yahoo auction japan woes

I mentioned in my intro post the other day that I stumbled across yahoo auctions for the custom dollfie heads and fell in love. So I went all in planning to get two heads…

Easier said than done! Unfortunately for me, the heads I like are all the ones that end up going crazy in bid wars (I guess my tastes are not unique at all lol). My budget keeps creeping up after each auction I lose out on (or I don’t bid bc it’s out of budget only to regret it so much later).

Has anyone here had success in the auctions? Is it just a matter of having to spend crazy to get the dolls you want? 

Oof, yeah, I hear you. Yahoo!Japan is the auction site for Japanese hobbyists (and Japan in general) so a custom head by an established, talented artist is going to be seen by everyone because that's where they all look. Sometimes - rarely - a nice-looking head up for auction ends at a not-ridiculous price because the artist isn't yet well-known, but most of the time it's just going to be painful, end of story.

Second-hand custom doll heads do occasionally pop up on Mandarake for flat prices, but not too many and there's obviously not as much choice. I mean, that's how I got Nessa, but I have no idea who made her because her original signed headcap didn't come with her. (I can see the tiniest remnants of a gold paint pen signature on either side of the headcap.)

The Japanese hobbyists are accustomed to these prices, so competing with them means paying those prices too, alas. Or getting very lucky.

On top of what @Gallye wrote above, bidding within the last 5 minutes of an auction extends the auction time by another 5 minutes, so bidding typically goes haywire within the last 10 minutes. Most people will try to snipe before the 5 minute mark, and others will wage a war of attrition by repeatedly extending the auction until the other bidders give up.

YJA is not for the faint of heart, especially if you live in a time zone where you would have to stay up all night to see it through to the end.

I haven’t paid attention to custom heads on yahoo in over a year or so(used to enjoy browsing even with no intention of buying) but from what I’ve gathered, while well-made, cute heads do fetch high prices anyway, a lot of the price is also attached to the prestige behind the artist. Every now and then I see really incredibly, beautifully painted heads that go for only 20,30k yen like they didn’t get noticed because the artist was relatively new or unknown, meanwhile the heads by big names will be going for 200,300k(and sometimes much more), even though the level of detail and mod work may be about the same.

If this is still the case, my advice would be to go for heads by lesser known artists (although this can be difficult to know if you aren’t active on jp doll twitter/instagram, although paying attention to names on auctions and the final bid prices should be an indication). And honestly just to keep on trying. It might take a while, a lot of watching. But hopefully one day..?

Sites like Dollyteria also sell a lot of custom heads second hand if you search DD カスタムヘッド but the prices are kind of all over the place.

12 hours ago, Gallye said:

Oof, yeah, I hear you. Yahoo!Japan is the auction site for Japanese hobbyists (and Japan in general) so a custom head by an established, talented artist is going to be seen by everyone because that's where they all look. Sometimes - rarely - a nice-looking head up for auction ends at a not-ridiculous price because the artist isn't yet well-known, but most of the time it's just going to be painful, end of story.

Second-hand custom doll heads do occasionally pop up on Mandarake for flat prices, but not too many and there's obviously not as much choice. I mean, that's how I got Nessa, but I have no idea who made her because her original signed headcap didn't come with her. (I can see the tiniest remnants of a gold paint pen signature on either side of the headcap.)

The Japanese hobbyists are accustomed to these prices, so competing with them means paying those prices too, alas. Or getting very lucky.

Yes, I have just been following every artist I can find on twitter, and searching both there for promotions of auctions, as well as on yahoo auctions directly with the keywords. I feel like I’m probably seeing most of the listings. I don’t know yet who is popular or who isn’t, but I’m starting to get an idea after watching the listings over the past couple of weeks.

I guess I just need to be ready for the pain (will check out mandarake though!)

7 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

On top of what @Gallye wrote above, bidding within the last 5 minutes of an auction extends the auction time by another 5 minutes, so bidding typically goes haywire within the last 10 minutes. Most people will try to snipe before the 5 minute mark, and others will wage a war of attrition by repeatedly extending the auction until the other bidders give up.

YJA is not for the faint of heart, especially if you live in a time zone where you would have to stay up all night to see it through to the end.

Yes the auto-extensions are brutal and most of the auctions do end during my sleeping time so I am likely just going to try going for my max bid and hoping for the best.