2012 Coupon Code Collectible Doll Bargains

Mammoth Lakes, California

Happy Holidays!  Use the code 2012 for 20% off of your order from CollectibleDollBargains.com, plus free shipping on eligible orders.  Valid until January 6, 2013.  You can link to the site from the My Favorite Links section on the right of this Blog.

Precious Moments Cinderella Tree Topper Doll

Please Help Us Identify These Artist Dolls

This large and lovely 40" porcelain doll came to us from an Orange County, California estate.  She had a paper tag pinned to her "Lisa/Australia" and is marked on the back of the neck '93 L.E. 13/25.  We are trying to identify the artist for this exquisitely modeled and dressed doll.  Please let us know if you recognize the artist.

Here's another one.  This one is Haley, she has a hang tag labeled Roseweb Originals.  She is a fine quality OOAK artist doll about 26" tall, again we wish that we knew the name of the artist.  Does anyone recognize this artist?

Getting Ready For Halloween

Halloween is coming soon.  I haven't dug out my decorations at home yet, so I appreciate the spinning efforts of this spider in my back yard:

Seasonal items have been selling well.  Many people collect Halloween, especially vintage Halloween, all year long.  New Halloween items and themed items get the most interest in October.  Here are a few of the Halloween products that we still have in stock:

Precious Moments Disney 12" Tink A Boo Tinkerbell Doll

Precious Moments 9" Doll Set Gourdeously Cute

Boyds' Bears Beary Devilish Miniature Devil Bear

Spooky 'Mazin Hamster Interactive Toy by Ganz

Good luck with your own decorating and Happy Halloween!

Helpful Household Cleaning Products For Dolls And Accessories

Many collectors love to find a vintage doll in "as found" condition.  For these collectors, part of the thrill of the hunt involves finding a neglected beauty, giving her a little TLC, and returning her to her former glory.  If you enjoy gently cleaning vintage dolls and accessories, here is a list of ordinary household cleaners that I've found helpful.

• The vacuum -- If a doll or bear arrives dusty or musty, a good first step is to try to gently vacuum off dust with a vacuum attachment.  Proceed with caution, you don't want the vacuum to grab or tear any fragile fabrics.
  
• Baking Soda --  Baking soda is helpful to eliminate musty odors and as a mild abrasive.  For musty or smelly items, try putting about 1/2 of a box of baking soda in a plastic bag with the item.  Seal the bag and let the item sit overnight.  Remove the item and shake off any baking soda.  Again, be careful if your item is clothed to avoid damaging fragile fabrics.  You can also try baking soda on a sponge to remove stickiness on a vintage vinyl or plastic doll.
  
• White vinegar -- Vinegar is a great gentle all purpose cleaner, especially for mildew.  Have you ever purchased a vintage doll with creepy white eyes?  That is probably mildew.  Try dipping a cotton swap or a child's paint brush in white vinegar and removing the white surface.  Be careful around the lashes, those are easy to dislodge.
  
• A toothbrush -- An old toothbrush is handy for cleaning inside mouths, ears and nostrils of vintage vinyl and plastic dolls.  Make sure you don't press to hard to use excessive water on the brush to avoid damaging any old painted surfaces.
  
• Ivory soap -- Sometime vintage dolls come in dirty, stained or musty clothes.  Collectors differ as to whether it is good to wash vintage doll clothes, but if the outfit is really unsightly a gentle wash may be your best option.  For most items, I recommend hand washing in warm water with a lather of ivory soap.  You may have to change the water several times.  If the item is pure white and cotton, you may want to test a couple of drops of bleach in the water.  Proceed with caution!  Bleach can ruin colors and synthetics.  Once the item looks cleaner, put in on the lawn to dry in the sun.  The combination of the chlorophyll from the grass and the sun can really whiten.

With any of these techniques, less is more.  If your item is particularly rare, valuable or fragile, consult an expert or a doll hospital before trying this at home.  On the other hand, if you purchase a few fixers cheaply for this purpose, you will have plenty of material with which to experiment.   Good luck and happy hunting.

The Whos, Whats, Whens, Whys And Hows Of Spending Your Collectible Dollars Wisely

My smart 20 something neighbor complained to me today that the collectibles market is a scam.  It seems that her carefully compiled collection of Beanies Babies, which she though would pay for her college tuition, won’t even pay for a semester’s books at her Ivy League grad school. 

