The BJD Crash

Psh, of course. I mean, that'd probably mean they'd be cheaper and worth less and easier to get. Lol.
I don't really care about super value, as long as you mean they maintain ther VALUE, as in their good quality. I dunno, I don't really understand what you mean by value fully.

 

I've never much cared about the value of things I like. For example, I love Monster High Dolls (off topic, but the post isn't about them so much as using them as an example for my point) and my friend was surprised I opened them instead of stashing them away in their little boxes to collect and resell later. It was the same with beanie babies and Ginny dolls...I collected them because I loved them. I didn't care how expensive they were or what they'd resell for. A doll is the same to me, which is why I'm being so discriminatory in the doll I buy; reselling just isn't a thought or an option in my mind, at least for now.

I would hope that the quality of the dolls would stay the same, but as with most things when the market crashes the production values tend do go down, at least that's how I've always seen it.

 

Er... it would have been helpful to keep the initial post there, really, since dozens of posts replied to it directly. People only now coming to the thread may have little idea what on earth everyone is talking about in those early posts as a consequence.

My thoughts on this issue remain the same, regardless of the new quote presented. This is not generally a market with high profit margins, from what I've seen, so there is little artificial inflation of the price, if any, and I'd bet some companies are barely breaking even already. The new quote doesn't particularly convince or sway me that it will be any different. If there are companies that are charging a premium for low cost items to produce, their pricing may take a hit. Companies may close. I don't see the massive price drops in the cards for this hobby, though, unless something significant changes in regard to the price of resin, the silicone mold materials, or casting equipment -- and all of those seem to just go up and up, not down.

Most people are accustomed to items being put at 25% off, 50% off, even 75% off at shopping malls and other places where we buy our goods. That's because of how these items are priced at the outset; those items are priced so that when the slash-and-burn clearance sales happen, the company doesn't take as deep a hit to the pockets as we might expect. For most department stores, they are still making a profit even on goods they are selling at 50% off the full retail price. As a result, there is 'wiggle room' for price reductions there, and that's the model we're accustomed to seeing in the world around us on a regular basis, so it's natural to assume that all companies and businesses work this same way. From what I've read, there simply isn't that kind of markup in this market. That means there is less wiggle room to adjust prices without fundamentally altering the goods themselves.

Just because something has a high price tag, it doesn't mean there is a high markup on the item that would allow for the kind of significant price cuts people seem to think would come to pass with a 'crash'.

 

This is why I don't buy dolls as an investment. I buy them because I love them, they are my muses, and not my lil money makers.

 

To add to what surreality stated, the cost of molding and casting materials is quite high, even if you are buying industrial size quantities. It takes over 3kg of polyurethane to cast an EID. At industrial-scale prices, that works out $51 dollars per doll. (You can check high volume prices of any polyurethane manufacturer.) That doesn't include the expensive silicone mold, which can be used a limited number of times.

Dollshe is now offering casting services-- this process doesn't include making the original doll, or cleaning up the parts after they are cast-- just making the molds and pouring the doll parts. With a volume discount, the cost is $167 per doll. Obviously Dollshe is making a profit here, but this gives an idea of how much it costs them to make the doll.

Add in the cost of designing and sculpting the doll, cleaning up the cast doll parts, stringing them, advertising, packaging, etc., and you can see how making bjds is an expensive proposition. The same is true for all hobbies involving polyurethane, like collecting hand-crafted dinosaur models, garage kits, etc. The reason is that polyurethane is an expensive medium to work in.

Now go to alibaba.com or any of the websites that offer wholesale and custom orders of goods. A 23 cm baby doll, made of vinyl, wholesales for $3 to $5-- and that's with a profit to the manufacturer, and includes design of doll, molding, painting, clothing, packaging, etc. How can they afford to do it so cheap? Apart from cheap labor, the answer is cheap materials.

So there is no comparison between the costs of vinyl and polyurethane doll production. Raw materials make a tremendous difference.

