Do you keep your original packaging?

Hi everyone~

In a fairly recent post in the What Are You Waiting On? thread, I explained the last of my storage and organizing supplies are on their way to me and I'm close to finally finishing responsibly storing all of my dolls and related supplies! One of the last items I purchased tonight are structured, cloth closet bins where I'll store my dolls when they aren't out on display. I made the decision to move to these bins to save since every company/brand sells dolls in different sized boxes and driving me a little crazy...

As a long time collector of anime figures and play-line dolls, it pains me a bit to carefully deconstruct all of my dolls' original packaging and recycle everything; the thought that this reduces their value when reselling (not that I'm planning to) makes me a bit uncomfortable.

How many of you keep or recycle your doll boxes? What are you experiences with having the original packaging and reselling?

13 hours ago, Veravey said:

Hi everyone~

In a fairly recent post in the What Are You Waiting On? thread, I explained the last of my storage and organizing supplies are on their way to me and I'm close to finally finishing responsibly storing all of my dolls and related supplies! One of the last items I purchased tonight are structured, cloth closet bins where I'll store my dolls when they aren't out on display. I made the decision to move to these bins to save since every company/brand sells dolls in different sized boxes and driving me a little crazy...

As a long time collector of anime figures and play-line dolls, it pains me a bit to carefully deconstruct all of my dolls' original packaging and recycle everything; the thought that this reduces their value when reselling (not that I'm planning to) makes me a bit uncomfortable.

How many of you keep or recycle your doll boxes? What are you experiences with having the original packaging and reselling?

Easy: I keep the boxes. It goes as far as even keeping the original plastic, inner tray etc. 
 

16 hours ago, Veravey said:

How many of you keep or recycle your doll boxes? What are you experiences with having the original packaging and reselling?

I recycle the boxes of those that I did customs on and sold the items separately. But for dolls where I kept their default faceup and outfits, I keep all of the original boxes and packaging.

I've kept all of my boxes so far, though not all of the original packaging. Idk why, but I guess that I'm paranoid that I'll need to move or store them and without the original boxes, the dolls will get damaged. Main reason I keep them though is just because of the nostalgia, if that makes sense? I would like to upgrade my system someday and have more dedicated doll supplies and be more organized, but my collection is so small atm that I can't justify doing so yet.

9 hours ago, Rajke said:

It goes as far as even keeping the original plastic, inner tray etc. 

I definitely keep all interior items if I do keep any packaging, may as well keep it all at that point. I even use Post-Its to label what plastic wrapping goes-where for my figures, so I know how to rewrap them if needed. I sold a figure years ago on MFC and shipped it with the labels in the box because I forgot about them. The buyer messaged me to say thanks and that they started doing the same. 😅

 

7 hours ago, ateliervanilla said:

I recycle the boxes of those that I did customs on and sold the items separately. But for dolls where I kept their default faceup and outfits, I keep all of the original boxes and packaging.

That makes sense, and I considered doing the same thing. Where do you keep your boxes, and how much space have they taken up so far?

 

7 hours ago, Frollywog said:

I would like to upgrade my system someday and have more dedicated doll supplies and be more organized, but my collection is so small atm that I can't justify doing so yet.

That's fair! No reason in making something when you're not sure yet what you need.

9 hours ago, Rajke said:

Easy: I keep the boxes. It goes as far as even keeping the original plastic, inner tray etc. 

Same here. Don't know why but I even keep the Mandarake boxes lol. I guess as a way to keep their value; not that I ever plan to sell them though, but they're intrinsically valuable as part of a collectible. 

23 hours ago, Veravey said:

where I'll store my dolls when they aren't out on display

Not on display ? Why would you do that? They're gorgeous! 

21 minutes ago, puxlavoix said:

Don't know why but I even keep the Mandarake boxes lol.

Not on display ? Why would you do that? They're gorgeous!

Sometimes I like to have a simplistic display and only have a few out on a shelf, putting some away then swapping displays later. Or sometimes they're works in progress and not ready to be out in the world, like when they don't have a face yet. Basically when possible, I try to keep them out of sun and dust to preserve them. 

Where/how are you keeping your boxes and how much space have they taken up?

Edited Sunday at 08:10 AM by Veravey
spelling and extra comments

23 minutes ago, Veravey said:

Sometimes I like to have a simplistic display and only have a few out on a shelf, putting some away then swapping displays later. Or sometimes they're works in progress and not ready to be out in the world, like when they don't have a face yet.

 I too sometimes want to put some of them away or hide them altogether to make my doll room/studio tidier which i do to an extent by moving them from their random positions around the room on to a shelf on the back of it. I guess I'd put them away in their boxes for long seasons only. I just don't have the space to keep all the boxes AND the dolls stored separately.

