Has anyone really looked over their collection, and tried to analyze what they have? Yes, of course, they're dolls, but there's more to your collection than that. Once my own collection grew beyond a "reasonable number," and I would like someone to define "reasonable" for me in this respect, it became prudent to keep a file with information on my dolls, so that I could keep track of what I have, rather than having to bring them all up onto my desk, and do whatever analysis or count needed to be done, to make sure I was not buying more than one of the same doll.
I started the file mainly to keep track of which dolls I had. But since I spend so much time on eBay, it also helps me keep track of when I purchased the doll, and when it arrived in my hands. This has been helpful, so I do NOT open a "no item received" dispute on eBay with a seller. I would hate to cause problems for an innocent seller simply because I have had a "senior moment."
There is no question of WHICH kinds of dolls I collect, since most of my friends, both real life and online know that I am a raging Tonner-holic. In addition to, "Believe in the Power of Play," I think Robert Tonner could actually get away with using a paraphrase of another famous slogan to describe my collection, "Betcha can't collect just one!"
There are many ways to analyze your collection, and here are some of the breakdowns I have done with my collection so far:
Doll Statistics, Blue's Collection, current as of October 28, 2012
Condition: This is the state in which I bought the dolls.
New means just that - I bought the doll from a doll store, a fellow collector, or eBay.
Nude dolls come from a variety of sources including doll stores (like Dreamcastle Dolls, which does splits of dolls and outfits), fellow collectors on doll boards I belong to or eBay.
Head Only - Before Tonner Doll doll bodies available for purchase, many people would buy dolls for the outfits and the "latest and greatest" bodies, but then have an extra head. Most of the time, they would either "downgrade" the head to the older body style, or just sell the head outright.
Used simply means I purchased a doll, wearing its original outfit, but it had been played with or displayed by its previous owner.
The gruesome seeming "Half doll" was literally that, meaning I had bought the head attached to the breastplate with arms. Don't ask me what the seller did with the lower half of the doll. I have no clue!
New - 31
Nude - 74
Head only - 17
Used - 5
Half doll - 1
Then, of course, a famous demographic with me, hair color. I have been a collector for - well, more years than I really care to admit to - and blue eyed blondes are the biggest share of the fashion doll market. I know it is a popular hair and eye color combination, but it really, really got old. Telling my dolls apart got to be more and more of a chore, and I finally tapered off buying dolls like I used to, because all I could see available were more blondes.
Along came my Tonner doll obsession, and it is pretty interesting to see the results. The dolls listed as bald, by the way, are a wig doll, and a doll head in need of rerooting, as well as a new body. Another unique doll in this section is the one listed as having "thermal" hair, meaning that it changes colors with the temperature, something I found out accidentally while washing this hair. "Mixed" simply means that the hair colors are a blend, and I really can't fit the hair color into one or the other of the colors.
Hair Colors:
Auburn - 7
Bald - 2
Blonde - 16
Brunette - 38
Gray - 1
Mixed - 2
Platinum - 4
Raven - 38
Redhead - 20
Thermal - 1
Trying to figure out why I am broke all the time took a little bit of thought, so I checked my file, and decided to take a count of how many dolls I was buying in a year. The results REALLY surprised me!
2007 - 1
2008 - 26
2009 - 37
2010 - 25
2011 - 21
2012 - 19 - so far!
Finally, this might be a bit controversial. I have been guilty of loudly complaining about the doll companies mass producing dolls featuring only a limited number of face sculpts. This was before I found out anything about the manufacturing process, and how long it takes to have an artist sculpt a new head, make the master molds, and produce the dolls. The process has, since I was a kid collecting dolls, become a lot more streamlined, and more profitable for doll companies to make more than one sculpt. But I was still curious, for the lovelies of my collection, to see how many of a particular sculpt was repeated in my collection. As you can see, Tonner's Angelina sculpt is leading, since she is one of my favorites.
Angelina Ruiz - 11
Sydney Chase - 9
Kit - 8
Emilie - 7
Stella - 7
Daphne Dimples - 5
Marley Wentworth - 5
Tyler Wentworth - 5
Antoinette - 4
Jane - 4
Anyway, these are different ways I have tried to analyze my collection. There are so many different ways you can look at your collection, and try to figure out what you are spending your hard earned money on!
Very cool, Blue. My first impression:
ReplyDelete"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."
:) But don't tell my mom, the math teacher.
I really find it interesting to see how much your Daphne collection has grown--and I didn't know how many Stella sculpts and Kits you had! That's awesome. Your list is just the top 10, correct?