Who knew that almost 50 years onwards that people will still look for collectible Barbie dolls? Chances are nobody but as history has shown, there are people who are willing to pay thousands of dollars just to have this in their collection.
In the Beginning, Barbie was just a fashion model. She had her own life and a body that many said is unrealistic to achieve which is in fact, true.
She worked a variety of jobs that people could relate and a few examples are a teacher, an artist, a nurse, a medic and a cheerleader. Accessories such as cars, houses and clothes were made and she was soon paired with her boyfriend then husband namely Ken with 6 kids. The Barbie series was such a big hit that no other toy ever came to close to it.
But in the 1970’s, Mattel changed its approach. If you were to compare the Barbie dolls made until the year 1967, you will notice a big difference and that dolls were not made of anymore of high quality.
Why? For the simple reason that they were made of plastic and the clothes she had were not that different anymore. Some say that Mattel focused more on making a profit instead of continuing what they started.
It wasn’t until the mid 80’s that they began to refocus and designed a new Barbie doll called Porcelain Rhapsody in Blue Barbie. This was soon followed afterwards with Happy Holiday Barbie two years later. To mark Mattel’s 35th year anniversary, they reproduced again the original Barbie doll that came out in 1959. Given that were only a handful made, it was very difficult to find one and its market value today is a little over $600.
Given that Barbie could fetch for hundreds of dollars, a lot of consumers bought off the shelves everything they could find and people were making a lot of money. In order to calm things down, the company increased the production and things began to normalize.
As a result, only a handful of Barbie collectible dolls and accessories are worth a lot of money. What was worth $10,000 like the 1959 Barbie doll isn’t worth that much but people are still willing to spend money in order to add this to their collection.
Now that you have your Barbie collectible doll, how do you take care of it? Collector’s are advised to leave it inside the original packaging and placed face down if this will not be displayed. If this is going to be place on a shelf, this should be dusted regularly.
If you are able to dust regularly, you can put your Barbie collectible doll in a plastic container. Just put some holes so moisture will not accumulate and instead evaporate. Also, do not expose this to direct sunlight as may affect the color of her clothing and skin.
For those hoping to find Barbie collectible dolls, the best place to find them is in a convention, specialty store, garage sales, pawnshops and online. You just have to search high and low but most importantly exercise patience because good things come to those who wait.
Barbie’s 50th birthday is coming next year. What does the company plan for her? We will just have to see. Who knows, this could be another Barbie collectible doll worth selling to the highest bidder 20 or 30 years from now.