The urban vinyl market you refer to in your edited OP-- which apparently is talking about the vinyl action figure and model market--may certainly be inflated. Secondary market for some of those toys is incredible and based on rather fickle demand, as well as extremely limited production, but the primary market prices for these toys are low.

Compare to the bjd market, where secondary prices (with a few rare exceptions) tend to hover around primary prices, which in turn are based on cost of raw materials. It's hard to see an uninflated market crashing, unless, as surreality already pointed out, cost of raw materials drops substantially. Can the market be saturated? Sure-- that's likely what is going on now, as fewer people are willing to pay the same price for a used doll as a new one, when the new is readily available. So secondary prices will adjust downward until the cost of a second hand doll, with no wait, is a better deal than waiting for a new doll. But the bjd market crashing? Nah.

 

I think in an alternative thought process, the doll market wouldn't collapse because of the BJDs themselves. Since there have already been many examples of why resin BJDs as we know them *can't* actually be viable to reduce in price, my thought is that the BJD hobby my crash if an alternative appears on the market that makes BJDs obsolete.

An incredibly gorgeous customizable doll might show up to dethrone the Dollfie-style BJD, and it would leave the old, expensive dolls choking the dust of progress.

It's like everyone is saying "Vinyl records will never go out of style because music is so amazing!" without considering that maybe the medium itself might become obsolete due to another one coming along and almost everyone will just prefer it except for a few die hard hobbyists. If they came out with dolls that are *even more* gorgeous and wonderful to pose, handle, and customize, but costs a fraction of the price, you bet I would ditch BJDs in a heartbeat. BJD manufacturers probably would as well as it would be less overhead costs for their business and they would still get to share their sculpture with the world...

In the face of BJDs becoming obsolete and a new, less expensive alternative should arise and completely knock them off the market, I would definitely keep the BJDs I have now, considering they wouldn't be worth anything to sell anyways and I do love them for who they are. I'd be upset that I got so invested into such an expensive hobby, but ultimately I would enjoy being able to afford more dolls of the new ruling class of dolls.

 

Robot dolls!

You place body shells over a metal endoskeleton with a nuclear battery and programmable brain.

• The body material could reshape itself so you can tweak B/W/H measurements--no minor sculpt choices!
• The face would have nano-pigments that assemble and maintain themselves--pay an artist for their face programs and download a face!
• The eyes would be layers of colored e-ink in glass and can be set to whatever color(s) or pattern(s) desired--no eye swapping!
• Add the eye motor upgrade and she can look around--no blu-tack or putty!
• An additional eyelid upgrade and she can blink--no separate dreaming heads!
• And an optional programmable voice box for when the doll absolutely must whisper, "Kill them all."

Actually, I guess they'd just be robots.

MINI TERMINATORS. I would so buy that, even if it cost the price of many normal BJDs.

Back to reality, with the spread of 3D printing, we might have a new way to assemble dolls, but that wouldn't really change the materials used. There would probably have to be some miracle approach that hasn't been invented yet for such a crash scenario.

 

YES! THIS!

But in all seriousness, these sorts of advances in materials are made every day in fields like forensic science, medical applications, military applications, (believe it or not pornographic applications) so it makes sense that something newer, less expensive and actually *better* comes along. I don't think many people bought thousands of cassette tapes expecting CDs to come and knock their analogue socks off... The same could be true for BJDs.

3D printing is still pretty pricey to be totally fair... They use that for printing warcraft in-game figures of your character and it's about $150 for a four or five inch figurine.

EDIT: A four or five inch figurine that doesn't even move.

 

Actually, 3D printing is much cheaper now than it was about 10 years ago -- a shocking amount lower, actually. *coughs quietly* Not that I've looked into it or anything...

...but it also has problems. You don't have a smooth sculpt as a result, like you'd expect from a casting. I suspect that most people, seeing a raw 3D print, would have a fit, especially since it'd cost substantially more than a finished BJD. People complain about the cost of, say, the Soom MDs -- imagine paying 5x the cost or more, to have a blank doll in pieces that needs sanding over every inch of the surface.

