When does a large collection become hoarding?

This probably has been said multiple times already, but I think it becomes hoarding when someone else becomes jealous of the number of dolls the collector in question has. ^_~

 

I think that the problem starts to occur when you forget what you have, start to forget their names and each individual personality of the doll are not fully complete, and several are just wearing a shirt with no pants and no wigs lol. Poor things. I once saw someone on here that has over 62 BJDs...Good Lord. lol

 

There are youngsters out there craving to get 1 doll. So they are probably jealous of people who own 1 doll.

I dont feel jealous at all towards people who have a doll mountain.

 

(my reply is to the bold text)

Except... some people don't name their dolls and don't give them full individual personalities (I'm guilty of the latter). They have no original characters that they want to shell and have no desire to think up complex personality traits for each doll - they simply want to collect and play with pretty things. Having a particular collecting style does not a hoarder make. Neither does a certain magic number of dolls, beyond which, one can be labeled a hoarder.

 

My husband calls me a doll hoarder, but what I was was eclectic and unfocused in my collecting. Now that I'm clearer on what I want, from which makers, I'm re-homing (let's get real, I'm flat-up selling) dolls that don't fit into that. That's collection management. A true hoarder can't get rid of anything even if it makes her unhappy to have it, and that becomes pathological.

"but I think it becomes hoarding when someone else becomes jealous of the number of dolls the collector in question has. ^_~ " -- ravendolls, this made me laugh! Love it!

 

At the height of my model horse collecting I had over 200 and they all had names. And I remembered them. Now if I could only remember what I did with all my big hair clips....

It's definitely silly to try and attach and exact number to what constitutes too many of any one thing. Collections tend to involve multiples of a particular thing (in this case dolls), so why should it be surprising or worrying if some people have quite a few dolls? It really goes with the territory. People need to stop trying to apply mental illnesses to everyone who collects/plays with their dolls differently.

 

Your husband watches too much reality-TV! Because an eclectic collection doesn't mean you're a hoarder, either. Uniformity is NOT required in anybody's collection. Some people like to collect only dolls that're different from each other (size, shape, brand, color, style, etc.), & hate to repeat themselves. Others of us like to have little groups of all different styles. Eclecticism is utterly no indicator of pathology.

For that matter, neither is "not knowing what you want"-- many people's collecting style is that they just know what they like when they see it for sale, & go from there.

Game, set, and match!

 

That's Me. Each has a name. Each has a wig, or wigs, eyes, faceups, save for one and that's because he came that way from a friend! and will get one soon, all have clothes out the yin yang. I know what I have, thanks. And it's over 70 now. One had no wig cause I had to purchase it and I wanted more from Fairyland than just that. Now he has a wig. Don't judge. You aren't me.

And yes, I am offended.

 

I think hoarding is a very bad term to describe the hobby... I think "obsessive" is a much better term. Because, lets face it, at least 60% of the doll community are obsessed with our dolls. And I do mean in a bit of a negative connotation. Hoarding is when you feel the need to keep everything and never give anything up and just keeps on growing. An obsession is when you constantly think about something and its ingrained into your life to the point where it becomes your norm. When you can't stop thinking about them and you focus your entire life on them (and I mean in an unhealthy way, like you srsly can't stop thinking about them for like 2 minutes and its all you do).
So hoarding isn't the right word unless you have like 300 dolls and your house is over flowing with them and you refuse to give anything up. Obsessive as I see it describes everything much better.
I know I'm borderline obsessive. I train myself everyday, saying "if I had to for my family or friends, I would give up the hobby."

Anyway, I believe hording is when you collect because you just need to have more. That's hoarding. Once you lose control... it doesn't have anything to do with if you remember the names of each doll or anything. It's when you seriously lose yourself and just need more and more for the sake of having more. When your house is cluttered. If you think that they're taking up too much room, don't blame the size of your house. You might just have too many >.>

 

15 pages already, whew. I suppose we could apply armchair psychology to this until the world ends...(or some real psychologists can comment-- I know there's some around), but I guess there's no harm in adding my two cents, too.

Although I'm no more informed than anyone else who's seen a few shows and read some articles, I believe it's important to remember that 'hoarding' involves an inability to categorize things broadly. It's not always about mountains of filth and pest infestations lying below the life-controlling piles of stuff, that's just the flashy stuff that gets on TV. Example time:

When asked about their hobby, a collector may say, " I have several Delfs, and four Volks." They would be happy to give you further details if you wanted them.
A hoarder may be more likely to describe it thus: " I have a blonde Chiwoo, and I have a Limited Chiwoo, and a Shiwoo, and his brother the sleeping Shiwoo, and I have an El and an Elf El, and a Special Edition El, and I have a School A head, and a School B head, so it has a different faceup, and I have a SD 10 Nono, and I got the Nono renewal version, she has such a sweet face." The dolls must be listed individually, because they all warrant equal merit, and are completely different from each other. The subtle differences are the focus, not the broad classes that they can all be sedcribed under.