23 minutes ago, Veravey said:

Where/how are you keeping your boxes and how much space have they taken up?

The manda boxes i keep stacked and some inside others, theyre not that much after all but yes they definitely take up some space in the corner of a spare room but definitely make it look cramped (ill add a pic tomorrow!).

The actual doll's boxes are on top of our bedroom closet fully assembled. I used to have them sort of "on display" but they take a lot of space like the manda ones except that can't just be kept in the floor or will get ruined. 

I initially didn't want to answer this thread because I felt like I've been keeping too much stuff, but I guess keeping boxes doesn't seem too uncommon so here goes!

I've kept a good chunk of the shipping boxes, mainly because I don't want to go out of my way to get new ones if I ever want to sell anything. 

I have some in various sizes. One of them fits a DD standard character box, two would fit a Tinyfox 1/4 box. Speaking of those, I keep them around as well, although currently I only have one of each. The tinyfox box is actually 'on display' because it's really nice to look at and it just happens to fit into the space between the top of the shelf and the ceiling.

As for where these boxes are stored: 

That's the top of my wardrobe. Each box has some smaller boxes inside. Like I mentioned, various sizes, so if I ever want to sell an entire doll, an outfit or even just a part I have the right box on hand. On the right you see the box from my Tinyfox Fibonacci, as well as two Nendo boxes. (Technically not 'on topic' but I keep those because the extra parts are stored inside, while the actual nendos are on display.)

It's not the prettiest solution but it gets the job done and it keeps the cats away. I have one more box underneath my bed. When KAITO arrives I'll store his box inside the shipping box up on the wardrobe as well. 

(Fun fact, my second hand DDB got shipped to me in the SmD box. I thought that was pretty funny when I saw that! )

 

For now, I have also kept all the plastic boxes from Volks that contain extra parts like heads, hands and busts to store whichever part is not currently in use. At the moment, I don't have a proper system for those. Right now, they are all sort of scattered here and there, but I plan to either make some space in one of my shelves to neatly stack them up in there or to get a plastic bin to put them all in. Same goes for my wigs.

That being said, I would like to point out that my current collection is fairly small. For example, I only have one extra pair of hands. As I amass more extra parts I might feel more compelled to trash the boxes.

Outfits are stored within their cellophane (?) bags and the silica gel they came with inside a plastic box. Although I am kind of out of space there already, but I'll likely get another box to remedy the fact. I assume more boxes will be needed in the future. These will likely go underneath the bed or under some other furniture. In the worst case I'll have to get rid of some other stuff in my wardrobe/shelves to make room for the doll stuff, but it's not that dire yet.

As I'm not too worried about sun exposure, dolls that aren't 'in the spotlight' aka on my desk (right now that's 2 DD(B), put I could probably fit a total of 4 onto the desk) are seated on a wall mounted shelf. I'm not sure how many I could squeeze on there if I really tried, but I feel like there's at least enough space for 5 full sized DDs to comfortably sit on there.

Spoiler for undressed TF 1/4 Fibonacci for scale:

Spoiler

Ideally the lounge will move to another spot, but it needs a little bit of refurbishing first.

There isn't much direct sunlight that gets into my room, but I might invest in some UV blocking window film just in case. 

 

TLDR: I'm basically keeping everything for now, although I might reconsider once storage space fills up. Dolls themselves don't go 'into storage', but rather are put up on a shelf. 

 

I've got the hoarding gene and have kept everything.

For now I've kept the Mandarake boxes as it keeps their regular boxes in good condition. I don't know how many more I can keep really so I wondered about putting a dozen doll boxes inside a regular storage box.

In addition, all my DD are on display. However only a small percentage of the Pureneemos are out of their boxes.

My walk in wardrobe is like some sort of modern day Tutankhamun's tomb stacked with dolls, Legos and other random collectible stuff I've amassed over the years.

I used to keep absolutely everything when I started collecting, but that was two residences and many dolls ago. I have far too many dolls now to store everything. I do have a lot of space in my current house, but I don't like the cluttered look so I try to minimize it as best I can. I have a few shipping boxes just in case, even though I don't plan to sell a full doll, because they're difficult to replace. I also have several Volks and Smart Doll boxes that shipped clothing, just because they're really good boxes. That's the hoarder in me talking. Those boxes are stacked in the corner of my craft room in the basement. 

As for the actual doll boxes, I do currently have some but not all of the ones where I got the doll as a fullset. A few of them belong to my early dolls, back when I kept everything. I still have those ones more for nostalgia maybe? And then I still have a few from my most recent acquisitions, mostly because I haven't bothered to deal with them yet. I'm still trying to convince my hoarder brain that I don't need them.

