Your thoughts on the Secondhand Market?

I am really looking forward to having access to the marketplace when I qualify! I really want to try finding fun second hand and getting creative with faces!

 

Yes, I understand. This is all obvious as long as the dolls are still available new, but once they are retired, things change, though.
In collectors' markets you usually have a distinction between damage and 'traces of usage/ age' as the goods on offer are second hand by nature, and while damage lowers the value, traces of usage and age might even increase it because it is a sign of the true age/ authenticity.
Now yellowing in resin BJDs is an unavoidable fact, dolls simply cannot get older without some measure of yellowing. Saying it does lower the value makes those dolls ineligible for the vintage doll collector markets of coming years, so I assume it will be filed under traces of age or usage.^^
Of course you are right, if dolls are not handled accordingly and say, left on a sunny windowsill for 6 months, causing severe uneven discoloration, then I think most people would agree it constitutes a damage and thus a decrease in value, alongside breakage and dents/ scratches.
Since resin BJDs are so young I think a lot of these secondary market conventions will still have to be established for them. These are dolls that are not fit to remain pristinely unboxed and untouched in the first place, so pricing will have to take this into account for collectors of older dolls. I think this will be very interesting to watch^^

 

Absolutely! I come from the fashion doll and vintage toy scene originally so I have experience dealing with second hand collectors market. I would love it if resin bjd hold up over the years and reach a point where there's a second hand collector market for them but my experience with high end resin model kits and artists made model horses has left me wary of investing in anything made of resin expecting a monetary return. I've seen alot of 30 year old plus resin kits that (despite never being removed from the box) yellowed extremely and became brittle with age. I've also seen resin pitting, hairline cracks and paints and sealants going gummy and having weird reactions to whatever they're painted on. Plastic of all kinds has issues ageing be it off gassing, liquefying and all manner of other yucky things happening to it.

I always tell people that when it comes to bjd buy what you love and expect no return. If your doll suddenly comes back into fashion and it worth more? Awesome! But dont rely on it and dont treat bjds like a monetary investment. Really dont treat anything plastic as an long term investment period. Your better off buying precious metals/gems and if you insist on investing in dolls make them porcelain bjd like popovy dolls. We know porcelain lasts centuries if it isnt broken.

Even barbie collectors acknowledge that many of the vintage dolls are degrading over time because vinyls was never meant to last :/ really bums me out just thinking about it.

 

I also came from the vintage toy (mostly MOTU) and Barbie scene. So much just crumbles away. The Barbie skin that turns green around the ears, the rubbery accessories that came with an action figure just disintegrating.

I am hoping that high end resin from a good caster will hold up well with time and, yeah, not putting in a sunny window forever haha

But I’m with you, collect what you love and sometimes the show of age is a part of a collection’s charm.

 

@-T2P- @iamibo
Tell that to my Mod Barbies Some of my 50 years old dolls hold up better than say less than 10 years old ones, and even the astronauts' suits from the 1969 moon mission are crumbling away in their museum while people watch helplessly. The curse of the plastic age.
That's why I think the big difference will not be the age of dolls alone but also the quality of materials they were made of. I own a Dollmore body that is 10 years old and shows signs of increasing brittleness. I have to handle it very carefully, things that will do no harm to my 16 years old BJDs will crack the Dollmore body although it is newer. But that is nothing new in the vintage doll world either - I'm thinking of fragile dolls made of composition or celluloid which are often in bad shape now and worth even more on the collectors' market if found in acceptable condition. There is even a tiny infrastructure of specialists who repair them. China dolls on the other hand have survived in rather good condition in such great numbers over the last ~140 years that they have decreased in value a lot over the last decade. I wonder if BJDs will see similar trends.

 

Such a good point and honestly Enchanted dolls in porcelain will last forever!! I wonder, like you said, how longevity will change the way we do this hobby!!

 

Oh I love a mod Barbie in good shape! I had many collector Barbie's I sold when I first got into bjd. Some were in great shape but some suffered from greasy leg and face syndrome which always bummed me out.

One thing that makes bjd collecting (at least if your doing it with the hopes that your dolls will gain value) is there no way knowing how they will age until they do. Dollmore isn't what most on here would consider a 'cheap' company yet yours resin seems to be ageing not the best. I have a really old soom body that is lemon yellow but structurally seems pretty sound. Resin quality is so hard to judge and changes even between batches of dolls from the same company is just all so

It always feels like resin bjd hit their peak of value in a couple of years after being discontinued. In that time they get a bit rarer as more find permanent homes but they haven't had a chance to show signs of ageing and a similar looking doll from a different company may not have come out yet.

The porcelain doll market moves a bit slower in my experience. Different styles flow in and out of fashion and if a doll is not in Vogue at the moment they have time to wait if that makes sense lol

 

@MissMistyKnits I agree. I don't have much money at the moment and I am just getting into the hobby. I appreciate secondhand dolls right now because spending $650 on just the doll body is hard on a newcomer. Especially since I don't understand the stringing and stuff yet. The two people I bought secondhand from both included wigs and clothing for us since we are new. Each set was much less then the new price. I of course dream of buying one new someday, but right now I think the secondhand is the way to go for me.

 

I sold a Pukifee Mio (tan) on Facebook pretty quickly; within the first few hours of posting. However, I am trying to shell a LaTi Yellow from the Animal Friends in the Savanna release, but it's not selling on Facebook. so I am trying ton get into the marketplace to see if I have better luck there, because I'm trying to adopt a LY from their 2020 Alice in Wonderland release!!

 

I am so thankful for the secondhand market. Without it I’d never be able to find my grail. It does make it hard with people being so willing to scam others but with research and feedback it’s great that dolls aren’t getting second chances at homes and people are get second chances as dolls they missed out on. I think it’s inevitable that you won’t get what you paid in the beginning but I don’t think people should expect to even for items that are discontinued. The item is used and with that comes loss of value. Though that doesn’t hold true for everything.

 

I don't have access to the DoA marketplace so I can't speak about that obviously.
But I'm kinda sureprised how some people in this hobby are saying that lost profit is a failing of the second hand market rather than the nature of the second hand market.
Buying anything as an investment is always a gamble. Sometimes you get lucky and buy something that will become in high demand in the future and sometimes you don't.
(But also selling a 10y/o doll and expect making the money back is just absurd imo. Unless it's a super rare and popular, then people would rather use their money on a new doll that is in a good condition.)

 

Im thankful for the secondhand market but I get scared of buying a doll that smells like smoke.