Why Custom Blythe are so expensive?

Well, I get your point, but I think you'll not find the answer sadly! Probably the main reason is popularity of the top customizers. Their unique and dedicated style of carving/makeup is compared to bjd designs (in the price matter; I think it's no sense to compare which art is better). I think uniqueness is the key for collectors. There are some limited Blythe editions, after customization they are worth even more too. And like you said - artist ask how much they want for their work. If people buy it, it's probably worth the price. I might be guessing, just some simple thoughts about your post.

 

The cheap Blythes you are fakes, similar to recasts in the BJD hobby (though the Blythe hobby has a different stance on that matter).

As for prices, it comes simply down to popularity. A custom Blythe by like Tiina or G.Baby fetches easily between 1k to 3k simply cause everyone wants one. And as people are willing to pay, they'd be foolish not to charge what they can get (because hey, they can live from their art and hobby!)

When I collected Blythes for two years,I just accepted it, moved on and counted my blessings that I did not felt the need to get one by a popular customizer

EDIT: And what @theugliestwife said on top of it

 

What I never really understood about the blythe collectors is how open they were about fakes. I mean I'm very pro-artist, with bjds or anything really, but when it comes to customized blythe dolls that I've browsed through, it seems like 90% of them were the fake versions. I understand that blythe dolls are relatively "rare", but for someone to take a $50 or less fake blythe doll, customize it, then expect to sell it for $500-$1k, it just all seems ridiculous. I just can't see it as any more than buying a recast bjd, customizing it, and expecting the same, but it just seems so normal in that collector group.

 

Yeah the blatant acceptance of fakes never sat well with me and I always got original releases and tried to only support people working on original Blythes. Might be one of the reasons why I stopped with Blythes.

At least I know that G.Baby for example also only works on original releases.

 

You have different molds (BL, SBL, FBL, RBL and RBL+) but the differences are minuscule. Just search a bit on google, there are multiple comparisons.
I can see them if they are lined up next to each other but show me a Blythe and I can't tell you the mold unless I know the release she is.

As for “does modifying a limited Blythe release diminish its value“ it's the same issue as “does modifying a limited BJD release diminish the value“.
If you are a fan of stock Blythes/default BJDs then yes it does, if not, it honestly doesn't.

 

Personally, I think this (common) argument is a logical fallacy. The same arguments for/against recast BJD can be made for/against fake/factory/whatever-you-want-to-call-them Blythes. Yet, there are pro-artist BJD collectors who are fine with owning fake Blythes. It's actually a wonderful illustration of the subjectivity of morality! Would probably make a good paper for a psychology or ethics course.

In regards to your original question of custom doll pricing, I'd agree with the observations of everyone above! Only the popular customizers are going to get away with charging crazy prices. Honestly, I don't know why more Blythe collectors don't just get into customizing themselves to save on money~

 

If I may interject as someone who has customized a Blythe doll, it isn't as easy or cheap as just buying a ten dollar wig, some clothes and a cheap doll.
"Cheap" blythe dolls run around 100 to 150 usd sometimes more or less but that's a good average. Taking them apart which is necessary to change eyes, hair, lashes, face-up, and/or bodies is a royal pain and if you're not careful some things can break easily. Add that to carving and sanding which blythe plastic is not very forgiving if you mess up, the cost of good quality bodies, clothing, eye chips ( you'll need up to four sets usually) and a nice wig, as well as carving tools, many types of sand paper, and face up supplies and it stops being cheap. Add the time spent working on the custom which easily doubles if you are making your own eyes, wig, and clothing and the price goes up more.
I'm actually kind of surprised that the cost of a good custom is questioned in a hobby where many of us don't question spending large amounts of money on the perfect eyes, clothes, face-ups, and wigs for our bjds.
Andreja posted a few vids a couple of years back from the Once Upon a Blythe convention that showed many amazing works that I think are worth every penny charged.

 

Honestly, there is no average price in the Blythe hobby. Everyone prices their cuastoms as they seem fit and I have seen some horrifyingly damaged 'customs' trying to fetch as much as the popular one.

