1994 Brunette Special Edition Holiday Barbie! - New Discovery!

I was browsing around, like I normally do, and I came across this particular Barbie.
I'll admit, I was a bit suspicious, I didn't know there was a Brunette Barbie until 1997, so finding one like this, I needed to do a bit more research... especially with the price they wanted, talk about Ouch!  They wanted more then the first edition!

I've seen a lot of Barbies being put up on eBay for outrageous prices that were obviously fraudlent.  I found a woman who would De-Box her 1993's and buy out of box 1988's and stick them in them in the box and then glue a picture that she had printed out, on the back of the 1993 box to make it look like a genuine 1988 and then sell it for over $200!!  I've also seen people purchase the clothes of the 1988 Barbie and then dress them on an African American Barbie and call it 'limited' edition and try and market it for close to $300!  There was no African American Holiday Barbie until the 1990 edition, so I feel bad for people who get suckered by these frauds.

So I didn't want to just jump at this Barbie either knowing all the fraudster tricks, but to my surprise, she is genuine and EXTREMELY rare.

Apparently, during the first Matell Convention down in Florida back in 1994, they sold these Barbies there, and only there.  There were only 540 available (and all were sold) so that's all that exist in the world!  Needless to say, I've added it to my list of 'wanted' Barbies and hope to add it to my daughter's collection one day (probably not one day soon though! Maybe a few more months, or another year... it's been out since 1994 and you can still find them on eBay being sold left and right so I don't think I'm in any danger of losing out!)

Best way to weed out the fraudulent ones is that pretty little wreath right on the cover.  That means she was part of the Holiday Festival in Florida and just one of the 540 made.  I'll definitely be keeping an eye on her and looking for her out and about this year and we'll see what happens.  One day we'll have her though and she'll sit side by side the rest of the collection.  It'll be the next Gem in the collection.