Collectors - Ashton Drake Dolls

27 years ago, my store was one of the first stores to board when the Bradford Exchange has decided to open a "division Dealer" in Canada. I'm sure there was nobody who had seen in a magazine in 1980, and not as "Matthew". People who had never owned a doll, or even considered owning a doll, were falling in love with the idea of ​​collecting dolls as well as falling in love with Matthew. Yes, there were the dolls before Matthew, but in my mind, was what really blew the market wide open doll.

These new collectors, so he wanted to complete the dolls in the previous set, and prices on premier "Jason" crazy. I remember people paying up to $ 2500. for the first number of the collection Picture Perfect Babies, Jason, and get hundreds of Heather and Jennifer as well.
So where are all wrong? Today the market on these and other old Ashton Drake Dolls, is so soft that would never dream of selling.

It 's my opinion that Ashton Drake Galleries dolls simply made too many. Different from their original series 2-3 again in the early days, to have so many different sets of dolls was almost impossible for collectors to know what doll belonged in that series.
I heard over and over again that there is limited sales "only so much room in my house for my dolls."

Many other collectors had entered the market to buy dolls simply as an investment, and the market has continued to be flooded with new dolls and new series of dolls, these collectors changed their buying habits. These dolls have never been exposed, and have been carefully stored over the past 20 years. Add this number to those sold to private collectors and you will start to see a larger picture.

For myself as a trader, the final blow came when I received an informal letter by mail saying my sales were not high enough to obtain the status of a dealer, and I would not be able to buy the dolls for resale in the future. This was the quality of service given the customer a reseller of their products for over 20 years and after selling hundreds of them dolls over the years and generating thousands of dollars of revenue for them. For a company struggling to maintain a collection, this business decision of the division Dealer alienated much of their founding small retailer.

Now you have the product and laborious collectors upset that their "investment" has not worked, and retailers have also upset at being treated so badly.

I have many beautiful Ashton Drake dolls in my collection. I am a fan of Diana Effner, but also others. I'm not going to sell, so their retail value is of little importance to me, but certainly I would call this the end of an era for a company once flourished.

I hope that in future these dolls will once again be recognized as the collection of qualities that are, and once again be sought after and valuable .......