Hmmm...a question I never like to ponder. It scares me.
And one I almost never list. I listed my DDs one time elsewhere in a similar type thread and someone was less than nice to me about it, so I tend to just keep my mouth shut. But collecting is about sharing. It doesn't matter if we have one special doll, an investment of many uber-exclusives or a bunch of well-loved rescues. We all share the same love of dolliehs. The more the merrier - all to share and all to enjoy.
So my (I guess I should say *our dolls, since Highlander collects too and though we have our *own* dolls, they share the same space) collection grew as follows:
I began with my childhood Barbies, most of which I still have (with the exception of those lost to a very unfortunate incident). Then I began collecting again as an adult when my mom bought me special edition Barbies like holiday and Coca-Cola. I was interested in Silkstones at that time, but went into Fashion Fevers instead for a while. I collected most of the originals and then Highlander bought me Highland Fling Silkie for our anniversary and I fell in love with the Silkstone Barbies and did not look back. Until they went way down in quality.
I moved on to R&D Angels (15 inch resin fashion dolls made by a friend of mine) and then to 16 inch Tonners and Ellowynes. I loved those for a long time until Robert Tonner went away from his roots in the company. He sold out for lesser quality and off the had less to do personally with the company so that the corporate shirts cared little for collectors and were unfair to many. The dollar was all that mattered. The final straw was lying to everyone about Deanna Denton and getting rid of the curvy body. So I stopped buying them.
Moving on to happier things...
Highlander bought me a Dollfie Dream and I got him a Gretel Obitsu 60cm for our anniversary in 2010 and our 60cm journey began. We certainly haven't looked back since.
So I only have estimates of my previous collection, much of which will be sold soon (not including my vintage and many Silkstone Barbies or our Deeannas and some Ellowynes). But a good guess would be:
75-100 Barbies 1990-1969
200 Barbies 1995-2010 - mostly collector, LE and Fashion Fever
250 or so Silkstone Barbies
(following includes Highlanders portion of our collection as well since he began collecting with a few Silkstones and a couple of OOAK Barbies that I made him)
50+ Momoko, Susie, Obitsu, Volks 1/6th - mostly Susie & Momoko
250+ Tonner and Ellowyne Wildes
50+ resin RanD Angels
25+ other 16-19 inch fashion dolls - CED, Deliah, etc.
60cm range and our current collection - never moving on again - we found our dollieh niche
took a while to figure these out
together we 59 with 3 incoming, I think. Not counting floating heads - never enough bodies.
35 Dollfie Dreams - including 4 DD head/Obitsu body hybrids and 2 DD head/Yamato body hybrids
22 Obitsus - including 2 Obitsu head/DD body hybrids, 1 Obitsu head/Yamato body hybrid and 1 Sonico head/standard Obitsu body hybrid
1 resin SQ labs SG
1 resin CH Ai Choa
Whew...
I have never sat down and thought about it, of all the collections together. I will be glad when we can whittle down the other collections a bit. I hate to have dolls stored. Our bedroom is full with all of the big girls in it.
Crowded but just the way I like it. It is wonderful to wake up to all of the lovely ladies. Hahaha.
To answer the OP's original thread title, I guess lots of folks would say too many. I tend to hold on to stuff even if I don't collect that thing anymore. I will check the sentimentality soon and part with some of my older collections that hold no special meaning. More room (and $$) for the big girls.