Doll Magazines in 2024
Magazines are a dying industry. What does the doll magazine landscape look like now? Let's take a peek.
Many years ago on the original home of Confessions of a Doll Collectors Daughter, I wrote the article, The Demise of Doll Magazines. In that article, I touched on a few magazines that were still around and how they needed to change in order to survive the ever changing magazine landscape. In this post, I am going to revisit that article and bring it up to date with 2024.
By far, the best doll magazine around is DOLL NEWS. DOLL NEWS is published quarterly for members of the United Federation of Doll Clubs; UFDC for short. Because you pay dues to be a member of the club, DOLL NEWS is basically ad-free. Its glossy pages are full color and the articles are usually interesting and cover a variety of doll brands, makers and history written by members of the federation on antique and modern dolls. I, myself, have had the privilege of getting a few articles published. DOLL NEWS is designed to be kept and stored away for reference and is a wonderful perk of being part of the UFDC. (I’ll talk about them in another post, so stay tuned!) The yearly dues for the UFDC are worth it to get your subscription to this well designed and informative magazine. Find my articles in these issues: Winter 2022; Summer 2022.
DOLLS is another magazine that is still being published. This honestly shocks me a bit, as its pages are mostly filled with ads and press releases disguised as articles. And unlike DOLL NEWS, DOLLS takes less than thirty minutes to peruse. DOLLS totes itself as the industry’s number one resource, but I would argue that it’s easy to say that when you’re competing with few or no other magazines. While I don’t love bashing on one of the few magazines around, I just really can’t think of any positives or reasons to subscribe.
Antique DOLL Collector is still alive and kicking, having begun publication in 1997. Unlike the other two magazines mentioned, I have very little experience reading this magazine. I prefer my doll magazines to cover more than just antique dolls. From what I have seen through free digital issues, the content looks to be informative. I’ll link to a few free digital issues here: April 2023; Nov/Dec 2021; June 2021. You can find more free issues if you look for covers that don’t have the $10.00 graphic.
In a fun twist of fate, it just so happened that one of their free issues saved me lots of time ID’ing my composition Cameo Myrtle doll. I had no idea who she was when I bought her and she just so happened to be featured in an article on unmarked dolls in their October 2009 issue. So, for that, I’ll be forever grateful to Antique DOLL Collector.
To round off the doll magazines found in print, we have Doll Castle News. Doll Castle News has charm to it because of its unique backstory. This independently published doll journal was started by doll doctor Edwina Mueller in 1961. When she passed, her sons and daughters took over publishing and have kept it in the family to this day. Doll Castle News is published six times a year. I can’t speak on what this magazine looks like or what it covers, as I’ve never seen it, but I think it says a lot that they’ve been self publishing this since 1961 and are still going strong. They’re website definitely needs a refresh, but they seem to be passionate about putting out a quality product.
And that’s it! As far as I know, the four magazines listed below are the only doll magazines published in English in the United States. It’s sad that we have lost so many good, valuable resources, like Barbie Bazaar, Fashion Doll Quarterly, Doll Reader and others. YouTube and blogs are a great way to catalog a collection and share doll histories, yes, but what happens when the internet goes out? What happens when your favorite site stops buying their domain space? All that useful information is gone.
Informative print material, like reference guides or useful articles on a doll lines history, is one of the most useful things you can have in your collection, in my opinion, and doll magazines were such an easy, digestible way to learn about dolls of all sorts.
What is your favorite doll magazine? Do you miss their availability on news racks? Let us know in the comments!
I just read your old article about doll magazines from the old Wordpress site, highlighted above. Really interesting and informative . Someone in the comments there mentioned the Miller’s Fashion doll magazine line. I really have enjoyed those, having just discovered them last spring *accidentally* at a local, family owned used bookstore, which also carries records, dvds, cds, magazines, greeting cards, paper dolls, everything! The one that really caught my eye is the January 2000 edition with the 3 leading ladies of the late 1960s era : the Mods, with the tnt and rooted eyelashes. In-depth coverage of the hair colors with all the names, ie light blonde, ash blonde, and corresponding box marked named ie “ sun kissed,”” summer sand. “
Also loads of high quality color pictures, including a Barbie pullout insert of Pumps and purses, Barbie Doll Accessories from 1959- 1972. Just fun to use as a reference for the tiny minutiae which you may come across accidentally at thrift stores, back then, lol or the like.
There is also a profile on the Wonderful World of Dawn dolls, Part 1 lots of text and pictures, including the majorette line. Gene dolls and Gene clubs. Barbie’s talking friends, including Stacey, Christie , PJ and all their iterations with text. Oh! And get this! 4 diagrams of the Speaker hole patterns with the various shapes and sizes of the holes between male and female talkers. Japanese Barbie exclusive is featured as well. A Spanish style costume which has or had not been mentioned in a Japanese Barbie booklet. Text and photos by Shinichi Yanagimoto.
My Pet Peeve about online material is that I find it hard to read, especially at night. I have glasses which are made to cut the blue light effect, but no doubt about it- electronic media interferes with sleep and sleep patterns so we are advised to shut off all devices before bedtime. Online for me is just not relaxing and keeps me up. I also love the paper pages, and I am able to adjust my posture better with actual print media.
I bought the four magazines
and found them to be an enchanting world into what life for collectors was like before widespread internet usage. Doll want ads, dolls for sale, pen pals, the like.
Very interesting! I live in Spain, where we have very few doll magazines. Actually, I can only think of one right know and I'm pretty sure it has been discontinued. The magazine was called MuñeCas and it covered antique dolls, miniatures, doll houses... I love physical media, so it's very sad to see magazines disappear, but I still buy doll books. I find them very informative and they always help me to catalog my collection. Do you have doll books? It would be great to see them here or on YouTube! Thanks again for the post! :)