As usual, demand creates the price so prices get dropped until someone buys. There can be some steals gotten if you keep your eyes open (like beginner customs for around $ 200 that are really beautiful) but that's like in the BJD hobby. Sometimes you luck out.

Srsly, trying to understand prices in the Blythe hobby is like trying to wrangle lice - mildly impossible

 

I think Roterwolkenvogel hit the nail on the head with the prices. A lot of it does get affected by who made the custom.
It's a lot like the bjd hobby where certain face-up artists, wigmakers, and seamstresses are more in demand so can charge more for their work. Sadly I don't think I am good enough at it to even make back the cost of a naked untouched Blythe let alone any time or materials that are put in to a custom and so I have a lot of respect for those who can make enough to live on by customizing them.
I'm sorry if I came across as rude or arrogant as it was not my intention at all, but after my one attempt I realized just how much work must go into "professional" customs .
I think for me personally, if I saw one that screamed out "pick me" and I had the money to afford it, I'd buy, much like coming across a bjd and realizing that I "need" it in my collection.
I know that there are plenty who are every bit as passionate about their Blythes as any bjd collector and they spend as much time and energy getting just the right look and characters for their dolls.

 

I must have lucked out when I got just a face plate and back of a head, must have been a destash or something they were just sick of. The rest of her is after market parts. I was looking at the ICY and Basaalks and what evers just for a doll or a head that spoke to me.

I make all her clothes from Licca and the official Blythe patterns, she has a 22cmish body with solid joints to hold the head up, and I switched her eye chips and did all her paint, acrylic, myself. The pull charms are to close her eyes and to change her mech, I unhooked the auto open spring.

Both wigs are from online sellers, one sent me the purple chips for free. I liked the fabric of the case I bought her so much I tracked it down and made a purse I still carry.

 

Hi All,

I realize this is an older thread, but I've recently got interested in these dolls. I'm trying to understand the whole real...factory...fake issues as I'm adamant about supporting bjd artists/companies...

Having said that...
These dolls seem a bit of a Franken-dolly to me (unless you get one straight out of the box)...I like the more posable bodies and I think that means those are not 'legit' Blythe dolls? I don't know what to call a 'legit' head and an added posable body doll?

In any case, I am having difficulty discerning what is morally right here. (And I hate that.) These dolls are mass-produced...in any case...form molds that go back to what...the 1970s? And the 'factory' ones can't still be parts that were smuggled out...whenever....right? They have to be just bootlegged by other companies by now, I guess?

I'm just trying to understand and do the right thing. (Dolls are not supposed to give me so much stress.)

 

@luluna
So I did a deep dive into Blythe history and talked to multiple Blythe customizers.

Blythe are still produced to this day. They were originally released for only a year around.....1976 (?) by Kenner but we're considered a flop and only never made again by the original company. It wasn't until Kenner was purchased by another company, Takara I believe, that they started making them again around the late '90s or early '00s. An original Kenner Blythe can sell for $1k in good condition. A friend of mine sold one in played with condition with messy hair, sticky legs, and nude for $650. But finding one of those Blythes is like finding a discontinued grail.

The franken-dolly comes from the fact that the fake ones come on a fake Azone body. Even legit Blythes often have the bodies swapped out for an Azone or something similar such as Obitsu. I heard the explanation before that fake Blythes are "made from some real parts" but I'm 99% certain that means they took real Blythe parts and recasted them to create more because every single fake Blythe part can be purchased online and at this point it may be safe to assume that there are more fakes out there than real ones. Plus none of the customizers I spoke with could tell me WHAT PARTS that refers to. I went down the list of it and those exact screws seem to be the only items you can't buy on Aliexpress. But you can purchase them at a hardware store if needed.

But then again this all boils down to one major thing; in the Blythe community there is no such thing as legit or fake in the same sense as bjd. Many talk about Icy or the other knockoff Blythes as though they're their own company with a different doll. I guess some of them do have different eye mechs and such, but even those ones can easily be called a clone of Blythe.

