Resale or keep?

I know when I buy them that I'll sell most of them at some point, assuming I can find a buyer. I also know I likely won't be able to get the same amount of money for them that I paid (especially when you consider shipping costs), but I feel like as long as I get some enjoyment from them, it doesn't matter too much. The only exception would be if I get something and then sell it immediately - then it's really annoying. This has only happened once when I ordered a body and then didn't end up needing it.

I don't plan to keep mine forever because I'd like to get new dolls occassionally, but I don't want to accumulate a massive number of them. The idea of having so much money tied up in something that doesn't age particularly well disturbs me, and I know that there are other people who would enjoy restoring my older dolls. I like seeing how other people can transform older dolls into something beautiful again, but I simply am not one of those people and never will be.

Also, I'll admit I don't really get the concept of "bonding", so maybe I see the collection process differently than a lot of collectors. I don't think you should feel too bad about not wanting them once you get them, though. It's extremely difficult to know for sure if the doll will work for you until you actually have the doll in your possession.

 

I don't buy with the intention of reselling. If I buy a doll it's because I expect to like that doll and want to keep it. Now, sometimes that doesn't work out, and I will sell a doll if it's not what I want (tastes can change over time) or we're really not clicking. However, I never go into a transaction expecting to sell down the road.

 

Thankfully I am pretty good at picking dolls that I end up falling in love with when I see them in person. I would just make sure you like sculpt of the doll before you buy. Looking at owner pictures can really help you decide if it is right for you.

Still, it doesn't always work out. I didn't know if I was "bonding" with my dolls until I didn't bond. With my Pipos Cheshire, I just didn't feel that same excitement as I got when I opened my SDs. I love him, I just feel like there are other dolls I'd rather have. I was so excited when I ordered him, so I'm worried that if I sell him I'll just want him back. Then I would just lose money when I sell him, and lose even more if I end up ordering another I plan on painting him myself, so maybe I will like him more when he's painted *fingers crossed*

 

Well i have to say buying 8 dolls in a couple of month, even in a year is lot. Getting a so called dream doll requires loads of work, not just putting on the outfit u like. If I decided to get a doll, I'll be thinking, what is the head mould like without faceup ? What sort of clothe is suitable for this type of doll. What do I want this doll to look like when it eventually sit on my bookshelf? If I can't see this happening , I'll give up. Promo photos or other owner's photo don't really give a justice of what the doll really look like. Unless u just want the doll to look exactly the same.

 

I agree with you golgy_body. Those are definitely great questions you should ask yourself before thinking about buying a doll, it can save a lot of heartache. I wanted to suggested owner photos since the company usually only shows one face-up possibility and that may not be the true potential of the doll. Sometimes owner photos can give you ideas about a mold you didn't think about before ^^

 

Thanks AmberLeigh, seeing DIFFERENT owners' photos are good really, my point is just if you fall for ONLY ONE owner's photo would be troublesome.

 

I think most of us, when we buy a doll, intend to keep them. Sometimes, that doesn't work out, and people end up having to sell a doll. Buying to resell is a pretty common thing in this hobby.

If you do feel bad about doing it, you can always try to change the doll's look.

 

I will always keep my first doll, Jocelyn. I love her so much. Last year I bought my second doll, a Bobobie Mia. We didn't bond like Jocelyn and I did. A few things about the doll her self I didn't like. Like I didn't know she would have elf ears and I didn't want that, also I found out I really don't like the feel of Bobobies resin. I also had a plan of who this doll was going to be and I didn't for my first. Maybe I expected to much out of my second girl. But in the end I sold her and now some one else has her and they are very happy to have her. Sometimes things just don't work out I guess. But I take my time and really look at the doll, if I want them or not. I plan for long time, as in saving. The whole time I'm saving I can always think over if i want them or not. I try not to rush in and just buy a doll on the spot.

 

The intention is to keep them, but in two cases the doll turned out to be not what I wanted and so I sold it. I have to say that I was still figuring out what sculpting style and jointing worked for me at the time. It's been four years and I haven't sold a doll since.