While the conclusion that collectibles are a scam is an exaggeration, my young neighbor she raises a good point.  We can all remember the bubbles that have burst, the fads that have fizzled.  Remember Jim Beam bottles?  Collector plates?  Beanie Babies?  I can recall customers sprinting into shops in 1996 to plunk down $600 on the latest Beanie.  What are those Beanies worth now?  This illustrates that anyone involved in buying collectibles should do their best to spend their collectible dollars wisely.  

How do you educate yourself to spend wisely?  Start by asking a few basic questions about your prospective acquisition:

• Who made this item?  Was your item handmade by an artist or mass produced by a large corporation?  If the item was made by an artist, does that artist have a strong following outside of the collectibles world (possibly as a fine artist or a celebrity)?  What methods were used to produce and finish the product?  In what country was it made?  In the Harmony Kingdom collector’s world, many collectors will pay more for items made in England than for those made in China, every though the production methods are very similar.
• What is it made of?  Most collectibles do not have much intrinsic value, meaning the actual value of the materials used.  Value is created by scarcity, desirability, appearance and other factors that fuel collector demand.  Does your item contain any materials of intrinsic value (i.e. – precious metals, precious stones), that may have a strong market value independent of the collectibility of the piece?  If not, just remember that your collectible could be worth little if the demand for that item disappears.
• When was it made?  Age affects value, as does timing.  Was this a first issue, a later re-issue, or a collector’s reproduction? Vintage items are fantastic, but new items can have a lot of collector value too.  Just make sure that you know where your item falls on the production timeline, if applicable.
• Why was it made? Was your item made as a collectible?  Often, but not always, that can be the kiss of death for the future value of the item.   When 100,000 people buy the same collectible and too many of those people try to sell it at once, the price of that item will plummet.  Sometimes, however, timed or limited release items can have substantially secondary market value.  Similarly, items made as toys or ordinary items may become hot collectibles just because no one thought to collect them.
• How does it look?   “Condition, condition, condition” is to collectibles as “location, location, location” is to real estate.  Obviously, mint condition items like new old stock (unsold old merchandise in new condition) are wonderful to buy.  But collectors will also tolerate some imperfections, perhaps to fill a hole in their collection or because of the scarcity of that particular item.  Just have sure that the price that you pay correlates to the item’s condition.

Antique Picking Reading List

Looking for something entertaining to read about searching for antiques and collectibles?  Here are a few of my favorite reads in this area.  I've included fiction and non-fiction (but no reference books or how-to books).

• Cadillac Jack by Larry McMurtry (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove).   The protagonist is an antique picker who drives around the country in a big pearl colored Cadillac buying and selling antiques.  The descriptions of the small town auctions and flea markets he attends ring true.  This book also captures the On The Road aspect of antique picking.  Plus, it contains the classic line:  "'Anything can be anywhere...'"
  
  
• Loot:The Battle Over The Stolen Treasures Of The Ancient World by Sharon Waxman.  Thought provoking book about the battle for return of looted treasures from the Ancient World.
  
  
• The Lost Chalice:The Epic Hunt For A Priceless Masterpiece by Vernon Silver.  Fascinating tale of the history of the Euphronias krater, an ancient Etruscan artifact whose discovery and sale caused scandal in the antiquities world.
  
  
• Old Masters, New World :America's Raid On Europe's Great Pictures, 1880-World War I by Cynthia Saltzman.  Non fiction book written by a journalist about late Victorian American industrialists purchasing masterpiece paintings out of Europe's great collections.  Many of those paintings have made their ways into important American museum collections.
  
  
• Rogues' Gallery: The Secret Story of the Lust, Lies, Greed, and Betrayals That Made the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Michael Gross.  This is a tell all non-fiction work about New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.   Gross traces the Museum's history from its beginnings in the Victorian era, through the looting scandals of the late 20th century, to present.
   
• The Swerve: How The World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt.  This is a non-fiction work describing how the discovery of an ancient Roman manuscript On The Nature Of Things by Lucretius, changed the course of human thought.  The description of the medieval book hunters and the hunt for classical manuscripts is engrossing for antique scouts today.
  
