Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Best of 2019 - #6

I was feeling badly about the fact that my Best of 2019 countdown list was filled with either dolls advertised in 2018 but not released until 2019 or W Club and Convention dolls.  I was feeling badly until I checked the statistics for doll releases in 2019.

If you were a collector of Integrity Toys dolls but weren't a member of the W Club and did not attend the 2019 "Fashion Week" convention, you had an extremely lean collecting year.  A few of the 2018 dolls weren't released until 2019 (FR2: Divinely Luminous Elyse, Resurgence Natalia, Devotion Agnes, and Secret Garden Eugenia; NuFace2: Beyond This Planet Violaine, The Awakening Annik, Nirvana Dominique, Reliable Source Eden, and Unknown Source Lilith; Split Decision Poppy Parker; et al).

From the two mainlines, there was only one FR2 female doll available for purchase to the general public, Female Icon Dasha, and the FR2 Retrofuture and NuFace Off Duty collections weren't even advertised until "Dolly Days" earlier this month.   Collectors are still waiting on three NuFace and four FR2 dolls that were advertised earlier this year.

There were fewer NuFace characters at Fashion Week since they came out of hiatus in 2014 (2014: 5, 2015: 9, 2016: 4, 2017: 6, 2018: 4, 2019: 3).   If you only consider female characters, there were fewer FR dolls at Fashion Week than any convention in over ten years (only seven this year).

For the sake of collectors, I sincerely hope IT can correct the production problems they are facing in China and can move forward.   I think collectors are beginning to feel the stress and frustration but are unable to figure out exactly where it is coming from.

This brings me to my Best of 2019 #6 doll - she represented purchase #34.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I registered at the W Club Convention and was handed a bag with this doll inside!  I don't believe Agnes Von Weiss has ever been a Welcome Gift before.  Attendees felt very special indeed!

Best of 2019 #6 is Fresh Perspective Agnes Von Weiss.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I´m very happy someone is finally addressing this issue; this year we have the main lines only days before the year ends, almost in january, a year later they used to released those; we are getting less and less dolls from every line on convention and the regular ones, but i can not understand why, if they have problems producing dolls, they keep on releasing East 59, as they always are shelfwarmers and get on sale on every single dealer... Sorry, not a fan of the line, i don´t want to offend anyone but i´m speaking objectively (you can see it yourself on the dealer´s webs).
Also, bargaininig just released dolls like Sergio and other male dolls must be really painful for the people who only months ago paid fully for them. What image are Integrity giving to their customers? I´m chicovintage on the forum , by the way.