When do you have "too many" dolls?

Yup, mine too - well, I keep them stored in the cupboard. I'm careful with my dolls; doesn't mean I don't appreciate them.

 

My boyfriend's mother collects dolls and a good 97% aren't worth anything, yet she has the entire house filled to the brim with them. Every room has dolls of sort and she's gone as far as to fill up an entire guest room with nothing but boxes of dolls strapped to a board. His dad even threw out personal things to make room in the cluttered house for space but she filled up the gaps with more dolls. Personally the minute I hit more than 1 whole bookshelf at the most is where I'm drawing the line and stopping because I don't want to be anything like my boyfriend's mother and her collection of worthless barbies. I guess the saying is true to a degree that sometimes some people's purpose in life is to be an example for others.

 

I think, personally, you have too many dolls if,

You spend more money on their clothes/accesorys then on yourself
You spend so much on them you can't pay for gas/house payments
Everywhere you look in your house you can see a doll
If you have a whole room with dolls in every corner
If your dolls eat better then you do (wait...what?)

But, mostly, it about what you can handle. If you can't take care of 5 dolls, then that would be considered too much for you. It's really about individuallity.

 

When you have so many you have to store them in boxes, cupboards, or fill up an entire bookcase, that's too many.

 

Whoops. That's my bedroom.

Colour me Anne Rice...xD

 

I met someone who had so many dolls that many of them don't have faceups...she couldn't even remember their NAMES let alone their stories...I think THAT is too many.

 

I think I've passed most the the rules suggested here already, so I'll have to draw the line elsewhere. I'd say you have too many dolls when you don't remember or have names and stories for all of them. Also, it you don't know how many you have you definitely know you have too many (that would be me).

 

I think you have too many Dolls when:
You got no more place to stock them.
You got a room with only dolls in it.
Spend all your money for dolls.

 

Ahh, but in not knowing how many exactly you have, it makes it sound better when you say "around" as opposed to "insert number here".

I always think its best to not know. Then no one can say you have too many because you don't know yourself xD.

(I actually do know how many I have, but I still say around. It softens the blow...)

Anyway, seriously, why does it matter all that much?

I think most people who have posted here would think I have TOO MANY DOLLS....but...

I don't think I do. Ok, I wish I had some more room for them, but I'm working on that.

 

I'll say this.. my best friend's mother collects porcelain baby dolls.. how many baby dolls?

So many that her room is full of them.. she has them in several rows all along the walls of the living room, every wall, and she has a STORAGE UNIT outside of the house full of them.

Now, she estimates( because she has lost count) that she has about 60-80 in the house alone. I would consider that she has what many would call "too many dolls".

Now, I have recently gotten into the hobby as well. I received my first doll a little over a month ago. I've made her wigs, and clothes, as well as costumes and outfits. She was originally intended to be my only doll,so at first, I never even thought about buying a second doll. However, I always can't help but feel rather bad for her. She seems lonely to me. Her personality has always come off to me as a gentle older-sister sort, and it seems odd for her to be sitting off by herself. Therefore, I decided to bite the bullet and order another.

However, when I ordered, I decided to get two Yo-SDs, one boy and one girl. I think they'd look adorable as a pair of twins, and it would give me an excuse to sew more pants. I personally have set my limit to 4 dolls, a boy and girl of both MSD and Yo-SD size. I do this because I go to a lot of conventions, and I think that the most dolls I could bring to a convention would be 4. Besides, if I made them costumes or outfits, I'd want them to match, so 4 or less is good for matching character costumes together and whatnot ( I already have plans to make Ponyo and Sosuke costumes for my Yo-SDs, as well as a Skuld costume so that the female Yo-SD can pose with my MSD's Belldandy costume).

Therefore, I suppose that too many really depends on how you feel about your own little doll family. Sometimes, one is plenty, other times three is not enough. Of course, I'd never promote buying a doll with money set for food or bills. After all, you come first!

 

But not everybody gives their dolls names or stories. Some people don't; some people just collect them as collectibles to look at.

 

I personally would maybe wait and try to invest in more clothes and accessories for your exsisting dolls, but don't think by buying more you will automatically become the person who has shelves and shelves of dolls and then start to neglect other parts of there life. Just think about why you want this new doll and if you you don't feel guilty about buying the doll then go for it

I haven't got my dollfie yet but i fully plan on having up to five XD

 

My dolls are character dolls, so I have a lot- I got very into the Naruto manga/anime and like a lot of the characters around the time I really got into buying ABJ dolls, so including my MSD sized and various tinies I have over 40 dolls.

But I think once the series is over, some of the SD sized dolls for characters I'm not as enthusiastic about I might sell- the ones that I also already have another doll around the same height I like better. I'm also planning on giving my sister one of my tinies that I'm making into little Gaara (her favorite Naruto character) so that drops the number of dolls down by one already.

 

I think "too many" varies according to each individual. Too many in my case would be when I run out of room on my doll shelf.

 

I have too many dolls when I get "psychically overwhelmed" by them.

For me, the number is currently four. I have four right now, and at one point I was no longer enjoying them because I ran out of bandwidth trying to think of them and all their 'needs', all at once. Mental/psychic overload! So I had to take a step back and breathe deeply, and put all of them away for a month just to give myself space. I'm back to loving all of them now (woohoo!), and I'm learning the truth of "loving them one at a time."

Your mileage may vary. More power to those who can handle a large family. But I don't think I'll ever break double digits!

 

Right now as far the resin crowd goes, I have one MSD and two tinies. They do not take up much room themselves, but their accessories sure do! I also have an antro tiny on layaway at the moment, and probably will get another anthro after that one arrives.

Too many dolls comes into play for me, because I collect Fashion dolls as well, with my childhood Madame Alexanders on shelves in the doll/dollhouse display room. (The dollhouses and roomboxes take up more room than the dolls.) Some of the Silkstone Barbies and Fashion Royalty dolls live in the 1:6 scale dollhouse, or their boxes when their characters are not in use in a diorama/photostory. So yeah, I have alot of dolls other than just my resin crowd. I love my MSD but I love some of the tinies even more, they are so easy to throw into my purse when I travel.

Spaceis a consideration for me, and I like to plan my bjd' family vs just buying the newest thing....I also like to name them, and get them clothes and accessories vs. having a whole herd of dolls...

I would say your finances should be a major consideration,m especially if purchasing the big ones...as well as space...if you can't afford the necessities of life, then you don't need to buy dolls.

 

I think someone counted for me I have 61 full dolls. The rest are floating heads which have started to share bodies now

 

"Too many" to me is when you feel overwhelmed by the amount of something, whether it be dolls, antique or specialty cars that just sit there and never get driven, cigars that stay in a class case and never get smoked, or some other hobby. Simple as that.

 

"Just enough dolls" is always 1 doll more than you already have ^.^

Seriously though, how many is too many will depend on the person and their situation. For me, even my 1 doll is really too many at the present moment because I'm so short on space, but no doubt when I move my value of "too many" will go up to something sane.

 

Though in a way when you buy clothes and accessories for your dolls, you are buying them for yourself as well -- it's part of your hobby that makes you happy. Personally, I'm not that big a shopper -- when it comes to clothes and accessories for myself, I pretty much just buy what I need and that's it. There are very few things I like to spend money on other than dolls/doll stuff and books, so that's where I put most of the non bill money.