Little Darlings Artist Dianna Effner

In today's post, I want to focus on Little Darlings artist Dianna Effner aka the Khaleesi, the Mother of Darlings, Queen of the (an)Dolls...well you get the picture. I think it's of utmost importance to point out first that without Dianna, we would not have these wonderful dolls that so many of us collect and enjoy. Not only did she develop, perfect, and then teach her painting technique to the other artists, but she actually sculpted and created the dolls themselves. 

Annie, painted by Dianna Effner

I do not own a Dianna painted doll, and I have specifically not reviewed any artists whose work I have not seen myself in person. Luckily, my good friend Janice sent Annie to my house for forwarding on to Australia, and she allowed me to open her up and have a look. The first thing that struck me about Annie was how natural her freckles looked. She absolutely looks like a sunkissed little girl in the middle of summer. I was really impressed when I noticed that even her little chest is freckled! What great attention to detail. 

Close up of Annie's eyes and face

As far as Annie's eyes go, I love the color that Dianna is able to achieve. The color is so realistic, which I think is hardest to achieve with green eyes - I could be wrong but from looking at many, many dolls, green seems to be the hardest to nail down. A friend of mine subscribed to Dianna's Reborn Revolution videos at one time, and in those videos Dianna details the process used for giving the eyes their life-like effect. She uses photos of real children and expertly mixes colors together in order to get just the right look. With this doll in particular, you can really tell the level of care that was taken in her creation. 

A photo of Annie dressed by her Mumma

If I had to use one word to describe Dianna's style, I would say "natural." She goes for an all natural look, one that is very realistic. It's easy to imagine this girl playing in a sandbox somewhere because her features so resemble that of a real girl. 

Thanks for reading Little Darlings artist series so far! These are all the dolls I have at the moment, but I am expecting a Pat Green doll anytime now, so as soon as I receive her, join me back here for a review of her style. 

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Dolls As An Investment

Many of us collectors spend more money on our obsession...er...hobby than we would care to admit. For the advanced collector, however, collecting isn’t just about which new doll you can afford. It’s about smart investing. That’s right, investing. People invest in all sorts of things: houses, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, art, property, and so on. When you’re buying a new doll, you’re making an investment, whether you realize it or not. Some people may buy a doll with no intention of ever re-selling it, but for every doll purchase I make, I consider it an investment. I think it’s very important for collectors to understand how some doll purchases may affect your financial future. In the next week, I want to explore several topics specifically related to dolls and finance. Today, we are going to examine a very basic approach to investing in dolls.

How to spend this dough?

To understand investing as it relates to dolls, it’s important to understand investing in general. When someone makes an investment, the intention is to grow their wealth by earning interest on the money they have invested. The riskier an investment is, the higher the potential for significant gains or losses. There is what is known as a risk free rate, which is set by the government (through something called T-bills). This rate is typically around 3%. This means if you invest $100 for a year at the risk free rate, you would earn $3 (this is why people often go for riskier investments, in the hopes of earning returns higher than 8%). This leads us into something called the time value of money principle. Basically, this principle says that $100 today is worth more in the future because it can be invested and earn interest. A very simple example of the time value money principle is this: if you have a $100 bill that you keep in a shoebox for a year, you have actually lost $3. You have lost $3, because if you had invested that $100 at the risk free rate, you would have earned $3, therefore creating the loss. Now all of this is fairly boring, and I know you came here to read about dolls. So let’s talk dolls.

Before you purchase a doll, you should carefully consider several things from a financial perspective. In order to fully illustrate this concept, I’m going to use a personal example from a recent purchase. About a month or so ago, I purchased this Little Darling doll painted by Joyce Mathews:

I paid $850 for the doll. Gasp, yes. That is a lot of money, and I know it. I don’t just willy nilly throw away money like that, so I took into consideration the five points below:

1. Always research the current selling value of the doll you are about to purchase. Is the doll worth more on the secondary market? Does the doll retain at least 80-90% of its value on the secondary market?
2. If you had a financial emergency, could you liquidate the doll right away for a fair price?
3. If you invested your money at the risk free rate, what would it be worth in a year?
4. If the value of the doll were to drop dramatically, would you be okay with knowing you spent more money on the doll than it is worth?
5. How many of the dolls are available? Is the market flooded with these dolls, or is it a limited edition (and by the way, 1000 is not what I really consider limited. I think 100 or less is a good number).

So I really answered all of these questions before purchasing the doll for this example. Here were my answers:

1. The average selling price of the last 4 Little Darlings sold by Joyce Mathews is $1622.47. Yes, it is that high.
2. If I had a financial emergency I feel certain I could liquidate the doll immediately for over $1,000. All of the dolls mention above were on auction for 1 week, and each sold for an astounding price.
3. My $850 would be worth $875.50 in one year.
4. This one is the hard one. I feel like as of the moment I bought the doll, she was worth about $1500. Will Little Darlings decrease in value over the next 10 years? It is very possible. Will I keep her for that long? I think so . I feel like she is a “forever” doll here. This can often be the hardest question to answer for me, as my taste changes from year to year, and I become interested in other things.
5. I do not know exactly how many of these dolls are out there, but they are not readily available, and I feel sure there are less than 1000 of them. This gave me additional confidence when buying the doll, because there is a sort of exclusivity to having one of her dolls, particularly because it is notoriously difficult to get on her order list.

