" for their doll. I found the concept strange.

As far as I'm concerned, you can adopt out children, puppies, and Burmese Pythons. Dolls? No. Or at least, I will not be getting any of my dolls through the Humane Society of DoA

 

Thanks for posting the link - it's interesting to see that it wasn't just with the last release that tenisya requested the doll not be sold before arrival!

It would be nice if we could have links or "contracts" or what have you posted here rather than speculative recollection!

 

As said a few times before, it's nice to see that some of the creators and sellers of dolls care so strongly about where their dolls end up and can ensure that they have homes to stay in.

I don't really think it's fair to tell a buyer what to do with their purchase, though. If I bought a doll for several hundred dollars, as much as I personally would hate to part with it, there are times when I think the option to pawn it off would outweigh being told not to- say sudden medical expenses and the like. The only way I'd not sell one of my dolls to help with that if needed would be if I were contractually obligated not to, and even then I'd probably still do it if I needed the money bad enough.

Basically, I figure once you buy it, it's yours to do with as you see fit. The person you got it from gets no say, so all this 'do not sell' stuff is kinda over obsessive to me- as nice as it is that they care.

 

I think that people can do whatever they want with their possessions, even if these are gifts, there is not any immorality, you don´t sign a "contract of use". Maybe it can be a bit "sad" or "bad" from other people´s point of view, but, nobody have the right over other people´s decicions about sell/modify these or not.

 

I remenber DOD definatley asked for the tender Lahoo gift head not to be sold, and I think luts may have asked the same during one of their events (but i'm not so sure). It seems to be a somewhat common thing for companies to ask, but the requests are honored with varying degrees of sucess.

EDIT:

Here is the news thread: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182543&highlight=Tender+Lahoo

Number 4 or the list of infomation thye gave is "4. Please do not sell this head to others."


Here is the Luts one, on the Nanuri (2006?) page:

http://eluts.com/frontstore/Item/it...rt_id=lutsdoll&level=&mother_catalog_num=1136


Scroll down under the picture it says: "This Head is Very Special Limited Items, Please DO NOT Trade, Thanks for your understanding." which I would assume means do not sell.

 

Hmmmm. I can't remember, and it feels like it was a long time ago. I can't see any mention of it on their website anymore, anyway.

I can understand having the 'no resale' policy in order to reduce the likelihood of scalping. It's not a total solution (the only way to prevent scalpers is to prevent people from buying from them), but at least it might help to reduce repeated incidents of scalping.