I’ve shared before that my youngest daughter and I enjoy collecting American Girl dolls. It’s an expensive hobby, so we started buying used dolls in anywhere from excellent to poor condition, and fixing them up. We then started selling these re-habbed dolls. Often, we’ll find an amazing deal on a doll we already have, or one we don’t really want to collect, and then we “flip” the doll for a profit. Doll prices are down right now, and the general advice for flippers is to hang onto them until the holidays, but we have way too many dolls hanging out waiting to be worked on, so I decided to tackle five of them this weekend.
We worked on Isabelle, Saige, Kanani, Caroline and Marie-Grace. Kanani still needs new legs, which I have, so I need to get those swapped out, but we’ve got all the hair and skin looking great on everyone else. They’re all in great shape and we did a photoshoot for Isabelle, Caroline and Marie-Grace, with some more pics needed tomorrow. To give an idea of how much we’ll make:
Isabelle ~ purchased for $40 ~ bought meet clothes/acessories for $30 ~ listing for $95 nude or $135 with clothing/accessories.
Marie-Grace ~ purchased for $115 with meet outfit and box, hat turned out to be fake, which will affect resale ~ listing for $95 nude or $115 with clothing/accessories (Only breaking even here…she has some damage to her hair that wasn’t disclosed, her price has dropped since purchase and there’s that hat issue. I did not buy her to flip but rather to keep, but we decided that her face creeps us out! 😉 )
Saige ~ purchased for $50 with meet dress ~ listing for $95 nude or $115 with meet dress
Caroline ~ purchased for $40 with meet dress ~ listing for $95 nude or $115 with meet dress
Kanani ~ purchased for $125 with full meet, had undisclosed damage to legs so spent $22 on legs ~ will list for $125 nude or $145 with meet dress only (already sold her other items)
$40-60 really is my “sweet” spot purchase price for dolls I know I likely will flip. Kanani and Marie-Grace were originally intended to be keepers, but as long as I can break even, or close to it, I’m ok with it. I am getting experience working on so many dolls so it’s ok with me if not all projects turn a profit. I hope to make a $50+ profit each on Caroline, Saige and Isabelle. It’s not too shabby for a couple hours’ worth of work for me, so it makes a nice side business that ties in with something I love and enjoy, and also something I do with my daughter. Will update once they are listed/sold.
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