One thing of note is that I don't keep the fullset outfits on almost any of my dolls, so it's not like having the box would complete everything in case of resale. I generally don't bond well with my dolls unless I change them up. I think it's because if the doll is an established character, my brain tells me that they would have to wear only outfits from their series. I know that's not really the case, but the thought holds me back. So I buy the dolls for their sculpts and then do my own thing. The only exception to this is my Sailor Moon, because I did specifically buy her for her character, but sadly her box was in an accident and had to be thrown out anyway.  Once I get around to selling some of my recently acquired fullset outfits, I'll probably let those boxes go too. 

Edited Sunday at 04:16 PM by Jezrah

 

the box for my highly-modified MegaHouse AFC+ To Heart 2 Konomi Yuzuhara, is pretty Ratty (came that way from the seller)

but since she is my No.1 most precious Doll, i feel obligated to retain her original box even so;

 

Edited Sunday at 04:48 PM by Tasuke

11 hours ago, Veravey said:

Where do you keep your boxes, and how much space have they taken up so far?

I only have ten anime vinyl dolls, and four of them get to keep the original boxes (the others were all sold separately including the default outfits...since I'm only after the doll's sculpt). Since there are only four boxes, it doesn't really take too much space in my closet. For more context, I live in a house and have my own room, but our storage room is shared and I don't want to occupy most of it lol - so I just use my own closet to keep the boxes.

8 hours ago, RetroKanojo said:

I've kept a good chunk of the shipping boxes, mainly because I don't want to go out of my way to get new ones if I ever want to sell anything.

That’s fair! I keep all my Amazon etc. boxes (mind you, I flatten them) because I’m selling a bunch of stuff on eBay and MFC to decrease my collections. I’ve paid $0 in the last year on shipping supplies because of it! 

I totally agree that the TinyFox boxes are gorgeous when they don’t get smashed. I’m keeping those 110%, plus they’re a bit smaller in height at least. I love their packaging!

under bed storage is the best! All of my play-line collections and their accessories are in 3 huge plastic bins, and I constructed shelves out of foam-core board so there are 2 layers in each bin. Huuuuge space saver and I’m glad to hear someone else does it too.

And, I also have a “spotlight” spot, on or beside my desk  Someone to keep me company on WFH days, or I’ll sometimes have my newest doll there to bond. It’s nice rotating dolls here, hey?

 

8 hours ago, Xiongmao said:

My walk in wardrobe

I’m sure I’d be keeping a lot more boxes if I had a walk-in. Maybe one day. For now, I’m trying to remedy my poor linen closet. 

 

6 hours ago, Jezrah said:

I do have a lot of space in my current house, but I don't like the cluttered look so I try to minimize it as best I can.

Yes! This!! There’s something so satisfying in having everything clean and taken care of, isn’t there? And knowing where everything is when you need it. AND knowing it’s stored cleanly and in a way that it’s not getting damaged from staining, sunlight, scratching, etc. 

I agree that the SmD boxes are really good quality. I’ve actually always appreciated their packaging, it’s minimal and made from simple materials with minimal plastic. Plus bending their knees for shipping makes the box smaller which is nice. I’m torn on recycling my boxes but part of me wants to just rip the bandaid off and just commit to the uniform storage plan. 😅

And I feel your struggle with bonding over full sets and keeping everything for reselling purposes. I too change my dolls up, my TinyFox girls are the only brand I keep mostly intact. And even then I’ll change a wig or eyes or at least one thing to really bond with them.

Actually this topic is a big reason I began rethinking my storage method; if I don’t bond with full sets, but the dolls themselves, why am I letting completion impact my enjoyment of my girls? I’m stressing over closet space, tracking everything, keeping it all in good condition instead of focusing on photo shoots, dress-ups, and other ways of enjoying having them. 

But it feels so wrong recycling official packinggg~ 😩

 

Edited Sunday at 11:07 PM by Veravey
spacing

I always keep the original packaging that the doll arrives in and I usually do the same with the packaging for clothes.

It's interesting to see that there is a tendency for wanting to keep the boxes, yet, I would say, it's not even that big of a factor even when it comes to re-selling? Like, I don't think that the condition/presence of the original packaging is really affecting pricing or the willingness of people to buy stuff second hand - a least outside of MIB. For example, if I wanted an older Dollfie, MIB would be more interesting because the bodies would potentially be in better shape, but outside of that I doubt anyone would go "OH WAIT, you don't have the original packaging, anymore? Welp, sorry, no longer interested.". In fact, they might even be grateful there's no packaging because they are free of the hurdle of deciding on whether or not to keep it? 😅 

The human mind truly works in mysterious ways..

