Donating a collection
Does anyone have experience / advice on how / where to donate a doll collection. Mostly Effanbee, Robin Woods, Susanne Gibson & Pauline. Mostly vinyl but some porcelain. In boxes. I was hoping for a hospital or care center for families. I cannot afford to pay to ship them, so it would have to be a pick up of some kind. ( we are in South Carolina) Thanks very much for any info.
12 comments
mommaknows
·9 months ago 
@healing-hands I would highly recommend that you look into your local CASA (court appointed special advocate) office for foster children. They can surely direct you.â¤ï¸
Kindness begets Kindness.
Thank you.
nynah777
·9 months agoThat is an excellent idea! Years ago I coordinated a Women's Treatment Program and worked with the CASA volunteers in Providence. I cannot say enough positive things about their guidance and input. Thanks for the suggestion 🙂
healing-hands
OP9 months agoI am leaning towards separating the dolls into child-safe vs collector status, which will require taking each box, opening and deciding where each doll belongs. I am giddy at the idea of spending time immersed in dolls again, it's been ages. Bet I find some I am not ready to part with but I am determined to pare down the accumulation of stuff. It would be nice to use my cedar closet for clothes at some point! I am so thankful for all the direction given here and the great suggestions have given me a lot to think about. I would like to at least get the child-safe dolls donated before the holidays.
thaisanne
·9 months agoWhat about something like 'Toys For Tots" especially if they're still in boxes?
soh.maryl
·9 months agoDonations to Toys For Tots are required to be new in packaging. Have a feeling that older dolls, even if still in boxes, might not be acceptable.
Have you considered a church that has a food pantry or even one that offers free clothing, household wares etc? We have one of those locally and they accept toy donations as well.
tobaccocardyahoo
·9 months agoDonating collections has become very difficult, even worse if you are planning to take a tax deduction.
I donated a specialized collection to a college library. It took 4 months, and their acquisitions librarian and other staff wanted the collection. I had help from my daughter who speaks fluent bureaucratese and we could not make it happen faster.
They cared enough about it, that after the donation was final they wrote a guide to the collection.
10 years ago, I made a donation of an item related to their collection to a museum. It was accepted by the then director.
A few months back, I received a call from the museum telling me they no longer wanted the item, they had no room for it and wanted to return it to me.
The next morning my doorbell rang with their flunkie returning the item.
There had been two museum directors since the one who accepted the donation, and the latest decided to clean up.
healing-hands
OP9 months agoWow, that is a whole other level of rude. However, your use of the term 'bureaucratese' made my day! It really is an infuriating language unto itself. My daughter has mentioned tax credit for donations but that is not my goal. It seems an involved process and I am cranky and have little patience with numbers.
thefreightstation
·9 months agoCheck with your local social services, women's shelters or police dept. They may be worth lots of money but if you are giving them away anyway it could ju st be a sense of security for a young child going through some trauma
healing-hands
OP9 months agoThat is what I was hoping. I would love for the dolls to go somewhere they will be used and loved.
kathiec
·9 months ago@healing-hands
Several years ago I was contacted by a children's hospital where I live asking for help appraising a Barbie collection that someone had donated. It was a couple hundred dolls. I did the appraisals as a favor to the hospital, and they got a space in a local doll show and I think ended up selling them all.
That said, the problem with donating doll collections is that whomever you donate them to has to somehow convert them to cash. So it will be very helpful if you research current values for the dolls and provide those with the collection.
healing-hands
OP9 months agoI didn't realize they would be sold, I thought they would be used for the kids. I guess that it does make sense to convert them into cash that coud help with equipment and supplies. I am good with whatever they would choose to do with the dolls. Most of them have their original pricetags but I doubt they would sell for anywhere close to the old prices. My daughter, who, sadly, is not a doll connoisseur, wants me to get tax credit but to be frank I have no clue how to do that, either. Just trying to pare down decades of accumulated things that others might be able to use.
kathiec
·9 months agoSadly most places steer away from used toys for liability reasons. The Barbie collection that was donated was primarily modern collector Barbies, intended for adult collectors. There's no way they could have given them to a child to play with -- too many choking hazards and other potential dangers.