It's like looking at a wall of Bobobie Apollos, and not being able to get rid of one because it is unique, unlike the others, and that particular company faceup artist may quit working for the company and never do that style of eyebrows again, that is the kind of thinking that underlies hoarding. Small details and nuances are enough to set something apart as a completely separate grouping. Hoarders find more niches in their collections to fill than the average person.

Again, this mentality alone by no means makes someone a hoarder, but it's one of the roadsigns you pass on the drive to Hoardersville.

 

Absolutely no no no, not at all. That doesn't mean you're a hoarder, either. It means you're a completionist-type collector. Not everybody is into describing "broad classes", either, but it doesn't mean they hoard. It only means they describe things in a different way from you.

Some people DO collect every variant of a doll. Especially in collectible hobbies like BJD, each edition of something really IS a totally different/separate object from the next..... The Sleeping Shiwoo is different from the regular Shiwoo. The '05 Juri or Nanuri is different from the '07 Juri or Nanuri. Shiro Tachibana v1. is different from Shiro Tachibana v2. Tedros the Circus Master edition is different from Tedros Tokyo Story edition. The Apollos painted by the original artist are different from the Apollos painted by all subsequent artists. And so on.

And it really does work that way. Look in the price-guide for any collectible hobby and you will see many wildly-differing values for two different editions of the same thing. (My Little Ponies is one example; my niece once wanted a very particular one, so I looked in an online price-guide to make sure she wasn't asking for anything ridiculous, and wow! - did some of the values in there blow my mind. And let's not even go into the insane value of certain 1970s Star Wars bubblegum-cards vs. others!)

If you love a doll, collecting its every incarnation does not make you a hoarder, nor is it even a road-sign to Hoarderville. It just means you really really like that doll.

 

You have a very good point about the differing market values on different permutations of collectibles, I think that's also something that separates hoarders from collectors. Collectors seek the rare and interesting, while they may own run-of-the-mill standard versions, but hoarders don't tend to consider rarity or place monetary value on something beyond initial cost to them, because they don't plan on getting rid of it, for sale or otherwise.

I feel like my original comment may have been a bit unclear, so let me try to focus- I don't mean that this line of thinking definitely makes you a hoarder, but its a common characteristic of hoarders, among many other things.

 

EDITED to adjust wording , because I did come off rather harshly.
It's really, really, really stupid to judge someone's hoarder/not hoarder status by how they describe their dolls. Some people will just say "I have six dolls." Some will tell you what brands they are. Some will give the brands and the mold name and possibly release version, and some will even tell you something about the characters. It has nothing at all to do with hoarding, and everything to do with what information the owner cares about sharing about their dolls. Some people don't realise that not everyone cares about those details, but it sure as hell doesn't make them hoarders. *I* sometimes do this, because I figure if someone asks about my hobby, they actually want to know about my dolls. For some collectors, subtle differences rather than broad classes are their focus, and there's nothing wrong with that.

In the example you have there, those are all different dolls. How on earth is listing the individual dolls you own a sign of hoarding? Elf Els ARE different to regular Els, which also vary from year to year, and they're different to Special Edition Els, and Vampire Elf Els, and any other variant you could think of. That's just a normal part of talking about one's collection. (For example, I have two Dollzone Xs. They're twins, but one is an X-1 and the other is an X-2, the distinction being made due to which faceup they have. When taking about them, I might mention that as the reason they look fairly different despite being the same sculpt.) I don't get how separating your dolls into their individual molds and release versions is a sign of hoarding. I would think that a hoarder might do quite the opposite-list X number of dolls without really remembering or caring what they all were.


No, that's the kind of thinking that underlies collecting for some people. Do you *know* how many hobbies have people collecting items with tiny variances? Talk to someone who collects action figures and ask about that X character figure with the incorrectly coloured eyes/cape/belt/pants/other item of clothing, or the wrong card. I have to sort of LOL at the idea that "Small details and nuances are enough to set something apart as a completely separate grouping." is somehow strange. Of course they are. Something as simple as a faceup can make a doll entirely different to another of the same mold. I have one doll who is only distinguishable as a limited edition because of his resin colour. I have another who is mainly distinguishable as a (very) LE because of his faceup. Small details, yes, but ones that do make those particular dolls entirely distinct from the regular versions of them.


