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Why people sell?

Mar 4, 2010

    1. I do this ALLLLLLL the time. I just can't judge a doll by pictures, and if I THINK I might like it, I usually just buy it. Better to buy then sell then NOT buy and then spend YEARS regretting it (cough, cough, YUKINOJOU, cough).
       
    2. I had a doll head that I kept for a month and then sold it, that is the one and only time I did though. The head was a minimee, and there were just so many things that were wrong with it that I couldn't even stand to look at it. Someone else wanted her and I didn't, so why not sell her and get money for a doll that I will love and adore for all time?
       
    3. ~Mello~ - Just to clarify, I am in no way offended by your comment/opinion nor upset about it. :? I'm sorry if you read it with some unintended tone. I was replying to you in a very matter-of-fact way trying to point out something you might not have considered, I was not trying to criticize you or your opinion, which seems to be how you took it.

      Such as the fact not everyone has access to Den of Angels before buying a doll - Registration is closed half the time; I have 6 friends in line waiting to join the forum as soon as it opens who have been waiting and waiting, so when they join and find another doll they like more, they may well use the forum as a way to sell their original doll in favor of one they want more.You didn't put anything in your original post like you had considered that scenario, so I was pointing it out for you as well as others who are reading this but haven't considered such an action.

      And many people join threads without bothering to read what's happened in the thread past the first few replies or the last few, sadly. :doh So I had no way of knowing if you'd actually read and considered other views and were 100% sure those are the only reasons anyone would ever sell a doll, in which case when you sort of repeat yourself on a thread, people will look at it since it was posted after theirs.
       
    4. i understand that. actually i was only saying my opinion without considering the opinion of others. when i said its stupid i meant that it would be stupid for me and i would never do it. but i was in no way speaking about other ppl. when i made the statement about the doll with the teeth, i merely meant that for me it would never be a reason to sell a doll. and as i said, everyone should do what makes him/her happy. maybe it sounded harsh, but then again something i say about myself cant really sound harsh? o.o and im not angry at you or anyone else. the only thing that really bothered me was when a certain someone told me to "chill" and stop having an "attitude", because THAT was really kinda offending...

      edit: also, its true that i could have added something like "but for some other ppl its sometimes needed to sell the doll..." or something, but, actually, i thought in this thread everyone should post his/her own opinion. thats what i did. of course ppl sell their dolls for many different reasons, but that wasnt really my point. i thought the threadstarter wanted to know what each person thinks about selling a doll (maybe i misunderstood it) o.o
       
    5. ~Mello~ - I thought that might have been the case. :) I think it's good you answer things honestly with your undivided opinion. Before I wasn't actually replying to you, I was more building on what you'd said as it made me think of another thing I had forgotten to say before. :sweat I tend to forget to add something, then come back and add it later after something jogs my memory, in this case it was something you mentioned in your post, which is the only reason I quoted it. Kind of like a Q&A thing, I guess you could say.
       
    6. i see, but if you quote someone of course that person feels spoken to :sweat but its good that you explained it. i will take your second sentence as a compliment actually :)
       
    7. Personally? I really don't care why people do it. I'm pretty easy to please, myself, and appreciate the fact that I can get a new doll on the marketplace and save myself some international shipping!
       
    8. I have no personal opinions about why people sell their dolls, honestly if you want to sell it sell it, that is your business.

      I have bought dolls in the past, loved them, thought they were beautiful, but in the end decided they were just not for me, or just did not fit my story and characters and were basically a "thing" whereas my others were important to me. if a doll is not important to me I will most likely onsell it to purchase a different doll that is right.

      Recently i sold most of my oldest and dearest dolls to update my collection with sculpts closer tot he characters, and I feel no qualms or shame in this. In fact I enjoyed the process and now have dolls that are FAR more how I envision my characters (even though they do not get the AWWWE! response my cuter versions did) and I am really happy with this. The people who bought my older dolls also love them very much and have kept the same faceups, purchased them BECAUSE of the faceups, and in one case even kept the same name!
       
    9. I have no problem with people buying dolls then deciding to sell them....if they didn't I wouldn't have my SOOM Glot or AngelHeim Zion since they were both bought second hand. And at first I didn't get the whole "bonding" thing. I do now! After working on many of my dolls I do feel there is a bond, so to speak. Like with any piece of art, you pour some of yourself into it and that creates a bond. Sometimes it lasts, sometimes it doesn't. But in the end everyone ends up benefiting. You sell your doll and get money to put toward another doll or endevor and the person who buys from you gets a doll they really wanted...everyones happy :)
       
    10. I used to think the same way. But, I'm very much a collector. I buy what I want to keep forever and ever and ever and ever... but, how many dolls does one person need?

      I don't buy dolls I don't love. If I could, I would keep them all because it's rare that I dislike a doll since I tend to think long and hard before buying. But, there are times I get overwhelmed and simply need to let go. Let go of dolls, let go of the materialism and let go of that negative feeling that is kind of like drowning in dolls.