Now let’s look at an example of a bad investment. One of mine is the Barbie and Ken Star Trek 30th Anniversary gift set. This is not technically my own investment, as my mom bought it for me back in 1996, when I was a high school freshman. I used to collect Barbie pretty much exclusively, so I have quite a few of the collectible Barbies. Unfortunately, the Barbie craze was all the rage, so there are LOADS of them out there. I couldn’t remember the original cost, after all, my mom bought it for me, so I consulted my handy Barbie Bazaar from March/April 1996 and found this advertisement:

So they originally sold for $69, let’s say $70 to make it easier to do this math. Now, the average sold price on eBay for the last couple of months is $12....yes, $12. You can hardly buy a new play Barbie from Walmart for that price. Let’s now calculate the loss on this investment. It’s easy to want to say well, $70 - $12 = $58, so the loss incurred is $58. Well, that’s too easy. We have to consider the time value of money. If I had invested that $70 back in 1996 at the risk free rate of 3%, the value today would be $122.75. This makes the real loss $122.75 - $12 = $110.75. Ouch. This can be very painful, especially as the price of dolls continues to go up. Dolls are also like any other investment: it’s very hard to predict the future, and who knows what the market will demand? Barbies may have a sudden resurgence due to some societal factors, and those collectible Barbies from the 90’s may become a gold mine for those who have a storage building full of them (fingers crossed!).

Waiting for their day to shine...

The point of this entry is to educate my fellow collectors, and enable you to make thoughtful financial decisions when it comes to your doll purchases. Stay tuned throughout this week as I will do a few case studies in good and bad investments, and I’ll choose some of my personal picks that I think are smart purchase choices.

*Disclaimer: I am not an investment expert. I do work in the financial industry and have an understanding of how money works. Do not use this is a permission slip to cash out your 401k and buy a bunch of dolls. That’s actually the worst thing you can do.*

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Lesly Famosa: La Hermanita de Nancy

Once upon a time, I ordered all my Nancy dolls from El Corte Ingles in Spain, but they discontinued shipping service to the United States. I went for quite awhile without getting any new Nancy dolls. Nothing puts a damper on collecting like an impossible situation where you cannot buy what you want. The other day, I decided to cruise over to El Corte to see what was up with them. And guess what? They are shipping to the US again! Woo hoo! There is a difference now. In the good ole' days, I could order pretty much however many Nancy dolls I wanted for one flat shipping cost. Now, there is a limit of 3 kilos for 40 Euros. It's not as good as it was before, but it's not terrible. As soon as I found out they were shipping, I just had to place a "test order". I ordered two Lesly Famosa Communion dolls, one for me, and one for a friend. They arrived from DHL within one week, which was a lot faster than the previous orders I had placed. I checked their weight, and they were about 1.5 kilos. The Nancys will be heavier, so I'm thinking I will probably be able to order Nancy dolls in the future 2 at a time.

My sweet Lesly

I was really happy to finally get a new Lesly. I have an older Lesly, but I bought her out of desperation to have one (because she was for sale here in the US), and she is in really terrible condition. Her hair is a nightmare that I don't even know how to begin to fix.

My Two Leslys

My new Lesly does have a few flaws. First off, although this isn't inherently a flaw, she is made in China. That was disappointing. I have found consistently that the Nancy dolls made in Spain are of much superior quality from everything from their plastic to their clothes to their hair. This Lesly is no exception, and the most notable issue she has is that her shoes are way too big. They will not stay on her feet. When I pick her up, the shoes just fall right off. I think I will be able to get her some tights or socks and that will fix the problem, but they should be a little snugger than they are. Her legs are also a little unevenly sized, which is not atypical for the other Nancys I have. Otherwise, I really love her and she's such a cutie. I'm so glad I finally got the opportunity to add her to my collection. 

For those that don't know her, Lesly is Nancy's little sister, and she's about 12 inches tall. Here's a photo of her with some other dolls so you can get an idea of size:

Little Darling Elsa, Lola from Berdine Creedy, Lesly, and Hearts for Hearts Tipi

Lesly will definitely need some new clothes, because I'm not a huge fan of the communion look. It looks like she may be able to share with some other dolls, but I haven't had the opportunity to have a fashion show yet. 

If you're on the fence about Lesly, I would say you should have one if you are a Nancy collector. Even though the quality isn't perfect, this is a good way to get a nice, clean Lesly doll to add to your collection.

How can you resist this sweet little face?

