Twickenham Doll Club

www.huntsvillealdollclub.com

Dolly 101: Some basic Information about Dolls and Doll Collecting and Selling Dolls

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If you have recently come into possession of some dolls or a doll collection, and know little or nothing about them, this page is for you.

 

1.   Dolls have been around as long as there have been children.

 

2.  Today, there are many different categories of dolls. There are play dolls and there are collectible dolls. There are fashion dolls, baby dolls, child dolls, art dolls and there are dolls that are called dolls but are more like figurines or sculpture pieces, in that their limbs are typically pre-posed and permanently fixed in position. Some dolls fall into more than one categories.

 

3.   There are mass-market dolls, made in quantities of many hundreds or thousands; and there are limited edition dolls, with editions as small as one, and others in the hundreds. Cost is frequently, at least in part, a function of edition size. One of a kind dolls will almost always cost more than dolls that are manufactured in larger quantities.

 

4.  Doll can be purchased in virtually every discount store in the world, and in department stores and in specialty shops and directly from manufacturers or doll artists; in brick and mortar stores, and online.

 

5.  Today’s dolls are made of many many different materials, including vinyl, hard plastic, resin, cloth, wood and porcelain or bisque.  Other materials are also used.

 

6.   Different collectors have different doll interests. Many specialize in a narrow area of doll collecting and do not have extensive knowledge about other types of dolls. Some collect a variety of types of dolls.

 

7.   Barbie is probably the best known name in the doll world, especially among people not familiar with dolls and doll collecting. She has been around for just over 50 years and she is primarily, but not exclusively a vinyl doll. She is a mass market doll, and primarily a fashion play doll. However, there are Barbie dolls manufactured for the collectors market in somewhat more limited quantities. There is a link to the Barbie Doll Collectors Society in the links section of this website if you need any additional information on Barbie.

 

8.  Many collectors collect the dolls of their childhood. TDC members regularly receive inquiries from people looking to sell individual dolls or doll collections—typically ones they have inherited, or ones that have been donated to non-profit groups to sell as fund raisers. We do not all know everything about every type of doll ever made, but we will help you to the best of our ability.

 

Contact information for appraisers, and auction houses are located in the links section. E-bay and the Internet in general provide excellent resources for valuing dolls. Some dolls, especially antique dolls, are worth a great deal, but most dolls are not. The Internet has made it possible for sellers of dolls to reach a much wider audience than in pre-Internet days, and has enabled potential buyers to find a much wider selection of dolls to choose from.

 

If you have acquired dolls that you are considering selling, please click here to read an excellent article by Lynn Murray, UFDC President and owner of TLC Doll Shop. The title of the article is “What will I do about Mother’s dolls?”

 

If you need additional information, and cannot find what you need in out links section, please feel free to contact the Club contact person listed at the bottom of the first page of this website.