      I'm in sell-mode now but the last time I sold was years ago with the exception of a few outfits. In all honesty, I hate selling so don't understand why people would want to do it. But, I think others take more risks than I do when buying their dolls. As a result, they tend to sell more.

      Asking why someone sells is kind of like asking why someone buys. It's a personal decision motivated by why someone collects what he/she does. Life matters also play a significant role. Although this is my hobby I certainly don't want it controlling or limiting my life in any way and that leads to the eventual purge so that my collection can be more manageable.

      I've come to realize quality over quantity is the way to go, but that doesn't necessarily stop my quivering finger from hitting the buy button!
       
    11. I sell for only 2 reasons. Doll didn't work out as hoped and/or need the money to pay bills. I usually only sell dolls I love due to $$ problems if I know I can replace. Like my 2 Dollstown kids. Was able to buy the one back, and the other is getting a new body and head and will be faced up as close to her as possible.
       
    12. Great discussion... funny, because I'm in the preparation stage to adopt out some of my dolls. Unfortunately, life can get in the way of things (in my case, furloughs at work = less money coming in, but bills still need to be paid). Another point for me is if I can grant someone's wish to obtain a doll, then I'm okay with adopting out.
       
    13. Yeah, in a hobby like this, you have to look at it beyond a collector's point of view and take on the emotional. Many of us don't buy dolls just to have them look pretty. Some of us buy dolls because they draw or write or love a particular story of someone else's and this was a perfect opportunity to pull their favorite characters out from the pages to interact with. Some of us buy dolls because they like to make things and sew, but maybe can't get a person, or maybe they can't really get up and around. There can be many reasons why someone will sell a doll so soon after they had it. Maybe they saw a better doll for the character they had in mind, or they didn't like the body type at all, or realized that they only like one size doll as opposed to another. I loved my first doll, but as time went, I realized that as gorgeous as she was, her face and body type were all wrong, and I had no other character to replace her with. To me, it was better for me to sell her to someone who would actually take her out of her box once in a while, even though I lost out on some money.

      The 'misleading photo' reason also comes up, but even if you saw one in real life with no face up, and you loved it then, you can still end up changing your mind and realizing it's just not the doll for you. If an owner doesn't bond with a doll, it means they won't do anything with it. To a collector, that's the point, but to those of us who become emotionally attached to the character, it means this doll isn't being used to its full potential, and that defeats the purpose of having it in the first place.

      Heck, in some cases, it's not even completely emotional. I absolutely hate having useless things that are only good for sitting there forever and looking pretty. I mean, other people can do it, go ahead, but if I do it, I feel like I'm really wasting money and space that I could have used elsewhere (it's the Capricorn in me, I guess, lol). If I'm not going to do anything with it, then I don't know why I would need it. If I'm going to buy something, I'm going to use it or play with it until it turns to dust, and then I'll see what I can do with that dust.
       
    14. I am fairly new to the hobby. I have just one doll body and am waiting for my second dollie order to ship in a few days. So I don't even have a complete doll yet.

      To preface my comments/thoughts so they can be properly understood - the dolls I'm going to collect are going to be divided into two categories: dolls that represent characters in a novel I'm writing and dolls that represent elementals. The first category is very specific. I'm very particular about them and how they will look together. The second category is looser and is limited only to how I feel about them/my own tastes in dolls, letting me to some extent pick up dolls that I like that wouldn't fit into the story set.

      I ordered a DBDoll body with the intent of making it the body for my character "Jin Li" from my novel. I am rather meticulous when I'm spending large amounts of money. I did as much research as I could to find the "perfect" body for him. It had to be beautiful/plausibly androgynous, it had to be around 60cm. I wanted it to have good posability and I preferred "pretty" joints. It took me awhile to find the DBDoll body and I loved how it looked in the company photos.

      But, you see, I'd never really seen a doll in person before mine arrived. I'd only seen them in passing at a busy convention where I didn't have the luxury of stopping and getting a good look at the dolls. The measurements meant nothing to me because my only real experience with dolls before was Barbie. "60cm" didn't seem as large to me on paper, so to speak, as it was in person.

      When the body arrived, I had mixed feelings. I wasn't so sure anymore if the body could be "plausibly androgynous". It's a rather masculine body, though still beautiful, but it's far more "bishonen" than "androgynous". The body's fate was sealed when I did a mock-up with the head I decided absolutely was "his head".... The proportions were way off - the shoulders were far too wide. It would look almost like an egg sat on top of a boulder. Forget "androgynous" - it might not even look human!

      If I only wanted one doll or could only afford one doll, I would have had to have sold it, as much as I think the body is beautiful. "Jin Li" has a very specific look based on how I've drawn him and how he'll be written in the stories. The head I want is that head and no other.

      Thankfully for me, I am able to keep more than one doll (even if it takes me ages to save up for each order) and had already planned on a "more masculine" boy doll, so it was easy enough to say, "All right, Chaos the Fire Elemental will just jump ahead in line of the queue I've planned." and set the body aside.

