The Changing Market of Doll Collecting

I've been a doll collector most of my life, but it has gone through stages of avid collecting and more passive collecting depending on the different stages of my own personal life and then business life. When I was the youngest, dolls came into my life as a gift from a parent or relative and maybe from a thrift shop if we saw something that looked interesting second hand. My doll collection was very small. Christmas in the 80's provided me with an American Girl Samantha doll and homemade clothes and furniture from Grandpa and Grandma. In my college years, there was a couple of doll shops around the corner from where I lived and I would pop in after school to look at the display cases of beautiful new dolls and I ordered a few dolls by catalog from reputable companies like Franklin Mint.

Dolls used to go from manufacturer to distributor to retailer back then and sometimes artist to retailer for the smaller brands. There were also a lot more dolls in retail locations. Today the doll market is largely online with many manufacturers selling direct instead of through retailers or doll shops or even distributors. Many doll businesses went out of business. There are still some scattered doll shops throughout the U.S. and independent toy stores outside of big marketplaces like Mercari, eBay, Etsy, and Amazon but us as consumers can't always go the distance to get to them. This is why there is a natural progression to online doll stores to reach collectors and why so many brands are also hitting up the major marketplace avenues to sell dolls.

I remember the excitement and thrill of walking into a toy store or doll store, and the magic it would hold for me. It was like walking into a Christmas living room where all the presents are unwrapped and you could look at all the neat things that could possibly be yours. Online shopping unfortunately while convenient is void of all magic and as we lose more of these locations, a little more magic disappears in the world. I can't say that I have ever said ooohhh or ahh in a Target or Walmart. Let's face it, the accessible stores are stocking quick flip merchandise. It doesn't smell like childhood or magic, it smells like commercialism, cheap vinyl, and things that will break apart after a first time play.

As a mom, I'm grateful for convenience and quick needs. As a collector, nothing interests me in there and I want to travel to somewhere where that magic still exists.

Online shopping for dolls is not easy to navigate. 2nd hand dolls often are sold by non-doll collectors and come with a risk of not being described correctly, cover-ups in terms of damage or care, and inflated value. You have to continuously be informed yourself in order to not be ripped off in the process. It becomes necessary for collectors to align themselves with doll vendors and suppliers they trust in order to get the best possible products, something that is not as straightforward as walking into a doll store and being face to face with the owner. Convention and doll shows are alive and well, but they need to welcome in the fresh brands of collecting.

The future of doll collecting is currently in the hands of the handmade community. Small brands have a line up of dolls that have a starting outfit but no collection to collect. Some are still adapting the concept of want a different outfit, buy another doll which is incredibly wasteful. Instead the focus is on maximizing the doll mold they have already developed and then reproducing it with different clothing over and over. For a company that's great for saving on cost, but for a collector, it's rather boring. Handmade artists fill in the gap by creating clothing and accessories, even furniture to support a doll but it can be incredibly risky of the doll falls out of favor or trend or the doll company goes out of business entirely. Larger doll companies start to cut corners on quality over time and concentrate more on the flip than the collectibility of their products.

In my mind, doll collecting is huge, but doll collaboration is very small. We haven't quite come together in working in tandem between the doll brands, the handmade artists, and the small dolls suppliers whether physical or online to come together. We don't even seem to have a plan for the waste as brands lose popularity and support.

Nevertheless, doll collecting is moving forward and there are doll companies out there embracing working together and moving things ahead for the next generations of collectors. We've become a great advocate ourselves for bringing independent small businesses together to work towards common goals and minimizing waste in doll collecting. Conventions and doll shows are also starting to move forward to inspire collecting and have vendors with new and upcoming products instead of just older dolls. It may take some times, but we are adapting to the changing doll market.