 

Maybe this isn't the same process as the Figureprints then that I got? They use basically an ink-jet printer setup to spray colored adhesive on a fine powder and basically print layer on layer a 3D image. It's fully colored, and only needs minor sanding to produce the finished product.

I imagined that this technology could be used in a few years after it is more refined and we could get things as beautiful as BJDs without the messy sculpting/molding/casting process.

 

If BJDs crashed, I'd be even more interested, I think, since my babies would be affordable to get more than one or two per year! ;D

 

This may be off topic, but now we are talking about 3D printing, I know for sure Iplehouse uses it in the making of dolls, my Korean friend who used to work for Iplehouse told me. Although the master sculpts still have to be edited/cleaned up by hand afterwards. I don't think it actually saves them much money in the long run,i it's just another way of going about making the final product.

 

Now, what would be really neat? If you look at something like shapeways.com, which has a 'print on demand' option similar to any other brokered marketplace, ten years or so from now. They provide the printing, anyone can provide the 3d sculpt, and it can be made available to anyone who wants to buy it if the creator is so inclined.

 

Well, I would no longer be able to justify the purchase to my husband by saying things like they're valuable, or they appreciate in value, but that is just a justification for owning something I wanted.
If the market crashed, it wouldn't affect me at all, nor would it affect how I feel towards my doll.

 

Yeah, exactly. A lot of people are saying "If the BJD market crash I would buy all the dolls I want because they would be CHEAP! "

Let me ask this of the people that say that: How many VHS tapes have you bought at the bargain bin at the shop lately? Or casette tapes? There is loads of great music out there floating around on those mediums, and for only a buck most of the time! All the great movies you love are so cheap why not go buy them??? Face it, once the *new thing* comes out and the "crash" actually happens, there wouldn't be much point or interest in buying the obsolete dolls because the new ones would be all that and more. Furthermore, no one would bother making or selling the older style BJDs either. Would you STILL go out of your way to track down some die hard loyal artist who still makes "old fashioned" BJDs?

Difficult to say of course because the "new thing" hasn't come out yet so we can't compare to what we have now but I know I for one will look forward to what might come next in BJD technology. If they are like those Persacomm things from the Chobits anime or Lucy-Lu-Bot from Futurama or even just a different material that has a beautiful look or feel for a fraction of the price I'm pretty sure I would keep the dolls I have but leave the obsolete sculpts I haven't bought yet behind...

 

And yet there are still people out there who collect porcelain dolls (antique and new) even though more reliable, less likely to break materials have come along.

There is a difference between collectibles and recorded music/movies. The reason people buy and replace each differ. A doll made with old technology will continue to have value because of its relative rarity, whereas recordings of music and movies have been replaced because the new technology makes them sound/look better. I've been through VHS-->CD-->download/tivo and Vinyl-->CD-->mp3. Each time the technology has improved, and I've paid a bundle to update my core collection-- because it would sound better. But I have kept certain items that haven't made it into mp3 format, and (horrors!) I even have a few VHS tapes I've been too lazy to convert to digital format (and nothing to play them on...).

So if a better, cheaper way to make bjds came out-- one which made my dolls inferior in comparison-- I'd probably replace them, if it were possible for those sculpts. Or better yet, buy the new versions to keep alongside the old ones. But if the new dolls were merely cheaper to produce, why not go out and buy the "crashed-in-value" polyurethane dolls? I certainly would. Some people appreciate old school.

As for those who go out looking in bargain bins for VHS tapes: well, I certainly don't do this, but I do know quite a few people (luddites and DJs?) who collect vinyl records. Some artists still release their music on vinyl as well as modern media because of this fanbase. Of course in this case, the vinyl records have earned collectible status, despite the poor technology. So their value is independent of their technological backwardsness.

But from the start the OP has implied that the value of current bjds is inflated-- like tulips after rampant speculation. The scenario described in the last few replies is an entirely different scenario.