Sailor Moon Dollfie Dream collection

Hi everyone,

I am a huge Sailor Moon fan and I've been thinking about buying the entire Sailor Moon Dollfie Dream collection. However, I find the price too high for a secondhand doll and I don't know what condition it is in or if it has been exposed to too much sun or if the makeup is still perfect. I have considered buying them new on eBay, but the prices are just too steep for me.

So, my question is: do any of you think they will ever release the entire collection for sale again? Right now, I own a new Sailor Moon Dollfie Dream and I absolutely love her, but she was very expensive.

I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback on this. Thank you so much!

Do not buy them from eBay. Unless you're very experienced and know what the dolls you're looking for are actually worth, you're more likely to be severely overcharged than get any kind of deal. Scalpers and resellers are all over eBay because a lot of new collectors don't know any better and are easy to scam!

For shopping secondhand, Mandarake and Yahoo Japan Auctions are good places to look for more accurate prices, and the sellers there are usually pretty good about showcasing their condition and taking good pictures... unfortunately, because these dolls are licensed, they're very unlikely to get a reboot, and they're only going to get more expensive as they become rarer over time. Reboots in general are pretty rare. Miku, Rin, and Len only got reboots due to being some of the most popular DDs on the market AND because they were on an older version of the DD frame in their first release.

If you'd really like a full set of Sailor Scouts at a cheaper price than what they usually go for secondhand, you could always get custom ones! There are some very talented faceup artists and costume makers in the community that could help you put together a really cute custom doll for each of them!

Edited June 3, 2023 by Oculae

3 hours ago, Auri33 said:

I have considered buying them new on eBay, but the prices are just too steep for me.

eBay is a big part of why they seem too expensive. Mercury was generally going for around $600 on Mandarake, and Mars for around $800. Venus and Jupiter are harder to find and more expensive.

You can watch for dolls with stained bodies, as long as the head is unstained the body is easy to stain treat or replace parts for. Dolls that need some fix up get good discounts on Mandarake.

At her moment Mercury's cheapest price on yahoo Japan, $900, matches her cheapest price on eBay. She's also available through Dollfie Project at the same price: https://dollfieproject.com/collections/doll/products/volks-sailor-mercury-dd

I don’t know if these girls have any more chance of a rerelease than any other Volks doll, however this year Volks have been running polls for rereleases. The first one was for DD and has finished - but luckily for you that only includes Sailor Jupiter. If the next poll in July includes DDS, you will be able to vote for the rest of the Sailor Moon dolls every day during the voting period.

Note that we don’t actually know if the final poll will include DDS (it would just be odd if the polls ended with no chance to vote for DDS) but there’s a discussion about the 20th Anniversary Project the polls are part of here. Someone here will definitely post links to the third round of polls when they happen!

The current poll (2nd) is for collab outfits, so you do currently have the chance to vote for the extra Sailor Moon outfits like the school uniforms and SuperS outfits if you’re also after those. 

https://dollfie.volks.co.jp/special/dd20th/project04.html

Plus, there’s a poll to suggest additional outfits, so if there’s any Sailor Moon related outfits you’d like that Volks havent yet, you can request them that way. 

https://dollfie.volks.co.jp/special/dd20th/project05.html

edit: I will say that if rereleases are based on popularity I’m not sure if Mercury or Mars have much of a chance, as they were available in stock online for a long time and Mercury especially seemed to take over a year to sell out. Then again the same could be said of Rin and Len, who you used to reliably be able to buy well under RRP second-hand simply because Volks couldn’t get rid of them - then all of a sudden everyone wanted one, second prices skyrocketed and they got a rerelease. Change in demand for particular dolls can be very unpredictable!

Edited June 3, 2023 by Monty

11 hours ago, Monty said:

I will say that if rereleases are based on popularity I’m not sure if Mercury or Mars have much of a chance, as they were available in stock online for a long time and Mercury especially seemed to take over a year to sell out.

We don't necessarily know why she took so long. Mercury was the most popular Senshi in Japan in the 90s, and it's possible they just made more of her expecting higher demand compared to the others, badly overestimated that demand, and ended up with a lot of unsold stock.

One interesting thing is if you look at popularity polls for Sailor Moon characters then and now, Ami dominated the polls in the 90s, but ranked in the middle of a top 20 poll of the characters that was done recently. Sailor Uranus was number one in the recent poll and her civilian version Haruka ranked third. One hypothesis for the way the character's popularity has changed with time suggests that society norms and values have changed, and what people identify with and admire is different today. For the modern Japanese woman, Haruka, with her strength and her willingness to challenge societal norms for women, has a lot to offer, and Ami may seem like an outdated ideal. It might also be that more women are willing to openly admit that they admire or identify with an arguably gender-fluid woman who has a super-hot girlfriend. 

2 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

One interesting thing is if you look at popularity polls for Sailor Moon characters then and now, Ami dominated the polls in the 90s, but ranked in the middle of a top 20 poll of the characters that was done recently. 

Eh, I don’t know how much a characters popularity reliably affects the popularity of their DDs, to be honest. I mean it does to an extent, but often never as much as I would expect it to. I always considered Mash from FGO to be an extremely popular character but judging from the amount of owner photos out there her DD was pretty unpopular. Saber is one of the most iconic characters out there and yet they still can’t get rid of the excess stock online - what’s even weirder about that is the excess isn’t even unsold stock, it’s cancelled preorders, and yet they’ve been there that long. But it could also it could just be something as simple as a lot of fans not liking the dolls so much. 
 

The rest of your post just reminded me how much I want to see Uranus and Neptune as DDs. I did vote for them (+ Tuxedo Mask) during the DD suggestion poll a couple times, so I hope I get the chance to vote for DDP Saturn and MDD Chibiusa too. 

12 minutes ago, Monty said:

Eh, I don’t know how much a characters popularity reliably affects the popularity of their DDs, to be honest.

Agreed, but I mean Volks may have misjudged demand based on what once was, and just made too many for the actual demand. The rest was just more of an interesting aside about an anime that remains popular, but who characters aren't perceived the same way in modern times.

I've looked at the prices for the Sailor Moon DDS on ebay too, and they seem staggering. This is why I don't always like the idea behind limited editions. The prices on the secondary market can be a real hindrance to collectors. You might try asking around doll groups like ours to see if the prices are any better or if anyone would be willing to trade. That's how I found something I wanted recently. The original owner of the doll didn't use her much, so she was willing to let her go to a more loving home. I feel like Sailor Moon characters can be a little tricky because if you get one, then you may end up wanting all of them eventually. My favorite's besides Moon herself were Venus and Saturn, and Volks didn't even make her.