I keep my girl's original boxes and packaging because I tend to move a lot, so having boxes for each of them to be safely moved in is a huge plus. I also only have five girls at the moment, so their boxes don't take up too much space in storage. We'll see if I continue to keep the boxes as the collection grows, and they start piling up more lol.

I also keep the original packaging for any clothes I have, most just because I don't currently have a better system of storing them at the moment. Once I'm a bit more settled down, I hope to move them over to some plastic bins, but this system works well enough for me now.

I finally decided to get rid of nearly all my Azone 1/6 and 1/12 scale doll boxes but I saved the paper inserts for all of them and have them nicely stacked up in a bin, certainly takes up much less space! I saved one each of the plastic boxes since they're all the same so I could re-box one doll at a time if I really wanted to. I guess it was mostly for the sake of nostalgia! I'm still hanging onto all of my DD boxes but I've been considering downsizing those as well, it just feels like a tough bandage to rip off.

I've never personally saved any of the clothing packaging, however. I absolutely hate that cheap plastic film that Volks and other companies use so the first thing I do when I get an outfit is unwrap it and rebag it into a nicer, tough plastic zipper bag. For longer outfits that won't fit in the gallon-sized zipper bags I lay them flat in a large plastic bin.

Edited Monday at 08:09 PM by Riesz

14 hours ago, RetroKanojo said:

In fact, they might even be grateful there's no packaging because they are free of the hurdle of deciding on whether or not to keep it? 😅

You know, this is actually so true when I sit down and think about it. Free me from my sufferinggggg~

What's your experience with selling and buying second hand? Mine is only from Mandarake and a couple friends, so I've never been in a position where the packaging was part of the equation. Mandarake has the packaging, like, 95% of the time, damaged or not. So I'm curious if anyone's purchased or sold without the original packaging and if it affected the sale.

 

6 hours ago, Riesz said:

but I saved the paper inserts for all of them and have them nicely stacked up in a bin, certainly takes up much less space!

I like this! I was thinking of doing the same thing for my 1/4 Azone girls (2 Black Raven, and 1 Iris Collect.) Maybe put all of their booklets in a binder for safekeeping. But I know what you mean about feeling nostalgic about some of the boxes... That's where I'm struggling with all of mine right now but I'm also debating just ripping the band-aid off.

6 hours ago, Riesz said:

I absolutely hate that cheap plastic film that Volks and other companies use so the first thing I do when I get an outfit is unwrap it and rebag it into a nicer, tough plastic zipper bag.

I can't stress how much I agree with this; all the original plastic bags are frail, or the glue fails, and a lot of them are way too big for the item. I've just finished doing this, too! Every piece has been re-bagged and tagged and placed in the drawer I've dedicated to clothing. It's been easier accessing the items because the bags are sturdier and easier to re-use.

Hmm.. now that you all mention it, I think I might invest into some mesh zipper bags as well..I've heard others using them for storage before and thought it was a neat idea. The original plastic definitely is very flimsy and I'm always scared the glue might accidentally touch and damage the clothes when pulling them out/putting them in.

 

As for buying/selling things with/out og packaging.. I've never sold anything, but I've bought a few things second hand and most of those came in the original packaging. I think the only exception is indeed my secondhand DDB that I mentioned previously. I highly assume the body originally came from a Kirito, but he came to me in the SmD box, wrapped up in some bubble wrap, if I remember correctly. 

However, if I'm looking to buy just a body, I don't really expect any original packaging. I don't know, at least to me the presence (or lack) of original packaging has never impacted my purchasing decision.

I should just mention that I do have a walk in wardrobe but only because the builders seem to have been left with a bit of leftover space when they built my flat. It is very useful though as well as having the perfect microclimate for preserving Legos and doll stuff.

Also just one of my girls came without her original packaging... My MDD Misaki. I felt so bad she didn't have anything from her past (aside from her elf ears) so I've just ordered her a D'Coord uniform. I'm not sure if she originally was a D'Coord or a Dream Choice, but now she will have a proper backstory and won't feel like she's the odd one out.

Edited 16 hours ago by Xiongmao

I've kept all doll boxes, even though I don't intend to sell them since they've become OCs. It helps that I have just 2 dolls + 1 pureneemo, but I've got a few more for figures and nendoroids.

As for clothing, I keep the packaging for Volks clothing since it's quite nice and helps if I change my mind and decide to sell. For Azone and other brands where the packaging's generic, I keep it for a bit and then toss it.