  
• White Oleander by Janet Fitch.  Oprah Winfrey selected this book for her popular book club.  It is a coming of age story about a teenage girl bounced around through several households in Los Angeles.  One of the households is run by a woman who requires her young charges to buy and sell used items at swap meets and flea markets.  It contains surprisingly true to life descriptions of the Los Angeles swap meet scene.

ASD Wholesale Buying Show Las Vegas 2012

ASD Gift and Toy Show August 2012

Just back from the August ASD trade show in Las Vegas.  ASD is a great venue for buying new dolls and bears.  The show combines a closeout/opportunity buy component, and a gift show component.  It was about 115 degrees in Las Vegas, but the variety and quality of the merchandise made it well worth braving the heat.

View from the sales floor

View down the Strip from the 55th floor of the Trump Hotel

Here are some of the new items that we ordered at the show.  We'll have most of the items in stock around mid-September, in plenty of time for the holiday season.

Webkinz Cookie Hamster Interactive Code

Webkinz Spooky Hamster Seasonal Item

Gus Fink Stitch Kitten Outsider Art

Disney Tinkerbell by Jun Planning

Pullip Tiger Lily Doll (Peter Pan) by Jun Planning for Disney

Ty Girlz Totally Trish -- Purple Hair

Gund Teach Me Abby Cadabby

Madame Alexander put out an 8" Tiger Lily doll, no. 469, as part of a Peter Pan series in the Storyland Collection in 1992.  We can't think of another Disney Tiger Lily doll, although there may have been other over the years.  Tiger Lily is not a common character doll by any means.

Garage Sale Gold: Cartoon And Character Dolls Of The '80s and '90s

Many experienced estate sale junkies and doll collectors dismiss dolls and toys from the 1980s and 1990s, particularly the mass produced character kind.  I've received many a side long glance, and have heard comments like "who would buy that?" and "what junk!"

Well, even though '80s and '90s items may have been inexpensive when new and even though they are only 20 to 30 years old, some of the items have intense collector interest and substantial value.  Here are some examples:

• A rare Masters of the Universe Tytus manufactured by Mattel Italy in 1987 sold for $4,500 on EBay on July 4, 2012.
• A 1983 Strawberry Shortcake Berry Happy Home with furniture but not complete, in used condition, sold for $950 on EBay on July 28, 2012.
• A Mattel My Child Genevieve doll (kind of like a Cabbage Patch) sold from 1987 sold for $696.50 on EBay on June 28, 2012.
• Speaking of Cabbage Patch Dolls, a 1987 CPK Iddy Budds doll sold for $231.37 on July 21, 2012.
• On August 2, 2012, a 1991 Krang’s Android Body Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure sold for $262.50.
• On Amazon, Knickerbocker's 6" Annie doll from 1982 goes for $99 in new condition.
• Also on Amazon, the Sugar Plum Fairy Barbie doll from the Nutcracker, dating to the late '90s, goes for $69.

If you collect dolls (oops, I mean dolls and action figures) for fun, profit, or to capture a moment in time through an iconic object, do not ignore items from this era.  Here are some photos of some of our recent finds in this category:

Disney Exclusive Dolls

Do you collect Disney Store and Disney Parks dolls?  We've recently purchased some new old stock inventory from a local source.  According to the seller, her mom had a shop that contained this Disney merchandise.  There are some unusual items, Park Exclusives, items made for Disney England, etc. 

All of the dolls are Disney Princesses, we have some sets including the coordinating Prince.  There are some wedding sets, some pieces with furniture items, and other dolls with extra outfits or accessories.  I will continue to add photos to this post.

Airport Hangar Pick

How do you pick an airport hangar?  The first step is to meet someone storing a doll and teddy bear inventory in his airplane hangar.   I met Norm at a local estate sale one Sunday morning.  We began chatting, and he mentioned that he had a lot of teddy bears stored in an airplane hangar.  I gave him my card with few expectations. 

Norm called, and explained that he lost his first wife about 15 years ago.  She left him with a huge doll and bear collection, including the inventory from her gift shop.  Norm wanted to donate or give the collection away, but we ending up negotiating a purchase in the four figures.  This was a win win situation for everyone involved.  Norm reclaimed his hangar space, and we got some great new old stock inventory.