ETA: Please, don't speak for "collectors", as not everyone has the same reasons or preferences in collecting. Sure, SOME collectors might go for "Rare and interesting", but plenty of people simply go for "what I happen to like". Many people don't care about the rarity of our dolls, except when it is relevant to acquiring a particular doll, or trying to sell, replace or insure one. A lot of people buy their dolls without thinking about future resale value because they don't plan on reselling them, but that does not make them hoarders. It just makes them people who collect in a certain way, one which is different to how some others collect. I know that I personally do not give a rat's ass about the resale value of my dolls, because I'm not planning on selling them off anytime soon. If I were worried about that, I wouldn't have the number of "cheaper", common dolls that I do-I'd be selling a lung and investing in soom monthlies.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING! We have a winner! "You're a hoarder" pretty much always translates to "You have more dolls than me/the dolls I want but can't afford or couldn't get my hands on, and I am feeling envious and bitter because of it."

 

I think it is not about the number of dolls, but the reasons behind collecting and keeping them. I think it really can only become hoarding when it becomes a behavioral problem and then it should be diagnosed by a professional. You can have very few you dolls but still exhibit negative hoarding behavior. On the same note, I think you can have a huge collection and not be a hoarder in anyway because mentally you are fully capable of dealing with the buying and selling of the dolls in a healthy way and are able to maintain a limit that is best for you and your household.

 

Glad to see we're all adults here. The example I gave is just that, an example. To illustrate a point. Not an end-all, be-all way to see the looneys from the hobbyists. And to be clear, I'm not judging anyone here, I don't care who has a hoard and who has a collection.

Here is the link the the article I read, posted originally on page 2 of this thread. And, here is an excerpt from this article, detailing the point I was making.

"Spotting and savoring an item's so-called uniqueness is linked to one of the information processing problems that accompanies hoarding. The concept is called underinclusion, and it's a thought pattern that interferes with the ability to group similar items together -- a key part of organizing. So, rather than having one category for yarn, the hoarder will see one category for the yellow yarn, one category for the pale yellow yarn, one category for the saffron yellow yarn, one category for the sunflower yellow yarn ... etcetera, thus ending up with forty different categories each containing just one object. Since each item is one-of-a-kind it automatically has more value, and because nothing ends up grouped with anything else, each object must be scrutinized individually before its fate is decided. (Making it difficult, for example, to get rid of an entire garbage bag stuffed with musty and dusty yellow yarn.)"

Thusly, a BJD 'hoarder' would not be able to tell you that they have 'several Luts and four Volks' because they lack the ability to classify them as such. I just gave an example that involved resin instead of yarn.


I actually have done a little research, moronic as it may be, and I'm sure the really, really, really stupid guy who wrote this article has a really expensive, useless degree buried under his piles of useless stuff.

ETA, Homnivorax, I'm as permitted to speak for collectors as anyone else who collects. My comments are not a specific assault to anyone, the expense of their collections, or liking what they like. I'm sorry you seem to be offended by that anyway.

 

To me, collecting begins to run amuck when the collector is so invested in the process of acquiring that the actual doll or outfit or accessory loses its meaning. It's not about having a new doll or a new dress or suit for the doll. The thrill is only in the acquiring.
I have acquired a number of dolls this last year, and part of the way through the year I stopped to look at what I was doing and refocused on what I wanted. When I looked at my dolls, I found that I invested more in the immature girls than the adult women or mature dolls. At that point, I made a conscious decision to purchase only immature girls and have kept to that concept. Hoarding - or unhealthy collecting - to me is when a person is not able to do that, cannot say what doll or accessory gives him or her pleasure. It's just getting more stuff.
Of course, we can debate this until the cows come home and there will likely be no consensus, but that's my two cents worth.

 

Just a side note, a lot of people are describing hoarders as the most extreme of them, but what about if you're a hoarder but you haven't quite reached the level with dolls oozing out of your house. The start of hoarding. After all, after there are dolls leaking out of your room and its obvious you're a hoarder, its a little late. What about early on in the stages? When can someone truly be called a hoarder?

*and a little side note about the descriptive people and the way they describe their dolls: whilst some people are more on the descriptive side and don't just say "I have 6 minifees" and describe them more fully, it can be a sign of abnormal attachment and hoarding. So its not ridiculous, its just a presumptuous statement.

 

Most awesome reply EVER. I laughed my ass off. Bravo, ravendolls.