I'm honestly really afraid of more Blythe (or other similar dolly) customizers bringing more of their habits into the bjd community. I've already seen people buy recasts, paint them and make them clothes, then try to sell them for $500+. Isn't that exactly what those into Blythe knockoff customizations do?

 

@Cap'n - Oh I so appreciate your research and information on this!

It's nice to hear from people in that community as I know of no one personally who is.
What you concluded here really helped me, "....But then again this all boils down to one major thing; in the Blythe community there is no such thing as legit or fake in the same sense as bjd...."

I too worry about the customizers bringing that mentality to bjds...it's happening like crazy to Popovy Dolls I've noticed! I do get so depressed seeing all the counterfeit dolls sold on ebay and such now.

Thanks again so much!

 

Yeah I had one of the Blythe customizers I chatted with actually get mad at me because I used the terms 'legit' and 'fake'. She told me they don't use those terms about Blythe or knockoff versions. I guess many have to convince themselves and that could very well be why the term 'factory Blythe' is so commonplace.

There doesn't seem to be much overlap in bjd and Blythe collectors and I'm assuming due to the acceptance or not of fakes. You can buy only legit Blythe dolls but finding customizers who only work on legit ones seems to be an outlier. "I don't want to ruin a real one!" Seems to be the most common reasoning. But a real Blythe in box and with an outfit are only around $150-$200. So from a bjd price point, they're actually pretty affordable. I permanently modded a $600 doll without a second throught. Blythes are a very different dolly world.

 

@Cap'n - Ahhhh.....I did see one YouTuber say something about not calling them 'fakes' but 'factory' but I didn't understand what she was getting at.

And it's almost funny...how customizers don't want to 'ruin' a real one! Though I give you big kudos for modding a bjd so fearlessly! Go you!

Which gets me back to the original thread topic about pricing...Yea...I have to say the general pricing of these types of dolls are a lot more affordable than the bjds I usually buy...which is NICE. But golly, some of the custom-dolls are right up there with the same prices. I so don't want to get hooked on those. LOL (As I might as well get a big Iple instead.)

 

My theory about the "fake" Blythes not being regarded in the same way as recast BJD: in terms of "figure/doll customization", they're probably closer to the Barbie/MH/EAH/Hot Toys/Pichen side of things than the BJD side, where hybriding all sorts of parts from different companies is common. Recasters of BJD tend to try and sell them as the legit article; but from my understanding the knockoff Blythe people are upfront about selling their products as an alternative version.

It's more like if you went to the store, brought a Barbie doll with a head you liked but a non-articulated body, and then grabbed a cheaper doll with a body you like from another aisle and threw the barbie's head on there when you got home. Or when a bjd company comes out with a new size or style of doll, and other companies start making similar dolls in their own style (like the 1/4 big baby dolls for example). "Bootleg/knockoff" and "recast" are really two different things imo, which is why it's confusing. But again, this is just my theory.

 

I am somewhat doubtful about the 'factory blythe' thing, just because I've yet to see a fake with correct eye mechanism placement. ^^; ('factory blythes' are supposed to be ones made from smuggled parts. So why not smuggle the face?) That's the number 1 thing that gives away whether a blythe is fake or legit. Maybe factory blythe meant something a while ago, but now it just seems like an SEO term for aliexpress. I admit I bought some fakes to customise for myself (though I haven't gotten around to it yet). Compared to customising a Takara blythe, it seems like it's going to be easier. Not to say it's easy - just that customising legit blythes is/was a bit more difficult. I still have a Takara one which has been waiting 15 years for me to finish rerooting her. ^^; Why did I decide to reroot Tea For Two... she has so much hair compared to my first reroot (Goldie Gold)

But yeah... I don't mind calling my fake blythes fakes. o_o; The old blythe community I used to visit is gone, and the site got taken over by counterfeiters who use pull quotes from back when the site was legit to promote themselves. This just makes things confusing for newbies! I am incredibly out of touch though... So take this as the ramblings of someone who started buying blythes 20 years ago.

tl:dr I'm old and don't mind calling a fake a fake, but I'm out of touch.

