Holiday Barbie Values

Holiday Barbie Values - One of the biggest questions I get here is,"How do I figure out what my Holiday Barbie is worth?"

Although I do have a page dedicated to each of the values of the Holiday Barbies in the collection, it still can be a bit confusing and I'm sure most of you wonder where I get the numbers from.

The answer is simple - I get these values through online research.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you are saying, "I don't have time to research all these Barbies, I just want to know what MINE is worth."  Well you're in luck!  Because the fastest form of research can be done right on one of biggest internet sites around in mere minutes - eBay!

That's right, the place you browse through the most looking for the best for your buck can be your key in determining what your Barbie is worth and I'm about to explain to you how to do it.

• Step 1:

Go to eBay's Home Page

• Step 2:

Type in the name of your Barbie (The ENTIRE name, Year and all, so if you have a '1988 Happy Holiday Barbie' you type in '1988 Happy Holiday Barbie' )

• Note - Try not to be TOO specific though - if you start entering in the hair color, or words like 'Exclusive' into the search you'll narrow your search.  Most people don't know what they have or if it's special, so they'll simply type in the year and what's written on the front of the Barbie, which is what you want to search for so you get ALL the results you can.

• Step 3: 

On the LEFT SIDE MARGIN look for a section called 'Show Only'  Under that you will find an option to select 'SOLD LISTINGS'.  Click on this and ONLY this one.

• Step 4: 

At the TOP RIGHT - JUST ABOVE THE LISTINGS look for a drop down box with 'SORT' next to it and select - "PRICE + SHIPPING: LOWEST FIRST"

• Step 5: 

Scroll until you reach the FIRST Barbie in the same condition as your own and observe the price it was SOLD for.




The end result of following these steps is you will have a list, that is dated with the days these Barbies were SOLD and what people paid to gain these Happy Holiday Barbies.

The trick of finding out what your item is worth, is to find out what people are willing to PAY.

Once one of these Barbies goes off the shelves, a number of things happen.

• First thing that happens is everyone calculates what they PAID for their Barbie, (Just so you have an idea, the average Holiday Barbie sells for between $35 to $50 at your local store).  

• The next thing people think about is how well their Barbie is kept.  Big collectors who are looking for good quality Barbies will be the ones looking for 'Mint in Box' listings, but everyone else is just looking for the Barbie in 'A' Box, they're not really thinking about if it's 'Mint' but common sense tells anyone that a Barbie 'IN' the Box is worth more than one 'OUT' of the box.

• Then they determine how OLD the Holiday Barbie is. (90% of all things grow in price as they grow in age.)

• The last thing people do (who are looking to sell) is figure out WHERE they want to sell their Holiday Barbie because if you want to sell it at your local yard sale you may gain more (but it might take more time) but if you sell it online you'll have to consider shipping costs or the cost of the website you're selling it on (such as eBay's listing fees).

This is where people come up with their prices that you see.  What they don't know is that not everyone is going to pay THEIR price and they're not always going to get back what they invested into their Barbie (which is the goal of every collector looking to sell).  The reason this is, is because of one final variable they're not thinking about - Over Production.

While there are many Barbies with a limited amount made, (such as Platinum Label Barbies with only 1,000 made or Gold Label Barbies with only 5,000 made) the Holiday Barbies are made as Supply and Demand dictate.  Meaning if Wal-Mart orders 10,000 Holiday Barbies, Matell will SEND 10,000 Holiday Barbies, and then that will be 10,000 Holiday Barbies your ONE Barbie has to compete with in price.  So you have to put yourself in the shoes of your potential Buyer - If one person is selling their Barbie at $30 with Free Shipping on eBay (meaning the person selling it is only making about $15 out of the deal) and you're selling yours at $90 with $15 Shipping attached - who do you think they are going to buy from?

Now I'm not saying this is true for every Barbie and person trying to sell, you might actually get lucky and sell yours at the $90 + $15 Shipping cost, but the odds are against you if you fight to sell your Barbie at an over-inflated price so it's better to look up what others are selling their Barbies at, and go from there.

Also, just FYI, these steps can work for ANY item you're looking to price.  So if you have a cell phone you're looking to sell, a computer, or even a DVD, just follow these steps and you'll get an idea of what you should sell yours for!


So now you know where I obtained my numbers for the Holiday Barbies Collection Value page I created for all of you to compare your Barbies to.  I did this to save you the time of looking up the information yourself as there are, as of right now, over 60 different Holiday Barbies out there, but if you want to verify the information yourself, you now have an idea on how to do it quickly and efficiently!

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below you have for me any time and as always - Have a Great Day!