 

I don't take into consideration resale when I buy a doll, really. And I'd like to say I haven't really run into the bonding issue. Or rather, I had issues but they worked out. Sometimes you just gotta work with the hard cases. XD I had a couple of my dolls, namely my little brat Lilith (DZ Momo), who I got home...and almost right away hated. I considered selling her. But I worked with her, got her a new wig, clothes, switched her eyes and switched them back, then finally I could tolerate her. The only reason I didn't sell her right off was my strong desire not to sell any of my dolls... and the fact that she is the daughter for my first doll, and he'd never forgive me. XD Now I look at her and catch myself thinking how cute she is. She isn't my fav tiny, but she is getting there.

Plus if I tried to sell any of my dolls I shutter to think how much I will have to take off their original prices o.o I am not a good dolly mama by any stretch. (Pets, sun, handles them a lot, takes them all over the place, etc)

 

Hmm...well if you just started collecting less than 6 months ago, and just jumped into it and bought 8 dolls right off the bat, its not suprising you didnt feel an attachment to half of them :/ I only have one doll, and the most ive ever had was 2, and ive been in the hobby for over 5 years. I would love to have the money to get all those dolls, but I think it would be a lot less special that way. If you just get a bunch, and havent put a lot of time and thought and process-of-elimination to pick out scuplts you really love, and you suddenly have 8 of them, I would be afraid they would all seem so generic, and they wouldnt feel as special as a doll you had to save for and spent a lot of time hoping for and waiting on. But who knows, everybody is different and I had a similar experience with a girl MSD I had at one time and eventually sold.

My advice would be to slow down a bit, and make picking out a doll a more special and meaningful experience. Take time to look at different companies and figure out the sculpts and bodies that you really love. It will save you a lot of frustration, and apparently money, in the long run! Judging by the fact that you only have 6 posts, one would imagine that you probably havent spent a lot of time around DoA (but that guess could be wrong). There is so much information here on DoA. If you see a sculpt you like, browse for some owner pics here on DoA and see what other peoples dolls look like. Things like face-up, clothes, wigs, eye color...they can all make a huge impact on what a doll looks like. Even something as miniscule as eye size can change a dolls look completely! And that doesnt even touch on the endless modifications people do on their dolls to create unique and beautiful characters. The thrill of these dolls is not as much the black and white of what they are when they pop out of the box. Its the idea of what they become, and what they represent to you. Collecting BJDs, just like most hobbies im sure, is a journey, not a race ^ ^

Buying a doll is a big deal for me, because they're so expensive and its a very personal thing, so I never really think of dolls in terms of resale value. My current boy is an old version pink toned body with a new white toned head, and that head has just been modified to look different. He may be a bit of a frankendoll, but I would rather try and change the things that I dont like than part with him. He's been around for too long, and been my only doll for most of the time ive been in the hobby.

 

I'm someone who doesn't shy from making hybrids so I've purposefully bought dolls of which I knew I would sell either the body or the head upon arrival. I calculate the costs of losing money over the sale and buying a new body/head for the hybrid as part of the total cost of getting the doll just the way I want it. I've also bought dolls of which I either liked the head or the body and wasn't sure about the other part. I took the gamble and figured that if I didn't like the part I wasn't sure about, I would sell it and make a hybrid.
These dolls are too expensive to keep when you don't like them and they are too expensive to not fix that issue you have with a doll (not liking the body shape/head, poor posing, etc.) that can be fixed by spending a bit more money.

Usually I do intend to keep at lease one part of the doll, because there is something about the doll that I really like and makes me want to spend several hundreds of dollars on it. There have also been a few occasions in which I bought a doll to see if it would suit a character idea with the notion that if it didn't fit, I would sell it. It has taught me that for me it's cheaper to build a character from a doll that will suit the doll than to find a doll that fits an existing character concept.

 

I have never bought a doll with the intention to sell, but at some occasions i have had the possibility that i could resell them if they did not work in the back of my mind. The possibility of resale makes it easier for me to spend sooo many $ on them. If I knew there was no possibliy for resale, i d be afraid that if i did not bond, the doll would be in the back of my cupboard the rest of my life and that would feel very wastefull.

A good example is the Fairyland puki. I got two in the first preorder many years ago, when no one in the world had ever seen them IRL. I really felt insecure about buying at that moment since i had no idea what this doll was going to be like, there where mostly drawings up at the moment i preordered and just a few pics, that where not by far as good as they used a couple of weeks later (and still use now). I dont think i would have gotten these dolls if there had been no possibility to resell (in those days the marketplace was pretty much empty and everyone jumped if someone wanted to sell something). When they came home, i loved them and got more.