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IDS: The First Annual International Doll Show in Asheville, NC

This past Saturday, my friend Diana and I attended the First Annual International Doll Show held in Asheville, NC. It has certainly been an exciting two weeks here in the South for doll shows! I wish this happened more often (actually I don't, because I would be flat broke). What follows is a rundown of the show.

Location
The IDS was held at the Crowne Plaza resort in Asheville. The resort itself is a bit dated, but the expo room where the show was held was nice, large, and clean. It was also very well lit, which is good when you're inspecting dolls for purchase. I liked the location, and would hope it would be held there again next year (if there is another IDS next year, more on that in a bit).

Doll Artists and Vendors In Attendance
There were a lot of reborn artists in attendance, I would say about 50% of the artists there were reborners...if that's what they are called. I am not into reborning at all, so I'll leave that post for someone else. What I am into is some of the other types of beautiful artist dolls. What was so fascinating about this show to me is that it was the first show of this type I had ever attended. The other doll shows I have been to in the past were just re-sellers of dolls, mostly vintage stuff. At this show, I was introduced to lots of other types of dolls that I would never have discovered on my own. Since there were too many artists there to talk about them all, I'm just going to throw some doll porn on here and talk about a few of them.

Twisted Wickets

Twisted Wickets

Twisted Wickets

Twisted Wickets was one of the new artists I discovered at this show. I absolutely loved these dolls. They are so unique, and so pretty. They really are more than just a doll, they are art pieces.

I don't remember who this artist was, but I loved this piece.

Marbled Halls

Marbled Halls

Marbled Halls

Marbled Halls

Marbled Halls

Marbled Halls

Marbled Halls

I really wanted this doll, she was so supernatural in her look and feel.

Marbled Halls was another great artist I discovered. I would actually like to save some money and buy one of these dolls. They remind me of fine art that one would see in a museum. Seriously. Just look at that last picture and tell me that isn't art. It's beautiful and perfect. 

Another fun doll, but I can't remember the artist.

I was also impressed by Canadian artist Kimberly Arnold of The Trinket Box. I bought a very cute necklace from her. Here is a photo of her table:

Berdine Creedy was also there, with her lovely dolls. I wanted so badly to buy a Lola doll, but I didn't have the funds to do so. 

Berdine with Diana (Diana creates some of the doll outfits for Berdine). Just look at all those Lolas in the background!

Another artist I was really impressed with was Judy Rankine. She makes cloth dolls, and they are gorgeous, and different. I was so drawn to them because they are totally unique in today's doll collecting universe. She has been making them since the 1970's, so I was a little surprised I had never heard of her before. She apparently has quite the fan following as well.

Cloth doll face

Alice doll

Her dolls were only $250. I say only $250 because the quality of craftsmanship in these dolls is impeccable. Each hand has five perfect fingers that can bend and pose (wire inside, of course). I really loved them and can see myself acquiring one in the future.

So, what did I buy anyway? Well, Helen Skinner and Joyce Matthews, both of whom are Little Darlings artists, were there with a handful of Little Darlings! I have deposits on two little darlings, but they won't be delivered until sometime next year. I couldn't resist, and bought two:

Anna and Elsa

And guess what? I got to name them while I was there. Don't you think the names are appropriate? Now I just need to save some money and get some cute outfits for them. There was something of a teaser in their booth though:

Dianna Effner BJD

YES!

Yes, that is an Effner BJD. Collectors have been asking and here she is. She's not quite ready for sale yet, but I believe it will be fairly soon. The head is made of porcelain and the body is resin. Isn't that exciting? This particular model was painted by Dianna Effner. 

Activities At The Show

There were several activities going on during the show. The Dolls Magazine awards were given away on Saturday night, and you could purchase a ticket to attend these awards, which included dinner. Also, about once per hour, there was a drawing for prizes. I didn't see all of the prizes, but I did see that one was a pair of Marie Osmond Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. This was not an additional cost, you just dropped one half of your entrance ticket into a box, and they pulled tickets every so often.

Technically, this is not an activity, but the awards and the event were sponsored by Dolls Magazine, and they had a special where you could purchase a one year subscription to both Dolls and Haute Doll for $20. Yes, $20 for BOTH. I couldn't throw my money at them fast enough. 

Friday, there were also some activities offered by doll artists. Berdine Creedy hosted a tea party where you could paint your own BJD (would LOVED to have gone to that one), and there were some reborning classes as well. Next year, I would possibly be interested in one of these classes.

Next Year...

Diana and I both enjoyed this show tremendously, and are very hopeful it will return next year. According the IDS website, they will see us in 2015, so that is very promising. The only force working against its return is how well the artists fared. One artist told us she had been moving dolls all day, but still hadn't even met her expenses. She said if artists couldn't make their expenses, they wouldn't come back. Makes perfect sense, but I really hope everyone had a great Saturday and Sunday so that it will be back, bigger and better next year!

Did you attend IDS? Leave me a comment and tell me what you thought of it!

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