 

I have my notes somewhere about my Blythe's face, she came with yellow eyeshadow and is an RBL which was important for getting the right head caps. I have a soft head cap to reroot but like other things haven't got to it yet.

On the Franken side I tried her on a Moxie Teenz body, another obscure off topic think Gene/Tonner or slender smaller MSD size, and it suited her well.

 

So interesting to hear about the fake vs real world of Blythe! When I was in Asia, I felt there was a level of “luxe cool doll” ness to the brand. So I always thought it was intentionally priced higher.

 

The higher prices are mainly based on the individual artists popularity. Though any custom takes a lot of work.

All the blythe groups in I'm use the word fake, and most agree that factory may have meant something at one point but not anymore. The dolls are either fake or stock. So I'm someone who is very vehemently anti-recast bjds but ok with fake blythes. In bjd, recasts hurt the artist's business, especially small artists, and are consistently passed off as genuine. With blythe there is no similar situation. The original creators have had nothing to do with them since the 70s, and the ones produced by takara still sell out very quickly, so its not hurting those sales. Even though in many cases their quality has gone down, thinner/brittle plastic, hollow noses, so on which makes them harder to customize. Often the fakes are better quality. The fakes are also much easier to customize, easier to take apart since peices weren't glued together, and to switch hair and bodies and replace peices if something breaks since the fake peices are made to be interchangeable, easier to carve because the noses aren't hollow. The fakes also come in more diverse skin tones that takara has refused to make.

Also sidenote but coming from the child of an antique toy and doll collector it kinda makes me sad to think of someone now customizing an original Kenner blythe since they were already so rare to begin with.

 

I didn't realize blythe got more expensive!! I had a beautiful customized one from an artist about 10 years ago, everything on her was custom including her outfit and wig. Beautiful doll. I cant remember how much I paid for her but it was less then 500$ Im sure of that, I had less money back then.

 

@whooganana - Thanks for the info on the Blythe dolls! I feel so much better now in understanding the situation with customizations and the 'fake' dolls and the original Blythes. Thanks!

 

I know this is an old thread but get a big iple, you won't regret it. They are absolutely beautiful. I have the eid Doria and I love her.

 

Oh great advice! But I do have...many....Iples. I ADORE them! Good choice for sure!
I have a couple of Dorias...she is a gorgeous sculpt.

 

I know this reply was posted over a year ago now but I was re-reading this thread and this really struck out to me. Recent recast bjd tactics have been hybriding different doll parts and claiming them as a new doll. Or even just renaming existing sculpts so it's harder to find the legit. They also do not even bother trying to fake the original COA or box anymore. Most instead include their own COA and box to seem more like an original doll of their creation. And there have also been many cases now of modded dolls being released by recasters as though they're a new sculpt. Over a year ago I commented here how I was fearful of more of the situation of Blythe dolls and their knockoffs hitting the bjd community, and now I feel as though it has.

 

Same! I think that the Blythe community has a lot of crossover with the BJD community, and I feel like that has emboldened many recasters/recast buyers.

 

I’m just reading this post as I would like to buy a Blythe but don’t want to be banned from the group… So which Blythes can I look for?

 

All legally made, or legitimately licensed Blythe are all fine, the ones that are customized, from an artist that's not you, are probably not. As most (meaning not all) people that customize Blythe use parts from sketchy sources. Unless you are able to confirm without resonable doubt, where the Blythe customizer sources their parts from, I would say is better not to share those on here. Mods are busy with the main side of the forum, so they rely on us (DoA users) to keep this side clean of illegally copied off-topic toys. That includes customized ones as much as it does ones that are available for retail. The Icy, DBS, Basaak, etc. illegal Blythe copies and the factory parts are definitely not allowed anywhere on here. Hope that helps. (:

 

Thank you for your reply. I have a lady who customises them and is vendor at Blythecon every year and she can only take Takara blythes there. She cosytomizes both as she says once they ahve been customised, they are not original anyway.
I will see her dolls at the show this Sunday, but I guess its safer to buy a genuine Blythe and maybe ask someone to paint her if I want a different look.