 

I dread having to sell a doll or part of a doll at one point. It's probably quite laughable, but I count on always buying the right doll. I can't imagine buying one and then thinking, "hm, maybe I'd rather have another body for this one." Then again, I'm working on my first hybrid and discovering that you can't entirely eliminate the gamble factor, so I realise that it's entirely possible that I will change my mind when I'm working with dolls a bit longer (I have only had my first doll since August).

Still: not keen on selling anything. Part of me is simply worried that I won't find a buyer :p.

 

i always buy with the intention to keep never re-sale although that doesnt always go to plan.
it can be hard knowing if you will bond when you are looking at the item on a computer screen and cant hold it in your hands and it can be so disapointing if the doll is not what you are expecting but that is a learning curve and you just need to find a make that suits you and the type of dolls that you love the best! its a personal thing what your likes and dislikes are in a doll but look at the ones you have bond with and think about what it is you do like about them, think of what make, size, look, and mostly what you love about them.

for example i had an impldoll msd i found them to be way to small for my taste but the impldoll star i love its much more me!

 

I actually always think about resale when I am buying a doll and it's often stayed my hand. I know I would like for all of the dolls I buy to be perfect what I want for them, or for me to never grow bored with a doll, but well, I am picky and to quote GnR, "Nothing lasts forever and we both know hearts can change."

So I always ask myself, is this doll worth the price you are paying? How would you feel if you could only get back half the money you spent when trying to sell it? It has been my experience you almost always lose money when selling, unless you happened to luck out with getting one of those dolls whose price went crazy on the secondhand market for retail. And even then, you're never sure. How many Williams heads are sitting in the marketplace right now unsold with their high price tags? Several. The market isn't bearing the prices it used to.

I know I will probably sell all of the dolls I own at some point in time. It's just how my collection has developed, with me selling on dolls after a while to get something new. I don't believe in the whole bonding thing. You either like a doll or you don't. It sounds like you probably are still working out exactly what you want from your dolls. Review your purchases and see what common elements the dolls you do want to keep vs the dolls you sold all share.

 

It's a joke among my friends how fickle I am with dolls. I think I get excited about the creation process of a doll and, once I complete their look, I mentally move on. I've even had friends "Call dibs" on dolls when I first show what I've done with them, because they know I'm likely to resell it later.

I have had around 30 dolls since starting in this hobby five years ago, and many of them have moved on. I try to keep those that were gifts, but whenever I get to about 6 big dolls, I end up mentally needing to purge. Tinies are easier to keep because they take up less space, but I seem to have a saturation point with SD dolls.

But it has gotten easier to train myself to ignore shiny new sculpts. I paint face-ups by commission, so when I see a sculpt I would want to impulse buy, I put it on my free (artist-choice) face-up list, so I get to go through the whole creation process without having to tug on my heart strings. And when I see a neat new Soom sculpt, I remind myself I jumped on Beryl when she first came out, and regretted it immensely.

 

Except seeing actual owner's photographs is not always possible. I've bought quite a few LE dolls where all I had to go by were company photos.

Sometimes buying a new doll is a leap of faith.

That being said, I've bought and sold my share of dolls through the years. I usually don't buy dolls with the thought of selling them in the future, but after taking some major hits on dolls when I have decided to sell them it is something I am thinking about with my newest purchases. I would of course prefer not to sell them, but if for some reason they don't look like what I am hoping, I do like that option.

 

When I buy a doll, I buy it to keep it forever. That's why I have comparatively few dolls. I'm very good, actually, at resisting that "oooooh, shiny! gotta have!" impulse. And I'm definitely not the "hey, this (xxx company) doll is pretty - let's buy it and see if I like it enough to keep it! if I don't, I'll just sell it again!" type, either. I guess I simply don't see the point in spending a lot of money on a doll, putting up with all the hassle of waiting for it and picking it up from customs (it takes me almost an hour to get there - same with my parents when I have something sent to their address), only to sell it again because I find out I don't like it as much as I thought. I'll make sure, before I buy, that I like the doll enough to never want to sell it again.

Another thing is when you have to sell a doll because you need the money. Of course, a thing like that can always happen. I understand that - but I don't know under which circumstances I'd do that myself. I just can't see myself selling any of my dolls, no matter the circumstances.