      Now I'm waiting on a Ringdoll order to arrive which will carry the body for "Jin" (the measurements seem appropriate for the head and the body seems from photos and measurements to be much more androgynous than the DBDoll body) and a head that may become the head I use for "Chaos".

      I really love the looks of both, but I'd intended on an entirely different head for Chaos and I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to react to seeing the head and body together. Maybe it'll be a perfect match and I'll just say, "oh okay! he's just a bit younger than I thought he'd be. That's fine." Or maybe I'll look at him and think, "This head just doesn't look right with this body..." or even sometime later I'll say, "This really just isn't Chaos." I'm also a bit nervous about the Ringdoll resin, which may not work right with the resins that Dollmore and DBdoll use.

      I don't know yet.

      And as much as I love the looks of each piece, I don't know that I can keep buying and buying and setting things aside for "other" dolls that I don't even have concepts for yet. (Other characters I want to create have their own looks to worry about and I may not be able to 'recycle' the pieces so easily. And honestly the elementals series of dolls is not my preferred priority at the moment.)

      I've done what I can, researching as best I can, attempting to look at owners' photos whenever I can, doing photoshopped mock-ups of how a doll head will look on a certain doll body - but at a certain point the cards are in the hand of "reality" in the sense of, "you won't know for sure until you see how it works out in-person".

      So I may need to sell something on sometime. And those are my long-winded reasons/explanations for why I would do it.
       
    15. Also, if everyone keeps every doll they buy, then there's no chance for people to get the dolls they want if they did not buy it when it was released, or if they didn't win say Volks lottery or AE drawing.

      So in a way, I think people reselling is what keeps this hobby going and going. It gives people a greater chance to get what they want.

      It is not a bad thing at all!
       
    16. What always throws me are the people who get a doll, gush and gush about how perfect it is and how much they love it, and then a few weeks later it's on the marketplace and they're buying other dolls. Their choice, obviously, but when It's a doll I love myself, I always feel a little - unsettled? I'm not sure of the exact term! Obviously, though, they'd prefer the money, it's their choice.

      I'm very much a collector. I can't sell anything without feeling horrible pangs, although I'm determined to trim my Barbie collection once I'm back in the same company. But I'm not good at letting things - or people - go.
       
    17. The first two dolls I've had, I sold, but currently kept the head of the 2nd one. I had a 3rd one but "gave it" to my niece. For me the first two are sort of... something I just settled on. The 3rd, I thought I wanted and I kind of still liked it but it didn't feel fitted with me somehow, even with all the looks and parts I expected. They caught my attention but wasn't something I was really wanting. Strangely, the two dolls I have now, I didn't care for at first glance, till I saw different face-ups and owner pics. Then I just loved them so much when I got them myself ^^; The new ones I got now I loved at first site, but I figured cause now I have a grasp of what I really want.
      I only sell my dolls for two reasons. Can't connect with them even if I loved them at first (I know this cause I don't think about them much after having them...they get stored in their boxes ><) OR I really need the money badly enough. Even though I don't "play" with my "older" two dolls I still think of them and they are on a shelf I made just for them <3 :D
       
    18. well i've bought one doll head sorta just to sell. it was a 3 head set on ebay, and dang it i wanted one of them. day it arrived i gave 1 head away to a freind and the other i posted for sale.

      i've sold one chrom head that i got cause i loved the look on the site, but when i got him home, and after a few months of just not coming up with anything for him i traded him for clothes. he just wasn't working of me in person.

      other things i've sold is plans changed or i don't feel i'll get around to a project i had wanted to do earlier on. either taste changes or projects pile up and i priortize, sell off others to finish other ones.
       
    19. I've sold two dolls since I joined the hobby, both for similar reasons.

      1.) I sold/split because he was an event doll and his sculpt did not fit any of my pre-existing characters.

      2.) I sold because she did not fit in with my other dolls. She was beautiful and I loved her individually... but she looked so different compared to the other dolls she was meant to be "related" to.

      I pretty much know when I open a box if a doll is meant for me or not. I would prefer a doll I only "like" to find a home where it is "loved." In my eyes, it's better to sell in that instance.
       
    20. This is exactly how I felt before I actually 'bonded' with my second doll. I loved every picture of this doll and it was my favourite sculpt. It was my dream to get a doll like that and then I finally bought him. But when he arrived, I didn't get this 'oooooh, I love him' - feeling right away. It did come some weeks later - but I still like one other doll of the same sculpt more.
      I think that the reason for selling a doll is usually just the fact that one can't feel that the doll is 'their own' and they decide selling it to get some money. Some people might also get bored of the doll or find a sculpt that fits better the character they want to have.
      And like someone said, the promo pictures might look different from the actual doll and since especially people new to this hobby simply choose their doll according to the company's pictures (at least I did) and the 'dolls in real life' might actually look different. I was thinking about buying one doll, but after seeing pictures of some doll owners, I decided not to go for it. If I had, I couldn've ended up selling her.

      Still, even if I do not immediately feel that the doll is mine, changing its wig and style might help. I wouldn't sell the doll right away, time might help the bonding problem.