Thank you

 

I really like this post I got as an explanation for vinyl doll auction culture in another thread. Vinyl heads like DD and MDD are often auctioned at insane prices in Japan which is quite different than how faceups are priced in the resin BJD world. The post covers Blythe as well. Basically the pricing is not about the doll/sculpt itself (that's why I suppose fakes aren't treated like a big deal), but the artist's popularity and also the popularity of that one specific doll.

 

This is off-topic, but

Spoiler

As someone who got into BJDs recently, I think the main culprit is that if you look for "BJD" say on YouTube, you're completely swarmed with "Cheap BJD from AliExpress". That's probably the very first thing the average person does, go on YT and search "cheap BJD". There are a ton of popular BJD YouTubers who're straight up sponsoring recasts. I imagine they get a cut. The majority of buyers don't do any research, they just want a BJD because they saw one somewhere, and almost immediately they are directed to recasts through channels like YT.

This is maybe one thing that BJD companies should work on to push back against recasts, make themselves easier to find and buy from. I say this because I was in action figures for a while, and I think Blythe are closer to action figures than BJDs, although they're dress-up dolls and there is overlap with resin, the pricing and scale of production are more industrial. Figma etc. are relatively expensive, and there are bootlegs for them, but the simple fact that it's more difficult to get to the bootlegs compared to buying the figures directly means that bootlegs are relatively unpopular. This is an environment where -nobody- cares if you have bootlegs and people speak openly about owning them, so there's no taboo against it.

I know the pricing is different, but still. Doing basic searching is a lot of effort for the average consumer (in web marketing they say every additional click between the item and completing the purchase loses you 30% of customers) and it took me a while to figure out the whole dealer situation. Actually one major reason why I probably ended up buying the doll I bought is that in the end, the maker has a functioning website and responded to my message. I originally wanted to get another doll, and if the company had replied to my e-mails, my first doll would almost certainly have been from them. This simple stuff matters a lot.

Right now I'm going to have to use an agent to buy a head from Taobao. Some companies have 3 websites: doll-company.net, dollcompany.net, dollcompany.com, two of which don't work, one that gives a certificate error (this reads as DANGER COMPUTER VIRUS to 90% of users) and when you send an e-mail they don't answer because maybe the e-mail isn't monitored. I am confident that if not for DOA the Western market for BJDs would have serious consequences, I was completely dependent on an internet forum to enter a hobby which is frankly pretty crazy.

 

Getting a cheap but official Blythe and then getting it redone is a safe way to go. And if you have any sort of face up skills you can do her yourself. I've actually enjoyed changing my girl around a few times in our history.

 

Yes, the safest way to be able to share on here, would be to get an official Blythe, then have someone customize it for you. Otherwise, there would always be the suspicion of where the parts came from, unless you customized the doll yourself, and had photos to prove it was a legitimate Blythe, originally. Good luck regardless! I got my first (GSC) Blythe last year (if memory serves), to customize, but I rather just keep it MISB, because I am a nut job. Maybe one day I'll get two of the same, to finally customize one myself. (:

 

I am really unsure of these fake customized blythes that are surging all around in facebook blythe groups, eBay, Etsy, etc. I just purchased my first Blythe on preorder (Love Jaylah - Juniemoon) but the prices of these customized ones are astronomical for me. Shoot I seen someone selling a fake (customized) Blythe for $3000. You have to be kidding me. When you can buy a body on Aliexpress for like a $1 and customize it. That is a huge profit gain. I just don’t see myself paying that much for facing up a $1 blythe doll when I can get the originals for under $200 on preorder most of the time and then some of the older ones I liked trending at $500. The thing I fear if it ever comes to reselling these fakes is beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I don’t think too many people might like the same fake Blythe I paid an outrageous amount for on top of it being fake and banned from a lot of pro artist groups. The price I paid for a fake heck I could of brought a real bjd or legit Blythe so I think I will just continue going without unless a reasonably priced cutie pops up but my legit buying will always come first.